Members of these bands usually co-operate in production, and often share the rights to forage and gather in a certain region. The !Kung of southern Africa illustrate these points about band organisation. The bushman economy lacks trading posts, trade in foodstuffs, wage labour, cash, conversions and markets – the features which are commonly taken to indicate economic interdependence. Because the !Kung are hunters and gatherers, without agriculture and domestic animals, and because they don’t amass a surplus of foodstuffs, the relation between local food production and consumption is an immediate one. A diagnostic feature of their subsistence economy is: food is almost always consumed within the boundaries of the local group and within 48 hours of its collection.
Because their habitat is so dry, the availability of water greatly influenced the routine of !Kung life. In the wet season, November to March, temporary water holes formed, and the band split to exploit this. However, the rain is so inconsistent that anything between six and forty inches of rain can fall in as little as a month to 5 months. These characteristics of their physical environment influenced the organisation of the !Kung, and the way they organise themselves to have the right number of people to forage efficiently.
Most foragers are seasonally mobile, and must be to survive in the hostile environment. None of the earth’s environments offer the same kinds and quantities of resources all year round. There may be seasonal differences in rainfall, and, outside the tropics, there are often marked differences in temperature. Ordinarily, game animals are available in some places and not in others, at different times of year, as are fruits and nuts. Therefore, in order to survive efficiently, both hunters and gatherers must be in the right place at the right time.
The foragers must migrate to where sustenance is both easy to obtain and in abundant supply during a certain time period or season. A good example of this is with the Hadza people of Tanzania, who survived in an arid and dry region, with marked distinctions between the wet and dry seasonal periods. In rainy months the Hadza moved to the temporary waterholes that opened up, much like the !Kung, living on the animals and plants in the area. At another time of year, when seasonal variations render these waterholes dry, the Hadza moved into much larger camps around the much larger and permanent water sources. Therefore, the hunter-gatherers must be in the right place at the right time for efficient foraging.
Also, to exploit plants and animals effectively and efficiently, most foragers vary the sizes of their living groups, according to the availability of food sources for the tribes according to the variations in seasonal climatic conditions. Thus it is most efficient for small groups to co-operate in the search for food and water. Whereas, during other seasons, these groups come together in much larger congregations. Therefore, the correct numbers of hunter-gatherers in the right place at the right time is very important for efficient foraging.
The Western Shoshone illustrate one culture in which the change in numbers of seasonal congregation is beneficial, living, before driven out by the white settlers, in the American Great Basin. Much of the food of the Shoshone came from seasonal berries, nuts and seeds, as well as meat from antelope and deer which were migrating across the valleys of the Basin to various seasonal pasture land. The Shoshone, therefore, roamed the hills and slopes of the American Great Basin in tiny bands of only a couple of families, or even just one family. This was because the local area did not have such an abundance of resources so as to support large numbers of people for long periods of time. However, one important plant food became available in the autumnal months for the Shoshone: pine nuts. As the Shoshone benefited greatly from such seasonal resource, they arranged their movements so as to arrive in the regions with the largest pine nuts crop every autumn, usually in October, leading to between ten and twenty families settling in the same region. During the rainy years, this crop would support very large camps throughout almost the entire winter. Spring, however, would see the large camp dispersing and starting the process of nomadic roaming again, until they returned to the region the next October.
The Shoshone are similar to the !Kung in their nomadic existence and that no particular tribe or family has any form of property rights to any region. Wherever you went you were expected to make the most of the resources available to you. If one family or tribe had been to an area before you and exhausted all the available resources, then you needed to move on to somewhere where plants and animals were available.
The small group sizing is an adaptation to the organisation of efficient foraging and gathering. Over a period of time, a group will exhaust the natural resources of an area and must move into a new, fresh environment. However, this is not a new environment, but a “recovered” environment, so called as the plants have re-grown since the previous tribe or family had moved on. Ceteris Paribus, the larger the group, the larger the group, the faster it uses up the wild plants and animals available to them in a certain area, and this the more frequently they must relocate. Smaller groups, therefore, mean that tribe and families needn’t relocate so often. Therefore, in order for hunters and gatherers and foragers to survive and forage effectively and efficiently, they must be in the right place at the right time, as is evident from the Shoshone.
In conclusion, therefore, I have shown that the statement is true. “To acquire resources efficiently, foragers must organise themselves to be in the right place at the right time, with the right numbers of people”, is indeed correct, as is shown in the examples of the Hadza, the !Kung and the Shoshone, in their nomadic lifestyles, moving to where the resources are abundant, thus they must be in the right place, their migration to certain areas at certain times, particularly with the Shoshone, thus they must be there at the right time, and their division into bands and the different activities assigned to the different genders, thus they must be in the right place at the right time with not only the right number of people, but the right type of people in gender and age.
To sum up, most hunter-gatherers develop certain ways of organising their activities that help their adaptation. Firstly, there is a high division of labour based on gender and age. Secondly, there is a large degree of mobility in the existence of the tribes, especially between seasons. Thirdly, there is a congregation and dispersal of groups, again on a seasonal basis. Fourthly, there are living groups of small bands with varying size and flexible composition. Fifthly, there are strong values of reciprocal sharing and of equality of personal possessions and social status. Finally, there is a loose attachment of people to territory and flexible rights to resources. Although these statements describe most gathering communities, I believe that the statement is not universal. I believe that “foragers” is a very diverse term, and different cultures exhibit the features to varying degrees. To prove this, a study of the Native Americans on the northwest coast of North America, who have abundant food resources – especially fish – is useful as evidence. Because of the abundance of food and the ability of the natives to smoke and preserve food for a number of months, there was no need for seasonal mobility, nor the need to live in small groups. Therefore, although the statement is applicable for a number of hunter-gatherer groups, particular groups were more definitely associated with particular locations than were people such as the Shoshone or !Kung, and thus, the statement is not completely comprehensive.
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