| Two Different Hunting-gathering Societies. Essay, Research Paper
The division of labour in these hunter-gatherer societies is
well balanced, and is organised to suit the needs of all of the
members of the society. Every member of these societies plays a
contributes in some way to the community throughout their
life. The !Kung San Bushmen, Kalahari Desert, South Africa- Although
a large group, it is divided into small bands, with each band
being made up of between twenty and sixty people and having its
own territory, within which the members of that band have rights
to gather wild vegetable foods. However, hunters of larger
animals may step into the territories of other bands quite freely
if they are in the pursuit of game. The !Kung are almost entirely
dependant upon hunting and gathering for their food supply. These
people hunt and gather daily, and return in the evening to
distribute all the food that has been collected equally among
every single member of the band. The labour division of the !Kung San is by gender and age. The
people in the 20-60 age group provide the food, while the younger
children and adolescents are not expected to provide regular food
until they are married (most commonly between the ages of fifteen
and twenty for the females, and about five years later for the
males years later), and instead have their older relatives
provide food for them. The older members of the band are well
respected and have a high position in this society, and their
role is to be the leaders of the camps, and to carry out
activities such as ritual curing and making decisions. For many
years after they stop hunting and gathering, the aged are fed and
cared for by their children and grandchildren. The women between the ages of 20-60 are responsible for the
gathering, and work for two to three days a week each, whereas
the men devote about twelve to nineteen hours a week to getting
food. The food gathered by these women provides the bulk of the
total !Kung San diet by weight. A woman gathers on one day enough
food to feed her family, i.e. her elderly and younger relatives
for three days, and spends the rest of her time resting in camp,
doing embroidery, visiting other camps, or entertaining visitors
from other camps. The men of these bands also collect plants and smaller
animals, but their main contribution is the hunting of wild
animals. The hunters work is not regular; men can often hunt
regularly for a week and then do nothing at all for even longer
than a month if times are bad. During these periods, visiting,
entertaining and especially dancing are the primary activities of
men. The Aborigines, Australia- were divided into two main groups.
Ninety per cent of these people lived on the coast, the northern
tropical forests, and the southern and eastern woodlands, while
the remaining ten per cent lived in the interior desert. Also
egalitarian, they shared equally the tasks of daily living,
especially the collecting of food. In this society, labour was
divided by gender; all men were hunters, on land or sea, and the
women"s role was to collect plant foods, shellfish, small
animals and insects. Although meat was an important part of their diet, the foods
gathered by the women provided the majority of their food supply.
These women were very well educated about the local area, and
knew how to find and use an enormous number of different plants,
both for food and for other things such as medicine or making
bags. They also had other skills; such as in the desert, they
would collect the seeds of grasses and ground them into the floor
to made a kind of bread. Their skills even extended to the making
of tools for particular purposes, such as bark dishes for
everything from seeds to babies, and grinding stones for grass
seeds The men"s role was to hunt game. They too made their
own tools and weapons; the spear was the weapon most frequently
used, but axes, clubs and various kinds of throwing sticks were
also implemented. Their methods of hunting were few but often
worked well. One was for the men to surround the animals
together, or to scare them toward other hunters who lay in
hiding. The most common way, however, was for one or two men to
stalk an animal. The Aborigine men also had good tracking skills.
Hunters used disguises to get close to their prey; for instance,
some men disguised themselves as trees by holding up branches,
and some smeared themselves with earth to stop the animal from
being able to catch his scent. The hunters were also very patient, as they often had to sit
and wait motionlessly in intense heat in order to capture their
prey. They also were familiar with the behaviour and "the
ways" of their prey. An example of this was in the way
they used to trap emus. Hunters would lie on their backs and wave
their legs in the air to catch an inquisitive emu"s
attention and lure it towards them. They also used dogs to hunt
animals such as the wallaby, or other methods, such as smoking
out wombats from their holes in the ground.
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