Claims about the Origin of 'Inequality' in Clan, Ritual, Prestige
Flannery & Marcus on the Extended Family variable
Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus wrote:
[Why] was it not until 15,000 years ago that we finally see overwhelming evidence for a “modern” mind? There is no widely accepted answer to this question, but a few suggestions have been offered. One popular view holds that growing population density was the reason. Proponents of this view argue that the ability to generate art, music, and symbolic behavior was probably there throughout the Ice Age but remained latent as long as people were expanding into unoccupied wilderness. Once the world had become more extensively occupied by groups of hunters and gatherers, or so the argument goes, there would have been increasing pressure to use symbolism in the creation of ethnic identities and cultural boundaries. After all, one of the activities that regulate interaction among neighboring ethnic groups is ritual, and ritual often involves art, music, and dance.
We concede that population growth took place throughout the Ice Age. We suspect, however, that there was another process taking place, one that explains why the archaeological evidence for symbolic behavior appears discontinuous—strong in some localities and weak in others. It has to do with an important difference between two types of hunting-gathering groups, recently emphasized by anthropologist Raymond Kelly. The difference hinges on whether a group of foragers has, or does not have, permanent social groups larger than the extended family …
The Aborigines of Australia had many levels of units beyond the family. Foragers with lineages, subclans, and clans often do have higher population densities than clanless foragers and have moved beyond the informal ways in which extended families can be organized. Essentially they created large groups of people who claimed to be related, whether this was true or not. …
.. The division of a society into such units can take many forms. Sometimes each unit reckons descent through one gender only, either the father’s line or the mother’s. Early anthropologists, needing a term for such multigenerational units, borrowed the word “clan” from the ancient Scottish Highlanders. In other cases, one social unit may reckon descent from a real or mythical ancestor, without weighing one gender more heavily than the other. Both clans and ancestor-based descent groups can be made up of smaller units called lineages …
… [S]ociety might have been modified to create clans. In the case of descent through the male line, for example, the original founding families were most likely headed by the sons and sons’ sons of a set of brothers. In effect, clansmen built upon the bonds that already existed between brothers in clanless societies. Expanding an earlier social premise, that “brothers should hunt together and cooperate with one another”, they established that any brother in an antecedent generation would be considered equivalent to any other, serving as an enduring link between living men and the lineage’s alleged founder(s). Each clan, in turn, was made up of related lineages or subclans.
Why would the creation of multigenerational lineages and clans during the late Ice Age have escalated the use of art, music, dance, and bodily ornamentation? The answer is, although one is born into a family, one must be initiated into a clan. That initiation requires rituals during which clan secrets are revealed to initiates, and they undergo an ordeal of some kind. To be sure, even clanless societies have rituals, but societies with clans have multiple levels of ritual, requiring even more elaborate symbolism, art, music, dance, and the exchange of gifts.
Still other rituals are used to establish each clan’s unique identity and to define its relationship with other clans in the same society. Ideas about incest are often extended to the clan level; in such cases, members must marry outside their own clan. When such marriages take place, both the couple and their respective clans often exchange gifts, and the groom may even have to pay a “bride-price”. All these rituals provide contexts in which music, dance, art, the exchange of valuables, and the decoration of human bodies are carried out on a scale beyond that of clanless societies.
We suggest, therefore, that even without the pressures of growing Ice Age populations, the creation of larger social units would have escalated symbolic behavior—in effect, launching the humanities. This scenario could explain why the archaeological evidence for symbolic behavior appears at different moments in different regions. Simply put, not all Ice Age societies made the transition to units larger than the extended family …
… Societies with clans enjoy advantages over those without them. They have created large groups of people, claimed as relatives, on whom they can rely for defense from enemies, for amassing the foodstuffs and valuables needed for major rituals, or to assemble the resources needed to pay off a bride’s kinsmen.
The advantages of clan-based society may even tell us something about the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Neanderthals displayed low population densities and show no archaeological evidence for social units larger than the extended family. In face-to-face competition for territory, they probably stood little chance against archaic modern humans organized into clans. We find this likely because by the twentieth century, most hunting-gathering societies without clans had been relegated to the world’s most inhospitable environments. They were pushed there by groups with more complex social organization …
[the point]
… Before we begin congratulating our Ice Age ancestors for creating clans, however, bear in mind the fact that they had taken a step with unintended consequences. Clans have an “us versus them” mentality that changes the logic of human society. Societies with clans are much more likely to engage in group violence than clanless societies. This fact has implications for the origins of war. Societies with clans also tend to have greater levels of social inequality. Later in this book we will meet societies in which clans are ranked in descending order of prestige and compete vigorously with each other. The germ of such inequality may have been present already in the late Ice Age.
What form of human society, because of its highly egalitarian nature, best serves as a starting point for the study of inequality? In that case, many anthropologists would answer, “those hunting-and-gathering societies that possess no groupings larger than the extended family” …
… The Netsilik did not have clans or, for that matter, any social grouping larger than the extended family. Clearly, however, they felt the need for a widespread network of allies on whom they could rely to share resources when they were scarce. They created such a network using only their language and the magical power of the name, choosing respected acquaintances to be their sons’ “hindquarters,” “kidneys,” and so forth. And once that network was operating, they allowed parts of it to become hereditary. Twelve meat-sharing partners is admittedly a small group compared to a clan. But when we consider how many partnerships there were, and the likelihood that a set of brothers might belong to several, we can picture a mutual aid network covering thousands of square miles …
… In the 1950s the !Kung had no groups larger than the extended family, although there are hints that they had once inherited membership in a larger unit called a !ku-si. We do not know exactly what a !ku-si was, but it might have been a lineage or clan…
… A good-size !Kung camp consisted of four or five extended families, linked to each other in the eldest generation by sibling relationships or marriage ties. The head of the camp was usually a senior man, referred to as kxau. The kxau was not considered the owner but, rather, the custodian of a 100–250 square-mile territory called a n!ore. His job was to make sure that only the people of his group were using the plant foods of the n!ore, although hungry neighbors could petition to share it. Often camps or water holes were named for the kxau. These headmen had no coercive authority and accepted no privileges for fear of arousing jealousy …
… !Kung social logic included a premise that we encounter over and over in this book: “We were here first”. The people who had lived at a certain water hole longer than anyone enjoyed the privilege of deciding who else could live there. Within each n!ore, the !Kung pursued the following schedule. Women collected plants, an activity with a low risk of failure, and shared the harvest only with their immediate family. Men hunted big game, an activity with a high risk of failure, and hen they killed a prized animal, they were expected to share the meat with everyone in the camp.
… [We] see one of the most basic premises of egalitarian society: If one wants to be well thought of, he will be generous. If he strays from this ideal, he will be reminded of it with humor. If he persists in not sharing, he will be actively disliked …
… The !Kung therefore show us one of the adaptive contradictions of clanless foraging society, expressed in these three points:
1. Having no unit larger than an extended family allowed for great flexibility. As resources waxed and waned, camps could move and families could aggregate or disperse within their own n!ore as needed.
2. On the other hand, there were times when survival depended on being able to leave one’s n!ore and seek the hospitality of unrelated neighbors. Under these conditions, having no kin group larger than the extended family put one at a disadvantage.
3. The !Kung dealt with this contradiction by creating two extensive networks of honorary kinsmen: hxaro partners and !gu!na namesakes. For the !Kung, both networks were egalitarian. Later in this book, we will see agricultural societies turn both gifts and magic names into sources of inequality.
… Precisely because human marriage is an economic partnership, it showed great flexibility from the beginning. No traditional forager would accept the argument that marriage must be restricted to one man/one woman in order to “preserve the family”. Traditional Eskimos, for example, knew that a family could be one man/one woman, or one man/two women, or one woman/two men, or even two men/two women. Far from threatening the institution of the family, this flexibility strengthened it by allowing it to adjust to any economic situation …
… An important change in social logic, however, took place with the formation of clans: a kind of “us versus them” worldview seems to have been created. If someone from Clan A murdered someone from Clan B, it was considered a crime against the victim’s entire clan. This required a group response. As the result of a principle Raymond Kelly calls “social substitutability,” Clan B could avenge its member’s death by killing anyone from Clan A, even women or children who were innocent of the original murder. Sometimes, in fact, merely doing something that Clan B interpreted as an insult—trespassing on their territory, for example—could get members of Clan A killed. How far back can “social substitutability” be detected in the archaeological record? The answer is as far back as the late Ice Age, a time when other evidence for clans or ancestor-based descent groups was accumulating …
… Every Australian forager belonged to a clan. Many groups had a pair of still-larger social units, each composed of multiple clans. These paired units, called moieties (after the French word for “one half”), provided a kind of “loyal opposition” for each other in social and ceremonial situations. Society was thus built of nested units—families within clans, clans within moieties, each unit requiring its own rituals …
… By itself, the formation of clans and moieties did not dramatically increase inequality. To be sure, the men in Aborigine clans did not believe in gender equity, insisting that women could never become as ritually pure as initiated men; yet to obtain eligible brides, men were prepared to make generous gifts to a girl’s family. It is also true that some headmen inherited their position, but it carried limited authority and served mainly to preserve the clan’s ritual secrets. Young Aborigines deferred to their elders but fully expected to become elders themselves one day. Perhaps most importantly, there is no evidence that any clan outranked another.
Among the Murngin of northern Arnhem Land, however, one can see the germ of an institution with the potential to create significant differences in prestige. This was an intertribal trading system called mari-kutatra, used to obtain much of the paraphernalia used in ritual. Among the items circulating were wooden spears, parrot feathers, beeswax, resin, red ocher, and beads. The farther away a man’s trade goods came from, the more highly prized they were and the greater his renown as an entrepreneur. At the time of W. Lloyd Warner’s study, the mari-kutatra had yet to turn anyone into a prestigious “Big Man” like those we will meet [later] … It would have taken only a few changes in logic, however, to nudge the system in that direction …
… [The] Hadza had an egalitarian, consensus-based society in which leadership was noncoercive, really amounting to no more than the advice of a few respected senior men. The composition of larger Hadza camps, however, provides us with a possible scenario for the origins of lineages and clans.
… Each hunting-and-gathering society discussed so far had its own distinctive character. All, however, featured a set of common principles, a few of which we list here.
1. Generosity is admirable; selfishness is reprehensible.
2. The social relationship created by a gift is more valuable than the gift itself.
3. All gifts should be reciprocated; however, a reasonable delay before reciprocating is acceptable.
4. Names are magic and should not be casually assigned.
5. Since all humans are reincarnated, ancestors’ names should be treated with particular respect.
6. Homicide is unacceptable. A killer’s relatives should either execute him or pay reparations to the victim’s family.
7. Do not commit incest; get your spouse from outside your immediate kin.
8. In return for a bride, the groom should provide her family with services or gifts.
9. Marriage is a flexible economic partnership; it allows for multiple spouses and variations.
In addition to these principles, which imply no inequality among members of society, we also encountered some premises that allowed for a degree of inequality. They were as follows:
10. Men have the capacity to be more virtuous or ritually pure than women.
11. Youths should defer to seniors.
12. Late arrivals should defer to those who were here first.
In those societies that featured lineages, clans, or ancestor-based descent groups, the following new premises appeared:
13. When lineages grow and divide, the junior lineage should defer to the senior lineage, since the latter was here first.
14. You are born into your family, but you must be initiated into your clan.
15. The bad news is that initiation will be an ordeal. The good news is that you will learn ritual secrets, become more fully a member of your ethnic group, and perhaps gain virtue.
16. Any offense against a member of your lineage or clan, such as murder or serious insult, is an offense against that entire social unit. It requires a group response against some member (or members) of the offending group.
17. Any armed conflict should be followed by rituals of peacemaking.
Many of the aforementioned principles are considered “cultural universals”, shared by virtually all societies. It should come as no surprise that another widespread social attitude is ethnocentricity. Each society believes that its behavior is appropriate, while its neighbors do things improperly. Foragers, however, tend to be philosophical about these differences. Convinced that each human group has a different origin and different ancestors, foragers adjust to their neighbors rather than try to change them. Ethnocentricity thus need not lead to intolerance, although in larger-scale societies it sometimes does …
… [We] can see that many principles of Nootka inequality could have been created out of the preexisting principles of egalitarian foraging society. All that would have been required were appropriate changes in social logic. Many egalitarian foraging societies reckoned descent through both father and mother; so did the historic Nootka. Some individuals in egalitarian foraging societies chose to become spiritual healers or shamans; there were similar individuals in Nootka society. These behaviors, in other words, provided continuity between the historic Nootka and their egalitarian ancestors …
… [A]mong egalitarian foragers, the right to use a resource territory or water hole was usually conceded to the local group that had been using it the longest. “We were here first” seems to have been a first principle. Expanding on this principle, a chiefly Nootka family used prior occupancy to establish its right to a specific inlet and was considered to “own” the associated plank houses, riverine fishing spots, and ocean waters offshore. Chiefs also laid claim to considerable intellectual property, called tupa’ti, which included rituals, dances, songs, personal names, and carvings on house posts or totem poles. A chiefly family’s rights and privileges were said to have been acquired by its remote ancestors during the course of a supernatural experience.
Let us now consider how such inequality might have been created. We have seen that generosity and reciprocity were important to egalitarian foragers. Such people expected that all gifts would eventually be reciprocated. They fed visitors who were in need but expected that one day their generosity would be returned. They might loan one of their relatives part of his bride payment but expected that loan to be repaid one day. With the passage of time, chronic failure to reciprocate was met first with grumbling and later with anger. Unpaid debts could lead to raiding and confiscation …
… To be sure, ancestors were important even to egalitarian foragers. At some point, however, the Nootka had revised their creation myth to include the acquisition of titles and privileges by chiefly ancestors. This revision created the need to meet or exceed their ancestors’ displays of wealth …
… Even among egalitarian foragers, names were considered magic. Among the Nootka, certain names and titles became the prerogative of chiefly families. The chief inherited the right to assign these names and titles to others; to display the images of certain supernatural beings; to own certain crests that were analogous to those of medieval heraldry; to erect freestanding figures and totem poles; and to adorn his house with carved beams and paintings. The chief patronized the craftsmen who created these works of art for him, providing a route to prominence for skilled people from families of lesser rank.
The Source:
Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus, The Creation of Inequality : How our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire, Harvard University Press 2012 [chapters 1-5]
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.