Chiefdoms and Ranked Societies

Common Features

How Social Class Begins

Band and Tribal Societies: No significant social classes emerge

This was true for at least 100,000 years

Chiefdoms or states did not start until 10,000 years ago. Why not?

One possible answer: Reverse dominance hierarchy

By Way of Introduction: Case Study

“Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” by Richard Lee

Lee conducted an ethnographic study of the Dobe !Kung during year

He gave the band a fattened ox to thank them

Reaction: Dobe ridiculed this gift

Lesson: the !Kung typically ridicule all unusually valuable game

Why This Bizarre Behavior?

Tomazo’s answer: “Arrogance.”“When a young man kills much meat,he thinks himself as a chief or big manand the rest of us as his servants.We cannot accept this. Someday his pride will make him kill somebody.So we always speak of his meat as worthless.That way, we cool his heart and make him gentle.”

Lessons from This Tale

Even bandsmen know about inequality

They fear domination by one man

Unusual gifts always involve some ulterior motive

So they denigrate this gifts

The reaction conforms to a model of reverse dominance hierarchy

Reverse Dominance Hierarchy: A Definition

Primary Source: Boehm’s Hierarchy in the Forest

Definition: a collective reaction to

anyone’s attempt to dominate his fellowsSummary: “All men seek to rulebut if they cannot rulethey seek to be equal.” —Harold Schneider, Economic Anthropologist

Reverse Dominant Hierarchy: Band/Tribal Egalitarianism

Most Models: Effortless Egalitarianism

Reverse Dominance: You Have to Work at It

“Upstart” Individuals Try to Dominate the Band/Tribe

Coalitions Suppress Every Such Attempt

Ridicule (!Kung “Insulting the Meat”)

Song Duels (Inuit/Eskimo—left photo)

Extreme Case: Homicide by Group-Selected Executioner

Ending Reverse Dominance Hierarchy: Food Surplus

Bases of Food SurplusComplex Foraging: Northwest Coast IndiansAdvanced Pastoralists: Mongol NomadsNeolithic RevolutionIntensive CultivationNonfarm Specialization inCrafts and ManufacturesAdministration and EnforcementRise of an Elite

Ending Reverse Dominance Hierarchy: Population Density

Populations increase

Beyond scope of kin-based control (Ur, Sumeria, left)

New control mechanism come into place

Extra-Familial groups take control

Anti-hierarchical mechanisms lose effectiveness

Circumscription ensures control.

Emergence of Stratification

Manipulative Individuals/ FamiliesForm alliances between factionsPlay one faction against anotherForm dynastiesControl over Life-Sustaining ResourcesWater systems in semi-arid regionsAgricultural landsMechanisms of TaxationForced laborTribute in products Taxation in money.

Rank(ed) Societies

The numbers and kinds of positions are fixedExamplesKwakiutl (likeness of chief holding a copper objectEveryone is rankedThere is only one position from top downDeath demands a replacement for positionMissing: no monopoly over resourcesFishing grounds are open to all

Power versus Authority

Extreme examples

Power: concentration camps: Auschwitz (above); Guantanamo (below)

Authority: !Kung, Inuit, Yanomamo

Neither is absolute

Dictatorships need to persuade: Nuremberg rallies, Mayday parades

Power is evenly distributed in nonstate cultures

Legitimacy as Justification for Political Order

Justification necessary even in authoritarian states

Monarchies: the divine right to rule

Soviet Union: Socialist transition to communist economy

Nazi Germany: Racial purification; delivery of full-employment (Nuremberg rallies, above)

Democratic forms: consent by the governed (below, State of the Union)

Chiefdoms

Textbook: A regional polity in which

Two or more local groups

Are organized under a single chief

Who heads a ranked hierarchy of people

Chief as office

Office is permanent

“The king is dead; long live the king”

Requires rules of succession

Chiefdoms: Conical Clan

Can have chiefs and subchiefs

When eldest sons are heirs

When subclans or lineages bud off.

Rank remains among

Descendant clans/lineages

Individuals within lineages

How Conical Clans Work I

I in leftmost minimal lineage is chief of the entire group depicted here, as well as the subgroupsThat is because he is the eldest son of a line of eldest sons of founder of Maximal Lineage (labeled I at the top

How Conical Clans Work II

Descendant of 2nd eldest son (II of 2nd major segment) is IX; he manages that segmentEldest son of each segment runs that segment

Redistribution

Process whereby goods and services

Flow to a central authority (king, chief, government)

Where they are sorted, counted, and reallocated

Classic example: Potlatch of Kwakiutl

Historical example: administered trade

Chiefdoms: Kwakiutl

Eldest son succeeds chief’Must validate claim by holding potlatchAll feasts have legal dimensionsChief makes speech, presents the ceremonial dancesAt end, distributes gifts that are appropriate to rank of guestsGuests give validation speechesThey praise the behavior of new chiefThey note that gifts were appropriate to rank of guestsAll this reinforces the values of ranking in culture

Case Studies

In this section, you are asked to select one of the following:

The Indians of the Northwest Coast, of which the Kwakiutl is one, or

The Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia in the Southwest Pacific