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~Yanomamo Economy~
As a preface: Our economy is money-based...not theirs. It consists of production, consumption, and exchange. There is specialization...it ties-in with exchange, and is based on gender division of labor. Whole villages will exchange pottery with each other (as an example), if only to force an exchange alliance. More details 'gleaned' from my notes follow: ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY: Subsistence is based on gardening, hunting and collecting: they would be classed as "horticulturalists" (slash and burn agriculture). Although the men especially, exaggerate the prominence of hunting in the culture, gardening provides up to 90% of diet in some villages. Fishing (done by both men and women) is imortant in most villages. Typical slash and burn system: Crops: maze, peach palm, several varieties of banana and cooking banana, tobacco, cotton, arrow cane, hallucinogenic drugs. Large trees left. Earlier gardens continually exploited. Other gathering. Fishing. Both men and women garden together while children play and watch. Women do more of the maintenance work (planting, weeding, tilling) in the garden; men do more of the initial heavy work of clearing. Each garden owned by the family who plants it, but they are located all together in one large garden for entire village. Husband and wife work together in the garden. Families are adjacent. Each household works its own gardens ECONOMY: Yanomamo economy is entirely non-monetary. Economic activities are a part of every day subsistence activities and embedded in social relations. All Economies are basically a matter of relationships between producers and consumers. A basic definition of economics is "Allocation of scarce resources to alternate ends". In Yanomamo society, there is a customary division of labor that underlies relationships and values. Scarcity of resources is not generally a problem for the Yanomamo. Ownership is present, but most needs are met in the environment with little work and even less specialized knowledge. Scarcity is more an artificial product of social and political relations. Within the village: division of labor (male-female), specialization of knowledge and status differentiation (headman-other men, insider/outsider) is minimal. Women do women's things, men do men's things. To have to do all of ones own work is demeaning of ones status and difficult. This is why men and women marry. More to come soon, including who works a man's gardens, hunting, generosity (highly valued), economy's relationship to political structure (ex.: headman), services, and ownership~ |
