RE: Love and Proyect

[ermadog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Louis Proyect:
> Well, why don't you consult some other scholars who are both feminist
> and Marxist? I would in particular recommend Eleanor Leacock <

I consult a wide variety of sources. I find this is the best way to avoid
dogmatism and sectarianim. I assess the data and critique the
interpretation. That's how scholarly research is done where I come from.

> Leacock: Debate concerning aboriginal gender roles and female-male
relations in the Canadian subarctic affords a good example of problems yet
to be resolved.

Gender roles are hardly the sole issue I have raised in discussing social
tensions in general amongst tribal people. In Leacock's discussion of the
Montagnais in _Women and Colonization_, she gives almost no attention to
the kind of kin-based affiliation behaviours I have been discussing (for
instance among the Nuer), behaviours which form the bulk of content in the
ritual and spirituality of tribal societies.

Her discussion, instead, focuses on the effects of colonization on gender
roles; and takes egalitarianism for granted, with no substantiating
evidence. Nor does she discuss religiously sanctioned male preference,
such as in the date I've presented from French with regard to the
Chipewyan, nor concepts of female pollution, such as can be found in all
tribal societies.

She tends, instead, to take the colonizers' interpretations of affect of
individual's at face value. Don't we all believe we are free individual's
in modern democracies? Would you take our assertions of such at face
value?  I didn't think so.

> With respect to the issue of male 'dominance' versus female 'autonomy',

I find these to be useless terms in the absence of any sign of
institutionalized power. I prefer Sahlins' term: preferential. "Access to
strategic resources by chiefly groups is best described as "preferential",
rather than exclusive. (1972: 92-94). As I've previously pointed out,
Linda Stone finds such preferential treatment typically accruing to men in
patrilineal societies.

> However, Ronald Cohen interprets Samuel Hearne's account of his
eighteenth-century trip with a Chipewyan 'band'

What did she have to say about the data I've cited from Marylin French?

> As for some of the abusive behaviour toward women that Hearne described,

Another useless term. How does one quantify abuse? In most tribal
societies, as in early patriarchal societies, women had well-defined
spheres of duties and responsibilities which gave them real and practical
power. Indeed, the Pillar of the Hearth requires no inconsiderable
strength in order to play her assigned role. Generally speaking, this is
the souce of the much vaunted "fear of the female" that is alleged to
universally haunt men. This does not obviate the preference and deference
given to men in such societies.

> Similarly, the assumption that 'public' decisions in gathering-hunting
society were made by individual leaders or 'chiefs' holding formal
authority has increasingly given way to the understanding that such
decisions are arrived at through discussion and adjudication.<

Does Leacock discuss the role played by the dead ancestors in the molding
of consensus? Probably not, eh? As I have noted, this discussion and
adjudication is formed by consensus shaped by tradition. This is *not*
free and open exchange of ideas. This is *not* what democracy looks like.
This is what elder authoritarianism (Meera Nanda's term) looks like.

> In closing, I wish to stress that accurate reconstruction of the history
and the associated socio-economic changes in gatherer-hunter societies of
far more than theoretical interest. It is also of great importance on
political and ethical grounds.

You bet it does. As I have repeatedly stressed, the evidence from
anthropology refutes reactionary notions of human nature. It shows that
the farther back one goes, the more egalitarian society was. It also shows
that gender oppression is a phenomenon of class society.

But we mustn't get all googley-eyed about this. There was no Eden in a
remote Golden Age. There were social tensions (probably not all that
egregious by today's standards), the amelioration of which was the
province of religion. Jim craven has acknowledged that even Native
American spirituality was a force of social control. What do you imagine
he thought was being controlled?

> They evolved new cultural forms which, although much changed from
aboriginal times, continued to be distinctively theirs.

No kidding. Leacock's own work shows that these cultural forms were
patriarchal in direction.

Louis, I posed a number of questions about Sahlins' interpretation. You
have not acknowledged them. This evasion is typical of your response in
this discussion. Here they are again:

I forgot to attribute this last time. It's from Linda Stone, 1998:

"This bridewealth was seen not as "payment" for the bride but, rather, as
a transfer of wealth that guaranteed the rights of the husband's patriline
to the future children of this woman. Thus the bridewealth at once
legalized the marriage, legitimized the children, and guaranteed the
allocation of the children to the husband's patrilineal units."

"The practice of bridewealth marriage had an important consequence. In
order to bring in a bride, a Nuer group needed to amass a lot of cattle fo
bridewealth. Normally the only way this could be done was to first acquire
cattel from marrying off a daughter. Thus, among the Nuer, daughters as
well as sons were necessary and valued. Unlike some other patrilineal
groups, the Nuer did not regard the birth of a daughter as unfortunate or
sorrowful, for a daughter was a bringer of cattle, a provider of
bridewealth for her brothers."

"However many cattle a man may possess, he is helpless without a wife or
mother or sister to milk the cows. It is only through marriage that a man
can have a home of his own, and one of the most serious consequences of
divorce is that it compels a man to attach himself to the home of a
kinsman whose womenfolk can milk and cook for him. (Evans-Pritchard
1990:130).  Indeed, Evans-Pritchard underlined the Nuer cultural view of
women as central, as a node drawing men together, when he remarked that,
"Nuer group themselves around a herd, and the rule prohibiting men from
milking means that in grouping themselves around a herd, they also group
themselves around the milkmaid who serves the herd (1990:131)."

"In Nuer family life there is always a pull on the children in both
directions: a pull of legal and religious norms and of the whole pattern
of the politico-social structure towards the father's kin and lineage, and
a pull of personal affection toward the mother's people. Rights in the
herd, duties of blood revenge, and status in the community hold a man to
his father's kin, but with these go jealousy about cattle, resentment
against authority, and personal rivalries .... The paternal ties are
stronger, if there is a touch of hardness in them. The maternal ties are
weaker and for this reason are weaker and tenderer. (1990: 139-140)."

No acquisitiveness there, hm? No jockeying for status? Sahlins' whole case
seems to rest on the assumption that, if it's not institutionalized, it's
not power. Nothing could be more absurd, particularly in light of the
studies of bigmen societies of Melanesia. All my citations of this are
later than Sahlins' opus.

Btw, could either you or Sahlin explain to me how a potlach can be given
without a previous acquisition of wealth? Of course this would not be
capitalist acccumulation, because it's not a capitalist society.

Joan Cameron



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