Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Of Game Keepers, Opportunism, and Conservation

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The History and Environmental Impacts of Hunting Deities

Part of the book series: Conflict, Environment, and Social Complexity ((CESC))

  • 132 Accesses

Abstract

In this collection, gamekeepers are supernatural entities that regulate wildlife hunting in a wide variety of ways. They assist the hunters in pursuit of their prey, ritual respect for the game, and the reincarnation of slain animals. In addition, broader considerations are described, such as the mutual moral obligations between hunters and the supernatural. Gamekeepers seem to be nearly universal in those societies that depend on game animals as an important part of their diet, making the topic interesting from a ideological perspective. Some of the chapters argue that gamekeepers play a role in the conservation of prey types. The major aim of this chapter is to argue against any ecological role gamekeepers play in the conservation of hunted animals by examining the widespread role of opportunistic hunting from the perspective of human behavioral ecology. I conclude that there is no evidence to support the claim that belief in gamekeepers promotes conservation. At the same time, the logic behind the widespread presence of gamekeepers and game taboos remains a mystery.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alvard, Michael. 1993. Testing the “ecologically noble savage” hypothesis: Interspecific prey choice by Piro hunters of Amazonian Peru. Human Ecology 21 (4): 355–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1994. Conservation by native peoples: Prey choice in a depleted habitat. Human Nature 5 (4): 127–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bird, Douglas W., Rebecca Bliege Bird, and Christopher H. Parker. 2005. Aboriginal burning regimes and hunting strategies in Australia’s Western desert. Human Ecology 33 (4): 443–464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-005-5155-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, Michael F., and Margaret L. Van Bolt. 1980. Aguaruna Jivaro gardening magic in the Alto Rio Mayo, Peru. Ethnology 19 (2): 169–190. https://doi.org/10.2307/3773270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burton, Philip J. 2005. Ecosystem management and conservation biology. In Forestry handbook for British Columbia, ed. S.B. Watts and L. Tolland, 5th ed. UBC Forestry.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carneiro, Robert L. 1970. Hunting and hunting magic among the Amahuaca of the Peruvian Montaña. Ethnology 9: 331–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chacon, Richard. 2012. Conservation or resource maximization? Analyzing subsistence hunting among the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador. In The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare, ed. R. Chacon and R. Mendoza, 311–360. New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Charnov, E., G. Orians, and K. Hyatt. 1976. Ecological implications of resource depression. American Naturalist 110: 247–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Paula, Milton, Elildo A.R. José, Cintia Karoline Carvalho, Manos Lopes, Reysane de Alencar, Emerson Luiz Sousa, Pereira Maciel, Manoela Wariss, Rafael Sá Leitão Barboza, F.C. de Araújo Braga, Daniely Félix-Silva, Carlos A. Peres, and Juarez C.B. Pezzuti. 2022. Hunting sustainability within two eastern Amazon Extractive Reserves. Environmental Conservation 49 (2): 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892922000145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dembitzer, Jacob, Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and Shai Meiri. 2022. Levantine overkill: 1.5 million years of hunting down the body size distribution. Quaternary Science Reviews 276: 107316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro, and Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen. 2020. Game masters and Amazonian indigenous views on sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 43: 21–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fletcher, Michael-Shawn, Rebecca Hamilton, Wolfram Dressler, and Lisa Palmer. 2021. Indigenous knowledge and the shackles of wilderness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (40): e2022218118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2022218118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grayson, D.K., and D.J. Meltzer. 2003. A requiem for North American overkill. Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 585–593.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven, M. 2004. To give and to give not: The behavioral ecology of human food transfers. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 543–583.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hames, Raymond. 1987. Game conservation or efficient hunting? In Capturing the commons: Anthropological approaches to resource management, ed. B. McCay and J. Acheson, 192–207. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1991. Wildlife conservation in tribal societies. In Biodiversity: Culture, conservation, and ecodevelopment, ed. M. Oldfield and J. Alcorn, 172–199. Denver, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. Reciprocal altruism in Yanomamo food exchange. In Human behavior and adaptation: An anthropological perspective, ed. N. Chagnon, L. Cronk, and W. Irons, 297–316. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. The ecologically noble savage debate. Annual Review of Anthropology 36: 177–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansford, James, Patricia C. Wright, Armand Rasoamiaramanana, Ventura R. Pérez, Laurie R. Godfrey, David Erickson, Tim Thompson, and Samuel T. Turvey. 2018. Early Holocene human presence in Madagascar evidenced by exploitation of avian megafauna. Science Advances 4 (9): eaat6925. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat6925.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D., and Inzlicht, M. (2018). The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(3), 260-284. doi:10.1177/1088868317734944

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunn, E. 1982. Mobility as a factor limiting resource use in the Columbian plateau of North America. In Resource managers: North American and Australian foragers, ed. N. Williams and E. Hunn, 17–43. Denver: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, Chris O., David D. Gilbertson, and Garry Rushworth. 2007. Modern humans in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, during oxygen isotope stage 3: Palaeoenvironmental evidence from the great cave of Niah. Journal of Archaeological Science 34 (11): 1953–1969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2007.02.023.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johannes, R. 1978. Traditional marine conservation in Oceania and their demise. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9: 349–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krech, Shepard. 1981. Indians, animals, and the fur trade: A critique of keepers of the game. University of Georgia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krech, Shephard. 1999. The ecological Indian: Myth and history. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lang, Martin, Jan Krátký, John H. Shaver, Danijela Jerotijević, and Dimitris Xygalatas. 2015. Effects of anxiety on spontaneous ritualized behavior. Current Biology 25 (14): 1892–1897.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, H. 1982. Fire technology and resource management in aboriginal North America and Australia. In Resource managers: North American and Australian foragers, ed. E. Hunn and N. Williams, 45–68. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lizot, Jacques. 1991. Tales of the Yanomami: Daily life in the Venezuelan. forest: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Long, J. W., Lake, F. K., and Goode, R. W. (2021). The importance of Indigenous cultural burning in forested regions of the Pacific West, USA. Forest Ecology and Management, 500, 119597.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski, B. 1954. Magic, science, religion, and other essays. New York: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, P. S. (1966). Africa and Pleistocene overkill. Nature, 212(5060), 339-342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, Calvin. 1978. Keepers of the game. University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, D. 1977. Food taboos: A primitive environmental protection agency. Anthropos 72: 734–748.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meltzer, David J. 2021. Overkill, glacial history, and the extinction of North America’s ice age megafauna. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 (46): 28555–28563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagaoka, Lisa, Torben Rick, and Steve Wolverton. 2018. The overkill model and its impact on environmental research. Ecology and Evolution 8 (19): 9683–9696. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Novaro, Andres J., Kent H. Redford, and Richard E. Bodmer. 2000. Effect of hunting in source-sink Systems in the neotropics. Conservation Biology 14 (3): 713–721.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Parker, Eugene. 1992. Forest islands and Kayapó resource management in Amazonia: A reappraisal of the Apȇtȇ. America Anthropologist 94: 406–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posey, D., and Balee, W. (1989). Resource Management in Amazonia Advances in Economic Botany (Vol. 7). New York: New York Botanical Gardens.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posey, Darrell Addison. 1992. Reply to Parker. American Anthropologist 94 (2): 441–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pyke, G.H., H.R. Pulliam, and E. Charnov. 1977. Optimal foraging: A selective review of theories and tests. Quarterly Review of Biology 52: 137–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rappaport, Roy. 1983. Pigs for the ancestors. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Redford, Kent. 1991. The ecologically noble savage. Orion 9: 24–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1976. Cosmology as ecological analysis: A view from the rain forest. Man 11: 307–318.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, Alan R. 1991. Conserving resources for children. Human Nature 2 (1): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, E. 1978. Food taboos, diet, and hunting strategy: The adaptation to animals in Amazonian cultural ecology. Current Anthropology 19: 1–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sandom, Christopher, Søren Faurby, Brody Sandel, and Jens-Christian Svenning. 2014. Global late quaternary megafauna extinctions linked to humans, not climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281 (1787): 20133254. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schuster, Richard, Ryan R. Germain, Joseph R. Bennett, Nicholas J. Reo, and Peter Arcese. 2019. Vertebrate biodiversity on indigenous-managed lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada equals that in protected areas. Environmental Science & Policy 101: 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.07.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepard, Glenn H. 2002. Primates in Matsigenka subsistence and world view. Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology 2002: 101–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Natalie. 2001. Are indigenous people conservationists? Preliminary results from the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon. Rationality and Society 13 (4): 429–461.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Eric Alden, and Mark Wishnie. 2000. Conservation and subsistence in small-scale societies. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 493–524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sponsel, L. 2016. Spiritual ecology, sacred places, and biodiversity conservation. In Routledge handbook of environmental anthropology. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stearman, A. 1994. “Only slaves climb trees”: Revisiting the myth of the ecologically noble savage in Amazonia. Human Nature 5 (4): 339–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsikliras, Athanassios C., and Rainer Froese. 2019. Maximum sustainable yield. In Encyclopedia of ecology, ed. Brian Fath, 2nd ed., 108–115. Oxford: Elsevier.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Vickers, W. 1988. Game depletion hypothesis of Amazonian adaptation: Data from a native community. Science 239: 1521–1522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vickers, William. 1995. From opportunism to nascent conservation: The case of the Siona-Secoya. Human Nature 5 (4): 307–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Raymond Hames

Authors
  1. Raymond Hames
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raymond Hames .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology, Criminology, and Anthropology Dept, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC, USA

    Richard J. Chacon

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Hames, R. (2023). Of Game Keepers, Opportunism, and Conservation. In: Chacon, R.J. (eds) The History and Environmental Impacts of Hunting Deities. Conflict, Environment, and Social Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37503-3_17

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37503-3_17

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-37502-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37503-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation