Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Why Pumé Foragers Retain a Hunting and Gathering Way of Life

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World

Abstract

Much of our success as a species derives from the ability to adapt hunting and gathering to diverse ecologies and incorporate a wide range of food resources. Throughout their history foragers have been making strategic decisions about whether to incorporate new resources and technologies. This appears to be both the strength and resilience of hunter-gatherer lifeways. Despite recognition that hunting and gathering includes broad-spectrum subsistence options, an assumption is commonly made that the incorporation of domesticates leads to a directional shift toward greater reliance on food production. In this chapter we consider instead how the adoption of some horticultural practices supports the continued viability of, and primary reliance on, hunting and gathering. Although the Pumé live in close proximity to and interact with their horticultural relatives, they have not assimilated into their communities or become sedentary and increasingly reliant on horticulture. We explore how a combination of both economic and social factors are critical to their retention of a mobile foraging way of life and helps to explain why hunting and gathering remains a viable, and even desirable subsistence choice in the twenty-first century.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adams, R. L. (2004). An ethnoarchaeological study of feasting in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 23, 56–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • AGI (Archivo General de Indias), Caracas 135, Letter from Fernando Miyares y Gonzáles, September 24, 1786. Seville, Spain.

    Google Scholar 

  • AGI, Caracas 135, Letter from Fernando Miyares y Gonzáles, July 12, 1787. Seville, Spain.

    Google Scholar 

  • AGI, Caracas 135, Letter from Fernando Miyares y Gonzáles, May 10, 1788. Seville, Spain.

    Google Scholar 

  • AGI, Caracas 252, Letter from Fr. Thomas Bernardo de Castro, December 16, 1776. Seville, Spain.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bailey, R. C., & Aunger, R., Jr. (1989). Net hunters vs. Archers: Variation in women’s subsistence strategies in the Ituri forest. Human Ecology, 17, 273–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bellwood, P. (2005). First farmers: The origin of agricultural societies. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binford, L. (2001). Constructing frames of reference. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blurton Jones, N. (2016). Why do so few Hadza farm? In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cock, J. H. (1982). Cassava: A basic energy source in the tropics. Science, New Series, 218(4574), 755–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Early, J. D., & Headland, T. N. (1998). Population dynamics of a Philippine rain forest people: The San Ildefonso Agta. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eder, J. F. (1978). The caloric returns to food collecting: Disruption and change among the Batak of the Philippine tropical forest. Human Ecology, 6, 55–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ember, C. R. (1983). The relative decline in women’s contribution to agriculture with intensification. American Anthropologist, 85, 285–304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Endicott, K., & Bellwood, P. (1991). The possibility of independent foraging in the rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia. Human Ecology, 19, 51–185.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gragson, T. L. (1989). Allocation of time to subsistence and settlement in a ciri khonome Pumé village of the llanos of Apure, Venezuela. Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greaves, R. D. (1997a). Hunting and multifunctional use of bows and arrows: Ethnoarchaeology of technological organization among Pumé hunters of Venezuela. In H. Knecht (Ed.), Projectile technology (pp. 287–320). New York: Plenum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greaves, R. D. (1997b). Ethnoarchaeological investigation of subsistence mobility, resource targeting, and technological organization among Pumé foragers of Venezuela. PhD. dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greaves, R. D. (2006). Forager landscape use and residential organization. In F. Sellet, R. D. Greaves, & P. L. Yu (Eds.), Archaeology and ethnoarchaeology of mobility (pp. 127–152). Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greaves, R. D., & Kramer, K. L. (2014). Hunter-gatherer use of wild plants and domesticates: Archaeological implications for mixed economies before agricultural intensification. Journal of Archaeological Science, 41, 263–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gremillion, K. J. (2004). Seed processing and the origins of food production in eastern North America. American Antiquity, 69, 215–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurven, M., Hill, K., & Jakugi, F. (2004). Why do foragers share and sharers forage? Explorations of social dimensions of sharing. Research in Economic Anthropology, 23, 19–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, T. B., & Hart, J. A. (1986). The ecological basis of hunter-gatherer subsistence in African rain forests: The Mbuti of Eastern Zaire. Human Ecology, 14, 29–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Headland, T. N., & Bailey, R. C. (1991). Have hunter-gatherers ever lived in tropical rain forests independently of agriculture? Human Ecology, 19, 115–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hildebrand, E. A. (2003). Motives and opportunities for domestication: An ethnoarchaeological study in southwest Ethiopia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 22, 358–378.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hilton, C. E., & Greaves, R. D. (2004). Age, sex, and resource transport in Venezuelan Foragers. In J. Meldrum & C. E. Hilton (Eds.), From biped to strider: The emergence of modern human walking, running, and resource transport (pp. 163–181). New York: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock, R. K., & Ebert, J. I. (1984). Foraging and food production among Kalahari hunter/gatherers. In J. D. Clark & S. A. Brandt (Eds.), From hunters to farmers: The causes and consequences of food production in Africa (pp. 328–348). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock, R. K., & Sapignoli, M. (2016). 21st century hunting and gathering among Western and Central Kalahari San. In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurtado, A. M., & Hill, K. (1987). Early dry season subsistence ecology of Cuiva (Hiwi) foragers of Venezuela. Human Ecology, 15, 163–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, H., & Hill, K. (1992). The evolutionary ecology of food acquisition. In E. A. Smith & B. Winterhalder (Eds.), Evolutionary ecology and human behavior (pp. 167–201). New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, R. L. (1995). The foraging spectrum: Diversity in hunter-gatherer lifeways. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, R. L. (2013). The lifeways of hunter-gatherers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, R. (2009). The human career (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., & Codding, B. (2016). Hunter-gatherers in the 21st century. In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., & Greaves, R. D. (2007). Changing patterns of infant mortality and fertility among Pumé foragers and horticulturalists. American Anthropologist, 109, 713–726.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., & Greaves, R. D. (2010). Synchrony between growth and reproductive patterns in human females: Early investment in growth among Pumé foragers. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 141, 235–244.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., & Greaves, R. D. (2011). Postmarital residence and bilateral kin associations among hunter-gatherers. Pumé foragers living in the best of both worlds. Human Nature, 22(1), 41–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., & Greaves, R. D. (2016). Diversity or replace. What happens to wild foods when cultigens are introduced into hunter-gatherer diets. In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, K. L., Greaves, R. D., & Ellsion, P. T. (2009). Early reproductive maturity among Pumé foragers: Implications of a pooled energy model to fast life histories. American Journal of Human Biology, 21(4), 430–437.

    Google Scholar 

  • le Besnerais, H. L. (1948). Algunos aspectos del río Capanaparo y de sus indios Yaruros. Memoria de la sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle, VII(21), 9–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • le Besnerais, H. L. (1954). Contribution á l’étude des Indiens Yaruro (Vénezuéla): quelques observations sur le territoire, l’habitat et la population. Journal de la Société de Américanistes, XLIII, 109–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leeds, A. (1961). The Yaruro incipient tropical forest horticulture: Possibilities and limits. In J. Wilbert (Ed.), The evolution of horticultural systems in Native South America: Causes and consequences (Antropológica supplement no 2, pp. 13–46). Caracas: Editorial Sucre.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leeds, A. (1964). Some problems of Yaruro ethnohistory. Actas y Memorias del 25 Congreso International de Americanistas 2, 157–175.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo, K. (2016). In pursuit of the individual: Recent economic opportunities and the persistence of traditional forager-farmer relationships in the southwestern Central African Republic. In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malaisse, F., & Parent, G. (1985). Edible wild vegetable products in the Zambezian woodland area: A nutritional and ecological approach. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 18, 43–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitrani, P. (1988). Los Pumé (Yaruro). In J. Lizot (Ed.), Los aborígenes de Venezuela (Vol. III, pp. 147–213). Caracas: Fundación La Salle de Ciencias Naturales.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, J. T. (1978). The ecology of social boundaries: Agta foragers of the Philippines. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petrullo, V. (1939). The Yaruros of the Capanaparo River, Venezuela (Anthropological papers 11, Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin 123, pp. 161–290). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piperno, D. R., & Pearsall, D. M. (1998). The origins of agriculture in the lowland neotropics. San Diego: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Politis, G. G. (1996). Moving to produce: Nukak mobility and settlement patterns in Amazonia. World Archaeology, 27, 492–511.

    Google Scholar 

  • Politis, G. G. (2007). Nukak: Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazonian people. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R., & Bettinger, R. (2001). Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but mandatory during the Holocene? A climate change hypothesis. American Antiquity, 66(3), 387–411.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rival, L., & McKey, D. (2008). Domestication and diversity in manoioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz ssp. esculenta, Euphorbiaceae). Current Anthropology, 48(9), 1119–1128.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusak, E. M., Dortch, J., Hayward, K., Renton, M., Boer, M., & Grierson, P. (2011). The role of habitus in the maintenance of traditional Nonngar plant knowledge in southwest Western Australia. Human Ecology, 39, 673–682.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarmiento, G., Monasterio, M., & Silva, J. (1971). Reconocimiento ecológico de los llanos occidentales IV. El oeste del Estado Apure. Acta Científica Venezolana, 22, 170–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, E. A. (1991). Inujjuamiut foraging strategies. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, B. D. (2001). Low-level food production. Journal of Archaeological Science, 9, 1–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker, B. (2006). A future discounting explanation for the persistence of a mixed foraging-horticulture strategy among the Mikea of Madagascar. In D. J. Kennett & B. Winterhalder (Eds.), Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture (pp. 22–40). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker, B., & Young, A. G. (2005). Growing up Mikea: Children’s time allocation and tuber foraging in southwestern Madagascar. In B. S. Hewlett & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), Hunter-gatherer childhoods: Evolutionary developments and cultural perspectives (pp. 147–171). Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenzel, G. W. (2016). Inuit culture: To have and have not, or has subsistence become an Anachronism? In B. Codding & K. L. Kramer (Eds.), Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilmsen, E. N. (1989). Land filled with flies: A political economy of the Kalahari. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiltermuth, S. S., & Heath, C. (2009). Synchrony and cooperation. Psychological Science, 20(1), 1–5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winterhalder, B., & Kennett, D. J. (2006). Behavioral ecology and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. In D. J. Kennett & B. Winterhalder (Eds.), Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture (pp. 1–21). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winterhalder, B., & Kennett, D. J. (2009). Four neglected concepts with a role to play in explaining the origins of agriculture. Current Anthropology, 50, 645–648.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodburn, J. C. (1982). Egalitarian societies. Man (NS), 17, 431–451.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yasuoka, H. (2006). Long term foraging expeditions (molongo) among Baka hunter-gatherers in the northwestern Congo Basin, with special reference to the “wild yam question”. Human Ecology, 34, 275–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeder, M. A., & Smith, B. D. (2009). A conversation on agricultural origins: Talking past each other in a crowded room. Current Anthropology, 50, 681–691.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zent, E. L., & Zent, S. (2007). Los Jodï (Hotï). In G. Freire & A. Tillet (Eds.), Salud indígena en Venezuela (Vol. 1, pp. 77–130). Caracas: Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Salud, Editorial Arte.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Pumé of Doro Aná, who have patiently endeavored to teach us about the economic complexities of foraging. We are grateful to Nancy Conklin-Britain, director of the Nutritional Ecology Laboratory at Harvard University, Christi Butler and Paula Lu for performing the nutritional analyses. Much appreciation for the statistical expertise of Erik Otárola-Castillo (Stony Brook University, Purdue University) and his assistance with the analysis. We wish to thank the National Science Foundation (DBS-9123875 and 0349963), the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, and the Milton Fund for supporting the Pumé research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Karen L. Kramer

  2. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Russell D. Greaves

Authors
  1. Karen L. Kramer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Russell D. Greaves
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karen L. Kramer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García

  2. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Aili Pyhälä

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kramer, K.L., Greaves, R.D. (2017). Why Pumé Foragers Retain a Hunting and Gathering Way of Life. In: Reyes-García, V., Pyhälä, A. (eds) Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42271-8_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42271-8_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-42269-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-42271-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation