Life Without Chiefs

Kirsty Anne Prescott
March 6th( Due March 5th)
Ant 1001 TV24A/ Gaunt




Marvin Harris: Life without Chiefs

Marvin Harris' Life without Chiefs brought to light a great phenomena which I was not aware of. Harris claimed that for about 98 percent of our existence as a species, most of our ancestors were hunting and gathering bands containing no more than 50 people (Harris,96). He continues by showing how effectively these bands functioned without the everyday norms of judges,policemen and many others whom our society greatly relies on.
In Harris' piece he says the reason that these small group were functioning so effectively was because of there principle of reciprocity. As he states,"In reciprocal exchange, people do not specify how much or exactly what they expected to get back or when they expect it back(Harris,96)." He gives an example of another ethonographer Robert Dentan who worked in Semi of Central Malaysia, where it is impolite to say Thank you for the meat porvided from another hunter. It is impolite because it suggests, " That one has calculated the gift and that one did not expect the donor to be so generous(Harris,99)." This is so different from our present time where it is impolite not to say thank you for anything given to us.
This change led me to think that it had to do with the changes from headman, to big man and then finally to chiefs. The village man's quest was not one of power, his only job was to lead by example. They gave more of what they had to everyone else and it then became competition between many village men who can give more generously and thus big men arose. Big men had also struggled with competitors for generosity and the reciprocity was change when chiefs arose. Not only did the chiefs have dominion over multiple villages, but the villagers were now giving to them instead of the reverse( Harris'99-101).
"From peaceful origins, humans created and mounted a wild beast that ate continents (Harris, 102). This line sums it up, the rise of political systems have changed the way we operated as society and can not be reversed. However, I pose the question, Can we ever go back to the times of Village men? Would it change the quest for power and greed that we now posses?



Bibliography: Harris, Marvin. “Life Without Chiefs” In Conformity and Conflict: Reading to Accompany Miller, Cultural Anthropology, 4 ed., ed. Spradley and McCurdy. Pearson, 2008, Chapter 10.