The Food Sharing Debate: A Case Study from Siberia

The show-off/costly signaling hypothesis for food sharing of big game may not provide the specificity of mechanism that would qualify it as an adaptation. Underlying the provision of free riders is an economic decision based on the costs of defense of resources. Underlying costly signaling is a form of indirect reciprocity (Nowak and Sigmund 1998). There are likely to be a whole host of adaptive mechanisms involved in big-game hunting and food sharing, including volition to be influenced by others, nepotism, striving for success, improving tools, as well as abilities to calculate economic costs and benefits.

This points to another problem in the evolutionary ecological literature on food sharing: the relationship between the definitions of property and hypotheses of food transfer. The definition of ownership in the show-off hypothesis, one based on right of exclusive use and the right to voluntarily transfer their ownership to someone else, is a standard definition of ownership in economics. The key is the ability to exclude others access to resources, but even those using this definition admit that exclusion is a continuum (Ostrom 1990:31, Hawkes 1991:220, 1993).

Units of big game meat are highly subtractable, but they are not an open-access commons. For example, the butcher of largest prey, whales among the Inupiaq of northern Alaska, is carefully organized (Bodenhorn 2000:35). These products would not be public goods according to the accepted definition, but common-pool resources, and thus, owned by the community of individuals providing them. The process of "designing, implementing, and enforcing a set of rules to coordinate activities is equivalent to the provision of a local collective good." (Ostrom 1990:33). Community implies social relationships. Ownership is defined in terms of relationships between people (Hann 1998), rather than possession.

In another phylogenetic argument that contrasts with the show-off hypothesis, Ichikawa (n.d.), has argued that humans have two unique institutional inventions in comparison with non-human primates (NHP). The first is property, implying the remote control of ownership; and the second is the hunting-sharing complex. For NHP, alteregos recognize ownership of an object ego holds or keeps in immediate proximity. The ability to keep an object in proximity, or to maintain control over territory for that matter, is modeled in this case as a marginal value curve of the benefits of defense (cf. Dyson-Hudson and Smith 1978; Hawkes 2001:220). Moreover, human institutions extend ownership beyond individual proximate possession, whereby the owner of an item can be separated from the one who actually uses and carries it-ownership is recognized nonetheless, and if something is procured with a hunting net, for example, the owner gets a portion. Lending out hunting tools, such as hunting nets among the Mbuti (Ichikawa n.d.), or hunting implements, fuel, or support equipment among the Inuit (Bodenhorn 2000) is reported over a diverse set of hunting and gathering societies. I observed this among the Dolgan and Nganasan in northern Siberia. The result, according to Ichigawa, is role differentiation and cooperation between those who actively perform hunting and the people, who provide them with the tools, generally the elderly or experienced. One might classify this kind of cooperation as reciprocal attitudes that foster exchange across services. Among the Mbuti, for example, visitors are of course given food, but more the hospitable treatment is to provide guests with nets and a chance to hunt together (Ichikawa n.d.). Similarly, among the Dolgan and Nganasan, fishing nets, shotguns, spare parts for snowmobiles and boat motors, opportunities to hunt or fish is considered the most hospitable treatment. Opportunities to hunt are part of the by-product mutualism model for cooperation, also a type of reciprocity. By-product mutualism differs from reciprocal altruism in the strict sense that the immediate structure of the situation provides no temptation or opportunity to cheat.

In Ichigawa's hunting-sharing complex, valued food, such as meat, is always shared carefully, and in many cases, it is closely linked with existing and/or potential social or inter-individual relationships. For the Mbuti: 1) First distribution occurs among those who either directly or indirectly participated in the hunt; it is obligatory and clearly defined. 2) Second distribution occurs in an informal way and includes those who do not receive meat in the first distribution. 3) Third distribution occurs after women cook the food and distribute it again along with vegetable food to members of her household and others. This includes female contribution to diet. The moral system among the Mbuti is one that prevents other non-relevant individuals from approaching to the butchering and sharing site: "They avert their eyes from the one who is not expected to participate in the distribution. Such a slight sign is enough to inform the intention of the owner." (Ichikawa, n.d.).

Ichikawa asks why owners exist, rather than why men work. Ownership of food is nominal, and owner may be thanked but does not earn prestige. Rather, ownership allows individuals in the social group to recognize and manipulate social relationships and achieve social goals, such as cooperation and conflict resolution. There is good reason to believe that this is a condition that existed in the human evolutionary past.

Likewise, Kitanishi (2000) describes the social importance of these three types of distributions for the Aka:

"Because of the difference in the extent of personal discretion between second and third levels of distribution, the second level results in sharing with a wider extent and the third level in sharing with a narrower extent. The co-existence of these two kinds of sharing, especially among the Aka, assures the balance of socio-economic relationships with close persons and with those not so close" (Kitanishi 2000: 165).

Based on my observations of food sharing among the Dolgan and Nganasan, one could also place the non-market distribution of locally procured meat and fish into three phases or categories. The first distribution is immediately at the procurement site among hunters and/or among those who have participated in the hunt in some way. This distribution is considered more obligatory. The second distribution usually occurs upon returning to the community, where most, or all, of the kill is transferred to the wife, sister, or parents of the hunter. Additional transfers are made to other people who need it or ask for it during this phase. The third distribution phase occurs during consumption where interhousehold visiting is a common and integral part of daily life.

Summary

Because of the highly egalitarian nature of Dolgan and Nganasan social relations, transfers of food do not necessarily create or reinforce a hierarchical social relationship. Although good hunters are highly respected in matters of the tundra, they do not appear to wield authority in village politics. While the impetus for sharing may often come from the potential recipient, requests are not considered begging because the recipient is claiming a right in the distribution. Being a native person of that locality is oftentimes sufficient for such a claim, and showing respect to the tundra by sharing the catch, as mentioned above by the hunter Sergei, helps to create value and perpetuate the institutionThe parallels between the Dolgand and Nganasan, and some tropical foragers in this regard are stunning. . If the person is an able-bodied adult male, however, requests for food may be questioned.

Friends are mentioned as frequent receivers of gifts of meat and fish. In most cases, there is an expectation that the recipient will do something at sometime in the future, if needed. This is a loose definition of reciprocity, and there may be emotional benefits for keeping friends or choosing friends for hunting partners, even if friends do not return equal portions of gifts in kind, contribute other material prerequisites to hunting, or participate in the hunting or fishing.

However, most of the time friends do these things or make attempts to do so. Kin seem to be the recipients of the lion's share of transferred bush food in the Avam tundra. The emotional benefits of sharing with kin among the Dolgan and Nganasan are often cited. The emotional benefit is a motivating force consistent with what would be expected from kinship theory, even if gifts are not linearly correlated with genealogical distance at present. Food sharing in the Siberian Arctic represents likely universal strategies of kinship cooperation, friendship, and community well being, now becoming increasingly important, as the formal economy in the Russian north has shrunk.