At 09:49 1999-11-01 -0800, cheyenne wrote:
>storage was essential in h/g
>cultures! Without food caches, starvation was certain, esp. during the
>winter.

This is important only i some areas of the world. Many parts
has rain period instead of winter - just a healthy change of diet.


>Why do you think sophisiticated techniques for drying and
>smoking fish and meat were developed?  Traditional Cree culture is big
>on sharing food... thus counteracting any tendencies toward "power
>hierachy and greed", as you put it.

But I guess there are chiefs ? Isn't that power hierarcy?
Do Cree have no agriculture at all (i e are they *pure* h/g)?

It is not necessary that food storing leads to power hierarcy (and
perhaps greed), but it is usual.
!Kung do not store food, and have no power hierarcy.
Yanomamo have agriculture but no food storage, when they have planted
and wait for the crop, they leave their village and go foraging in
the djungle. They have slight power hierarcy.
Inuit cultures had access to food also in the winter, so they needed
no storage (although they used to ferment little birds inside seal-hides
fore some months, and have parties when eating them) and had no chiefs.

- Hans