Evolution and Human Behavior
Volume 26, Issue 2 , March 2005, Pages 137-157

Meat sharing for coalitional support
John Q. Patton

Abstract
In this paper, I review hypotheses about why hunters share meat, and I use
quantitative data on meat transfers between households of Achuar, Quichua, and
Zapara speakers in Conambo, an indigenous community of horticultural foragers
in the Ecuadorian Amazon, to test them. I show that meat is distributed to
political allies in Conambo and argue that meat is strategically transferred to
recruit and maintain coalitional support in a political landscape where
loyalties are shifting, crosscutting, and consequential. Additionally, I find
clear evidence of kinship and reciprocity influences on meat transfers, with
mixed support for tolerated theft, costly signaling, and showing-off
influences. Postmarital residence is matrilocal, hunters have control over meat
distribution, game is abundant, and coalitional membership and loyalties are
unstable. These environmental and social variables may explain different
patterns in meat sharing in Conambo than those found in previous studies.

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Tom Billings