Contests Between Equals: Men and Beasts

Man…does not stand completely apart from animals. Both are N!adima's [the supreme deity’s] creatures and are subject to his anger and caprice and, to about the same extent, to the vagaries of the natural environment. Hunting is part of the battle for survival, and the hunted animal is an adversary in the contest of the hunt, not something that exists specially for man to prey upon – George Silberbauer, The Gwi Bushmen, 1972.

“An Assiniboine running a Buffalo. Drawn by an Assiniboine warrior and hunter.” From Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri (1961) by Edwin Thompson Denig.

It is easy to focus on the aftermath of a hunt—an event concluded with death and consumption; an aggressive act of destruction, dismemberment, and digestion. Despite his visceral actions, the successful hunter is often aided in his pursuit by his respect for the intelligence and abilities of his prey. Anthropologist Lev Sternberg writes of the Gilyak fisher-foragers of Siberia that, "Every animal is in point of fact a real being like a man, nay a Gilyak such as himself, but endowed with reason and strength which often surpasses those of man.” Anthropologist George Silberbauer gives a detailed discussion of perceptions of animal intelligence and behavior among the G/wi foragers of the Kalahari, writing that,

animal behavior is perceived as rational and purposive and directed by motives based on values that are either held by the G/wi themselves or by other peoples known to them or are negations of such values. The motivational and value systems of animals are not isomorphic in all respects with G/wi and other human systems but are empathetically modified to fit the perceived circumstances of the animals themselves. Each species is credited with characteristic behavior, which is governed by its kxodzi (customs), and each has its particular kxwisa (speech, language). Protocooperating (i.e., mutually beneficial) species and even some that are hostile to one another can understand one another's language, and some animals can even understand a certain amount of G/wi. Man, too, can understand a limited amount of the speech of some species, for example, the alarm cries of birds. Baboons, the most versatile of animal polyglots, eavesdrop on G/wi hunters and pass on the plans of the hunters to the intended prey animals. This is not altruism but is caused by the baboons' legendary love of trickery and teasing.

The special capabilities of some animals are believed to have been arrived at by rational thought and then institutionalized as elements of the species' kxodzi (customs) after having been passed on by the discoverers or inventors in that population. (For instance, the ability of the penduline tit, Anthoscopus minutus, to manufacture feltlike nesting material from the awns of grasses.) Such capabilities are compared with those that man has developed in the process of devising means of meeting environmental pressures. Some species possess knowledge that transcends that of man; the bateleur eagle, Terathopius ecaudatus, for instance, knows when a hunter is to be successful and hovers above him, thus acting as an omen of sure success (but not, apparently, as a warning to the prey). Several animals are believed to be able to foretell the extent of wet-season rains and the location of the best falls and to plan their annual behavior cycle accordingly. These animals are seen as having rather critical limits of tolerable error. If they are to reproduce successfully, they must time their activities to gain the greatest benefit from the rains when they do come. They are believed to have a more sensitive perception of how the rains are developing and can thus furnish the discerning observer with more accurate information than his own less finely tuned senses can gather. The duiker, Sylvicapra grimmia, practices sorcery against his animal enemies and even against conspecific rivals, and some steenbok, Raphicerus campestris, are thought to possess a magical means of protecting themselves from a hunter's arrows.

Name taboos associated with animals, particularly those sought as prey, are not uncommon across forager societies. Of the Batek of Malaysia, anthropologist Lye Tuck-Po writes that, “the name of the animal being hunted cannot be uttered from the start to the end of a hunt. Before the kill, uttering the name will alert the prey to its oncoming fate. After the kill, uttering the name might provoke revenge, or show disrespect to the animal,” while among the Tlingit foragers of Alaska, missionary Livingston French Jones writes that,

It is believed that all animals understand human speech. For this reason natives are careful what they say about them not only in their presence, but at any time; for they have some mysterious way of hearing all said about them, and if evil or boastful things are said, the creature maligned is sure to take offence, and in time will surely harm the speaker. A young man who was subject to epileptic fits, while in one of them fell off the deck of a boat and was drowned. It was said that when he was a child he spoke unkindly to some little fishes, and this was his punishment for it. A young man swore at some mountain sheep which he was hunting because they were in a difficult place to reach. In his effort to reach them a snowslide came down and buried him and he perished. The natives believe that he met with this death because he was disrespectful to the sheep.

Rituals and norms of conduct associated with the hunt can attest to the healthy respect and sense of dignity accorded animals by the hunter. Among the Guayaki-Ache hunter-gatherers of the Amazon, anthropologist Pierre Clastres writes,

As for the animals, there are certain rules of courtesy to be observed toward them. When the hunter kills them, he must also salute them; he arrives in the camp, his game hanging over his shoulder, which is nobly spotted with blood, and he puts it down and sings in its honor. In this way, the animal is not simply a neutral piece of food; if it were reduced to that, the other members of its species might get angry and not allow themselves to be shot anymore. Hunting is not simply a matter of killing animals; you owe them something, and this debt is paid when you bring the animals you have killed back to life by talking about them. You thank them for letting themselves be killed, but their common names are never mentioned. So that brevi, tapir, is called morangi, and kande, the little peccary, is called barugi. You have to be sly with the animals, you must pretend to be talking about someone else; by fooling the game this way, you somehow annul man's aggressiveness and wipe out the fatal act. The hunter's chanting seals the secret agreement between men and animals. The kybuchu are also taught this: to live in the forest one must avoid excess and respect the unity of the world in order to make sure it continues to be generous.

This reference to “man’s aggressiveness” and “the secret agreement between men and animals” dovetail with accounts of male secrecy and rituals oriented around hunting found in some forager societies. Anthropologist Lorna Marshall writes that, “!Kung society accords the hunt great importance and, for the !Kung, hunting is entirely a male affair. Women are wholly excluded from hunting and from taking part in the several hunting rituals that the men perform.”

!Kung hunters. From Lee (1979)

Anthropologist Vladimir Jochelson writes that among the Yukaghir foragers of Siberia,

When the autopsy of a killed animal reveals under the hide a cartilaginous hardening, obviously of a pathological character, the Yukaghir say that that is where the pe'jul [guardian spirit of the animal + good fortune] is located. Usually such growths are found on the neck, shoulder or chest of the reindeer. The Yukaghir dry them and carry them about in small leather bags, as amulets. Naturally enough, views like the above about the animals necessary for life, led to a cult of the animal, that is, to a religious attitude towards. The killed animal is treated like a dear and honored deceased friend. Its face is covered. Girls who have reached maturity, menstruating women and women after child-birth must not go after the meat of the killed animal, for they might offend it by their unclean condition. A girl must not leave the house when her brothers are hunting.

The ethos of masculine competition embodied in the hunt takes its most vivid form in the solitary, ritualized confrontations men sometimes seek out with the most dangerous animals in their environment. Missionary Antonio Colbacchini described the individual jaguar hunt conducted among the Bororo of Brazil, sometimes done by a man after the death of a relative or a friend, or other circumstances, writing that,

They often encounter the adugo, the terrible spotted ounce. The Indian does not retreat before the terrible feline, but immediately shoots a dart at it, trying to hit the heart. Rarely is the first stroke so accurate that it makes the animal fall. Enraged by the pain, it attacks the savage, who immediately holds the bow with both hands and puts it horizontally in front of his eyes. When the beast approaches the hunter, it rears up on its hind legs and, thus upright, tries to hurt him with the front ones and shred him with its teeth. As soon as the feline stands upright, the Indian, with his arms outstretched, pushes forward his bow, on which the ounce leans, giving horrible roars. And there, firm, with muscles tensed, eye to eye, the man and the beast remain a long time, one trying to overcome the other with muscular pressure. These must be unforgettable moments for the whole life, if the savage reaches victory. Finally the animal slackens the pressure and retreats one step to retake the offensive; the man, with prodigious dexterity, places a new arrow in the bow and wounds the ounce a second time. With renewed ferocity it tries to jump over the Indian, who is immediately ready, as before, to stop it from making the jump. And thus the struggle goes on, until, weakened, the bleeding beast falls, and the Indian takes advantage of that to multiply the arrows and kill it. Unfortunate for the hunter if he hesitates. A heavy blow on the forehead or on the shoulders would make him the prey of the jaguar; many Indians die this way. An Indian had a purulent wound on the upper lip, at the base of the nose, and had become hunchbacked in one of those encounters; he came out the loser, but other companions, who killed the beast, approached in time. It had, however, already made a lesion in the vertebral column and on the face of the hunter, leaving him hunchbacked and disfigured. Ukeiwaguuo, too, in the vicinity of the aldeia, was attacked by an ounce. His screams attracted other Indians, who ran to help him. He, however, defended himself courageously.

Anthropologist Dominique Desson writes among foragers in the Kodiak archipelago near Alaska that,

Whaling on Kodiak...was a solitary occupation, a one-to-one confrontation between man and beast. By wearing the closed crown hat in a ritualized context (the hunt proper) the whaler was transformed symbolically into a killer whale (symbol of hunting and killing prowess) and whaling thus became the ritualized warfare between equals.

Kodiak whaling mask. From Desson (1995)

The practice of hunting for many forager men is not only essential for survival but conveys the highly-esteemed spirit with which they regard many of the animals they pursue. It has always been a fact of human existence, that animals must die so we may live. Across many forager societies, these violent acts of destiny tend to be managed with as much respect and honor as men are capable of.

Ethnographic Evidence Conflicts With The 'Cold Winters' Hypothesis

There is a popular hypothesis among many self-identified hereditarians which claims that ‘cold winters’ selected for greater intelligence in some human populations. Here is the case laid out by psychologist Richard Lynn in his 2006 book arguing in favor of the framework:

The selection pressure for enhanced intelligence acting on the peoples who migrated from tropical and sub-tropical equatorial Africa into North Africa, Asia, Europe, and America was the problem of survival during the winter and spring in temperate and cold climates. This was a new and more cognitively demanding environment because of the need to hunt large animals for food and to keep warm, which required the building of shelters and making fires and clothing. In addition, Miller (2005) has proposed that in temperate and cold climates females became dependent on males for provisioning them with food because they were unable to hunt, whereas in the tropics women were able to gather plant foods for themselves. For this women would have required higher intelligence to select as mates the men who would provision them. For all these reasons temperate and cold climates would have exerted selection pressure for higher intelligence. The colder the winters the stronger this selection pressure would have been and the higher the intelligence that evolved. This explains the broad association between latitude or, more precisely, the coldness of winter temperatures and the intelligence of the races.

Lynn also expands on this argument in his 2013 paper echoing psychologist J.P. Rushton’s earlier claims on the topic:

Rushton proposes that these colder environments were more cognitively demanding and these selected for larger brains and greater intelligence. There is widespread consensus on this thesis, e.g. Kanazawa, 2008, Lynn, 1991, Lynn, 2006, Templer and Arikawa, 2006. Rushton extends the theory of these climatic selection effects further by proposing that colder environments selected for populations that had greater complexity of social organisation achieved by stronger co-operation between males and a reduction of inter-male sexual competitiveness and aggression (Rushton, 2000, p. 231). The reason for these adaptations was that in the colder climates men had to co-operate in group hunting to secure food and effective hunting required a greater degree of co-operation and a reduction of inter-male sexual competitiveness and aggression than was required in equatorial latitudes, where plant and insect foods are available throughout the year, there is little need for co-operative group hunting is unnecessary, and a high level of inter-male aggression is adaptive for reproductive success.

Unfortunately, these arguments convey a great deal of confusion about how humans interact with their environment, they make erroneous claims about the distribution of cultural complexity across societies, and they demonstrate ignorance of behavioral ecological and cultural evolutionary models that offer more utility in explaining differences in outcomes between societies. A clear illustration of this is Lynn’s discussion of ‘Bushmen’ IQ in his 2006 book:

There have been only three studies of the intelligence of the Bushmen. In the 1930s a sample of 25 of them were intelligence tested by Porteus (1937) with his maze test, which involves tracing the correct route with pencil through a series of mazes of increasing difficulty. The test has norms for European children for each age, in relation to which the Bushmen obtained a mental age of seven and a half years, representing an IQ of approximately 48. In the second study, Porteus gave the Leiter International Performance Scale to 197 adult Bushmen and concluded that their mental age was approximately 10 years, giving them an IQ of 62. In the third study, Reuning (1972), a South African psychologist, tested 108 Bushmen and 159 Africans with a pattern completion test involving the selection of an item to complete a pattern. In the light of his experience of the test, Reuning concluded that it "can be used as a reliable instrument for the assessment of intelligence at the lower levels of cognitive development and among preliterate peoples" (1968, p. 469). On this test the Bushmen scored approximately 15 IQ points below the Africans, and since it is known that Africans have a mean IQ of approximately 67 (see Chapter 4), this would give the Bushmen an IQ of approximately 52.

Lynn, recognizing that some readers may find these numbers absurd, argues for their plausibility. Here is the case he makes:

The three studies of Bushmen by Porteus and Reuning give IQs of 48, 62, and 52 and can be averaged to give an IQ of 54. It may be questioned whether a people with an average IQ of 54 could survive as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert, and therefore whether this can be a valid estimate of their intelligence. An IQ of 54 is at the low end of the range of mild mental retardation in economically developed nations. This is less of a problem than might be thought. The great majority of the mildly mentally retarded in economically developed societies do not reside in hospitals or institutions but live normal lives in the community. Many of them have children and work either in the home or doing cognitively undemanding-jobs. An IQ of 54 represents the mental age of the average European 8-year-old child, and the average European 8-year-old can read, write, and do arithmetic and would have no difficulty in learning and performing the activities of gathering foods and hunting carried out by the San Bushmen. An average European 8-year-old can easily be taught to pick berries, put them in a container and carry them home, collect ostrich eggs and use the shells for storing water, and learn to use a bow and arrow and hit a target at some distance. Before the introduction of universal education for children throughout North America and Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, the great majority of 8-year-old children worked productively on farms and sometimes as chimney sweeps and in factories and mines. Today, many children of this age in Africa, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, through out much of Latin America, and in other economically developing count tries work on farms and some of them do semi-skilled work such as carpet weaving and operating sewing machines. There is a range of intelligence among the Bushmen and most of them will have IQs in the range of 35 to 75. An IQ of 35 represents approximately the mental age of the average European five-and-a-half-year-old and an IQ of 75 represents approximately the mental age of the average European eleven-and-a-half-year-old. The average five-and-a-half-year-old European child is verbally fluent and is capable of doing unskilled jobs and the same should be true for even the least intelligent Bushmen.

Furthermore, apes with mental abilities about the same as those of human 4-year-olds survive quite well as gatherers and occasional hunters and so also did early hominids with IQs of around 40 and brain sizes much smaller than those of modern Bushmen. For these reasons there is nothing puzzling about contemporary Bushmen with average IQs of about 54 and a range of IQs mainly between 35 and 75 being able to survive as hunter-gatherers and doing the unskilled and semi-skilled farm work that a number of them took up in the closing decades of the twentieth century.

Please consider for a moment the abject stupidity of that argument. Richard Lynn is arguing it is plausible that hunter-gatherers surviving in the Kalahari desert are of the same intelligence as 8-year-old European children because children “can easily be taught to pick berries, put them in a container and carry them home, collect ostrich eggs and use the shells for storing water, and learn to use a bow and arrow and hit a target at some distance.” Whether or not those same European children can track game for hours using the limited clues left by a wounded animal, anticipate the movement of herds, memorize the distribution of water sources, recognize poisonous or nutritious plants, and so on is of course not addressed by Lynn.

However, it is even worse than that—it actually gets below freezing at night during winter in the Kalahari! So, when people like Lynn take the *mean* winter temperature as a metric of ‘cold winters’, like he does in his book, they aren’t actually capturing its harshness. Anthropologist Nancy Howell writes of the Dobe !Kung that,

Following the rainy season of mid-December to April, there are several [Page 8] months of notably cooler weather. By June and July, temperatures reach the freezing point at night on a few occasions and the rhythm of !Kung life is modified to allow people to sit up around the fires at night and sleep in the sun during the day. The cold dry season is followed by the most difficult time of year, when daytime temperatures rise steadily, frequently reaching 43° C (110° F) in September to November. Vegetation is dry and brown, the temporary water sources have dried up, and the people are concentrated around the permanent water supplies, at nine points along the Xangwa and /Xai/xai valleys, living on short food supplies and often with equally short tempers. Late in November, the vegetation starts turning green again, usually some weeks in advance of the welcome first rains of the new year.

Somehow folks like Rushton and Lynn and Kanazawa have convinced themselves that people living in one of the most difficult to navigate and inhospitable parts of the planet have actually got it pretty easy. Kanazawa claims that, “In the tropic and subtropic climate of Africa, plant food is abundant, and food procurement is therefore not difficult at all.” Beyond the absurdity of assuming that all people in Africa subsist on the exact same, apparently equally abundant, plant foods, with no reference to the substantial subsistence or ecological diversity, this is mistaken among the !Kung hunter-gatherers themselves. Richard Lee writes that,

This cold dry season extends from May through August. It is heralded by a sharp drop in nightly temperatures and during 1964 the Dobe area experienced six weeks of freezing or near-freezing nights in June and July. The days are clear and, by tropical standards, cool, often characterized by strong dessicating winds from the south and west with gusts estimated at up to 40 knots. Water is available only at the permanent wells and plant foods become increasingly scarce as the season progresses.

The claim that there is no incentive for long-term planning among tropic and subtropic African populations is contradicted by even the limited evidence we have from other extant hunter-gatherer societies in the region. For example, among the Okiek hunter-gatherers of Kenya, anthropologist Roderic Blackburn writes that,

A man will go to a forest after it has been in flower and the bees are filling the hives. He will spend several days or weeks collecting honey, repairing his old hives and making new ones. If he is ambitious he may go to a forest before the rains so as to repair his hives and make additional ones beforehand so that he will collect more honey than would otherwise be the case. The more ambitious men own as many as 200 hives, the less ambitious perhaps 50. If the rains are good, and one has enough hives, and the honey badger has not damaged many, then a man considers himself pleased if he collects 135 kilograms of honey and honeycombs in a year.

Let’s go back to the claims about hunting and plant foods. Contra the simplistic relationship proposed by Lynn and co., Loren Cordain and his colleagues find that among hunter-gatherer societies in the Ethnographic Atlas,

When the subsistence dependencies of hunter-gatherers were analyzed by latitude (Figure 2, A–D), it was shown that subsistence supplied by hunted animal foods was relatively constant (26–35% subsistence), regardless of latitude (Figure 2B). Not surprisingly, plant food markedly decreases with increasing latitude, primarily at a threshold value of >40° N or S (Figure 2A). Because hunted land animal-food subsistence generally does not increase with increasing latitude (Figure 2B), then the reduction in plant-food subsistence is replaced by increased subsistence on fished animal foods (Figure 2C). As indicated in Figure 2D, the subsistence dependence on combined hunted and fished animal foods is constant in hunter-gatherer societies living at low-to-moderate latitudes (0–40° N or S) and the median value falls within the 46–55% subsistence class interval. For societies living at >40° N or S, there is an increasing latitudinal dependence on animal foods (Figure 2D), which is primarily met by more fished animal foods (Figure 2C). Significant relations exist between latitude and subsistence dependence on gathered plant foods (ρ = −0.77, P < 0.001) and fished animal foods (ρ = 0.58, P < 0.001), whereas no significant relation exists between latitude and subsistence dependence on hunted animal foods (ρ = 0.08, P = 0.23).

So, the claim Lynn and co. make that the colder environments in northern latitudes required more cooperative hunting is not supported in the ethnographic data, instead the decline in reliance on plant foods tends to be made up through fished animal foods. Even more importantly, however, when subsistence patterns are broken down by biome you can see broad categories like ‘cold’ or ‘hot’, or simple metrics like latitude, are less useful than more fine-grained attention to local ecological zones.  

From Cordain et al. (2000).

Wicherts et al. (2010) make a related point in their paper noting some of the numerous problems with the ‘cold winters’ hypothesis, writing that,

it is not obvious that locations farther removed from the African Savannah are geographically and ecologically more dissimilar than locations closer to the African Savannah. For instance, the rainforests of central Africa or the mountain ranges of Morocco are relatively close to the Savannah, but arguably are more dissimilar to it than the great plains of North America or the steppes of Mongolia. In addition, some parts of the world were quite similar to the African savannas during the relevant period of evolution (e.g., Ray & Adams, 2001). Clearly, there is no strict correspondence between evolutionary novelty and geographic distance. This leaves the use of distances in need of theoretical justification. It is also noteworthy that given the time span of evolutionary theories, it is hardly useful to speak of environmental effects as if these were fixed at a certain geographical location.

Another component of the cold winters hypothesis is the notion that expansion into northern latitudes required more extensive, complex clothing. This is not necessarily incorrect, but the emphasis made on this point is likely misleading. Consider the Bororo hunter-gatherers of Mato Grasso, Brazil. Their everyday clothing was generally limited to genital coverings, yet more extensive and complex coverings were worn during ceremonies. Anthropologist Vincent Petrullo describes the robe worn during the ‘jaguar dance’:

The dancer was painted red with urucum and down pasted on his breast. His face was also smeared with urucum. Around his arms were fastened armlets made from strips of burity palm leaf, and his face was covered with a mask made of woman's hair. The foreskin of the penis was tied with a narrow strip of burity palm leaf, for these men under their tattered European clothing still carry this string. A skirt of palm leaf strips was worn, and a jaguar robe was thrown over his shoulders. The skins of practically every speeies of snake to be found in the pantanal hung from his head down his back over the jaguar robe, which was worn with the fur on the ontside. The inner surface of the hide was painted with geometrie patterns, in red and black, but no one could explain the symbolism. A magnificent headdress consisting of many pieces, and containing feathers of many birds of the pantanal completed the costume with the addition of deerhoof rattles worn on the right ankle.

Among the Bororo and other warm weather societies, their local climate disincentivized them from habitually wearing more extensive clothing, yet there is little evidence to suggest they were incapable of doing so and plenty of examples to the contrary (Buckner, n.d.).

From Petrullo (1931).

Rushton and Lynn also make claims about “a reduction of inter-male sexual competitiveness and aggression” among cold weather populations reliant on male hunting, yet in fact the extreme reliance on male subsistence production can exacerbate male-male competition. Among the Copper Inuit, anthropologist Diamond Jenness writes that,

Very few men have more than one wife each. Polygamy increases their responsibilities and the labour required of them; moreover it subjects them to a great deal of jealousy and ill-feeling, especially on the part of men who cannot find wives for themselves. The Eskimo polygamist, therefore, must be a man of great energy and skill in hunting, bold and unscrupulous, always ready to assert himself and to uphold his position by an appeal to force.

Jenness describes one example of wife abduction:

Norak, being unable to obtain a wife elsewhere, laid hands on Anengnak’s second wife one day and began to drag her away. Anengnak caught hold of her on the other side, and a tug of war ensued, but finally Norak, though the smaller of the two, succeeded in dragging her away to his hut and made her his wife.

Further, as I noted in a previous piece discussing the socioecology of polyandry,

Among various Inuit societies, “Exceptionally great hunters are able to support more than one wife; good hunters can support one wife; and mediocre hunters, or those unwilling or unable to take a wife from another man, share a wife.” As we can see, polygyny and polyandry can co-occur, and where some competent, high-status males are able to support multiple wives, lower-status males may end up having to share, or risk having no wife at all.

Also note that this reliance on male hunting can also lead to female-biased infanticide, as I mentioned in a previous article:

Among the Hiwi of Venezuela, and the Ache of Paraguay, female infants and children are disproportionately victims of infanticide, neglect, and child homicide. It is in fact quite common in hunter-gatherer societies that are at war, or heavily reliant on male hunting for subsistence, for female infants to be habitually neglected or killed. In 1931, Knud Rasmussen recorded that, among the Netsilik Inuit, who were almost wholly reliant on male hunting and fishing, out of 96 births from parents he interviewed, 38 girls were killed (nearly 40 percent).

Consider the similarities of the Ache hunter-gathers of the Amazon, and the Inuit of the Arctic—male biased subsistence production, female-biased infanticide, polyandrous unions—the ‘cold winters’ hypothesis cannot explain this but it’s precisely what you’d predict from a behavioral ecology framework. See my discussion of the Asmat hunter-gatherers of New Guinea and their complex social organization in relation to other societies occupying similar ecological zones in different parts of the world.

Bis-pole of the Asmat sedentary fisher-foragers of New Guinea. From Knauft (1993)

House and totem pole of the Haida sedentary fisher-foragers of British Columbia. From Murdock (1934).

In my view, the cold winters hypothesis has little to offer in its current state, and ultimately is driven by mistaken assumptions about human socioecology.

For further reading see Wicherts et al. (2010).

The Bullroarer

This insignificant toy is perhaps the most ancient, widely spread, and sacred religious symbol in the world—Alfred C. Haddon, The Study of Man, 1898.

Among the Northern Paiute foragers of the American Great Basin, there was a toy children would sometimes construct that caused their parents significant consternation. Made of juniper and decorated with black spots or lines, it was tied loosely with deer-hide to a wand-like handle, and then whirled around to make a loud roaring noise.

Children at least occasionally frustrating their parents with their loud amusements is probably a cross-cultural universal—however, here it is not simply the noise of the ‘bullroarer’ that is a source of concern, but the powerful effects it may have on nature itself. Anthropologist Francis Riddell writes that,

The bullroarer, tupununoin, “to whirl”, was used to call the wind. To make the wind blow was kukwápitud. Gladys made bullroarers as a child but her mother and her grandfather, Joaquin, told her not to use them because to do so would call the wind. In fact, children were not allowed to lash the air with switches as this, too, called the wind.

Figure 1. “The bull-roarer and buzzer were both well known to the Gros Ventre, but seem to be only children's toys. They were both called nakaantan ("making cold," a name given also to the thermometer), probably from the widespread Indian idea that the bull-roarer breeds wind.” From Kroeber, 1908.

Similarly, of the Eastern Apache foragers of the North American southwest, anthropologist Morris Edward Opler writes that,

Not all the toys that the children make meet with parental approval: “We used to take a flat stick, make a hole through it, put a string through this hole, and run with it. It makes a noise. Our parents did not want us to do this. They would always scold us when we did it. They said it brought the wind.” Besides this rhombus or bull-roarer, the children make another object somewhat similar in effect: “There is another noisemaker. We use a piece of hide, cut two holes in it, and put a string through. Then we wind up the string and pull it. It makes a noise. A good many of the old people don't like it. They say it will bring wind too.””

Among the Ute foragers, also of the American Great Basin, anthropologist Anne Smith writes that, “The bullroarer was used to call the wind. The neck bone of a buffalo was strung on a sinew string, and the ends of the string were twisted and pulled, while you said “B0000 B0000,” to make the wind come,” while of the Ainu foragers of East Asia, anthropologist Neil Gordon Munro says,

At Shiraoi in 1916 I saw a magical device which produced a booming sound and so may be called a bull-roarer. It looked like a spatula (attush-para) and was used to obtain a favourable wind for hunting deer. Some years ago in Northern Yezo I found a similar object called rera-suyep (wind-raiser). When I mentioned this to the aged Tekatte Fuchi she immediately imitated the swing of the arm and produced the sound of a bull-roarer. She remembered that in her childhood children were not allowed to swing a spatula lest by so doing they raised a storm. It was also said to arrest an epidemic.

To see roughly how common these beliefs are and what their distribution is, I looked through the eHRAF World Cultures database searching for information on the use of bullroarers across the hunter-gatherer societies (defined as deriving >86% of their subsistence from wild resources) represented within it. I found detailed information on the use and function of bullroarers for 23 of the 54 societies coded as hunter-gatherer in the database (Table 1).

Table 1. Functions of bullroarers in hunter-gatherer societies in the eHRAF World Cultures database.

At first glance, you may notice that ‘children’s toy’ seems to be the most common use of bullroarers across these societies, however this appears to be concentrated across North American foragers, who are highly overrepresented in the eHRAF World Cultures files, making up 33 of the 54 total hunter-gatherer societies in the database.

While less common than the bullroarer’s use as a children’s toy, we can see that ‘weather manipulation’ may potentially have an even broader geographic distribution, due to the presence of this practice among the Ainu of East Asia (see Table 1). In this case, we cannot necessarily rule out the possibility that this reflects a shared historical origin or diffusion across Beringia, however. See Hallowell’s (1926) investigation of bear ceremonialism across the Northern Hemisphere for a related example.

Where we have clearer evidence of independent invention of bullroarers is through their association with powerful spirits, or other entities, in forager societies that have been highly isolated from each other historically, such as the Arunta of Central Australia, the Mbuti of Central Africa, the Bororo of Mato Grosso, and the Pomo of California.

Among the Arunta anthropologist Thomas Penniman writes that, “Stone and wooden bullroarers, which are the receptables of the spirits of all the Arunta who have been, are, and will be...The bogey Twanyirrika is a pure fiction used by the men to explain the noise of the bullroarer to women and uninitiated boys,” while among the Bororo anthropologist Stephen Michael Fabian says that, "Uninitiated boys and all females risk death if they see the aije [spirit entity], whose distinctive sound is replicated by the bullroarer. With their iorubodare [initiation sponsor] leading them onward and chased from behind by the menace of the aije whose eery and awesome whirring can be heard for several kilometers, the youths literally “run” or “flee” for much of their training."

Among the Mbuti anthropologist Colin Turnbull says, “The sound of the bull-roarer, a piece of wood that makes a strange whirring noise when spun around on the end of a cord, was meant to be the voice of a forest demon, and the boys had to show due respect and terror when they heard it,” though this practice was influenced by nearby Ituri villagers, and in their own molimo ceremonies Mbuti men use a trumpet (off-limits to women and children) rather than a bullroarer, to embody an animal spirit.

Finally, of the bullroarer among the Pomo, anthropologist S.A. Barrett tells us that,

It resembled the sound of thunder, and was made purposely to imitate thunder. One informant stated that in ancient times the bull-roarer was used primarily in the Thunder dance (kalī'matōtō ke), a dance participated in by men only. The bull-roarer was used only by the head man of this dance, and then only at night. The conception was that it was actually the voice of Thunder himself. The informant expressed it as follows: canē' mīnaū tcadō'dūn nan cītin tcanō'ngan. dance house on top picked up and swung around made talk. The bull-roarer was considered to be a sacred object. It could be manufactured only after proper ceremonial procedure, and the maker had to go out into the woods at some distance from the village and there make a sacrifice. In olden times, women or children were never permitted to see a bull-roarer. As above mentioned, it was used only at night and was kept carefully hidden away at all other times.

What to make of these practices? Modern scholarship in evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences offers some hints. In their 2018 Cell paper ‘Form and Function in Human Song’, Mehr et al., write that,

Research from across the biological sciences demonstrates that the features of auditory signals and other communicative behaviors are shaped by their intended outcomes. For instance, as a general principle, low-frequency, harsh vocal forms with nonlinearities are expected to function in signaling hostility because those features are correlated with increases in body size and larger animals tend to defeat smaller animals in conflicts.

This point about low-frequency, harsh sounds with nonlinearities being expected to function in signaling hostility provides us with a useful framework for understanding the intimidating mimicking of powerful spirit-beings accomplished via the bullroarer across various societies. This idea is also consistent with previous research on this topic. In his cross-cultural survey of bullroarers in his work The Study of Man (1898), anthropologist Alfred C. Haddon writes that, "The weird sound of the whirling bull-roarer is suggestive of unseen forces, and so it naturally becomes associated in men's minds with spirits or ghosts,” while J.D. Harding, in his survey of ‘The Bull-Roarer in History and Antiquity’ (1973), notes that “Such sounds would appear to be ideal for the purpose of the operating bull-roarer in former times, when, inter alia, it was required to inspire awe, to suggest the supernatural, to scare and to terrify.”

Haddon’s (1898) data on the distribution and function of bullroarers across geographic regions exhibits some important similarities and differences with my own findings. Each of our data indicate some societies using bullroarers for weather manipulation in North America, as a children’s toy among the “Eskimo” [Inuit], sacred mysteries involving spirit beings in Australia and parts of Africa, and being taboo to women in Australia and parts of Africa and South America.

Table 2. From Haddon (1898): “I have drawn up the following table in order that we may see at a glance the various purposes for which the bull-roarer is employed, and the different places where it is so used. I have marked with a X those places where that particular use is an universal practice (or very nearly so); the / means that some tribes only use it for that purpose, and a ? indicates that I believe this to be, or to have been, its use.”

The two major discrepancies between our findings are that Haddon (1898) reports the use of bullroarers in sacred mysteries is a near universal across North America, and he does not report their use as a children’s toy there at all. I instead find that bullroarers are commonly children’s toys across North American forager societies, and their use in ceremonies is extant but less widespread.

From The Study of Man (1898) by Alfred C. Haddon.

As Haddon’s survey was published in 1898, and much of the most detailed information about these societies comes from later scholarship, after they had gone through significant changes as a result of colonial contact, this discrepancy may in part reflect a pattern Haddon identified in his own investigation, writing that, “It is the fate of religious symbols to lose their pristine significance, and this has in places overtaken the bull-roarer, so that it has in various localities degenerated into a child's plaything.”

Full data for Table 1 available here.

Sacred Metal

The status of the blacksmith in tribal societies poses one of the most puzzling problems of anthropology. By a strange paradox, this noted craftsman, whose bold and meritorious services are indispensable to his community, has been relegated to a position outside the pale of society, almost as an “untouchable.” Regarded as the possessor of great magical powers, held at the same time in veneration and contempt, entrusted with duties unrelated to his craft or to his inferior social status, that make of him performer of circumcision rites, healer, exorcist, peace-maker, arbiter, counsellor, or head of a cult, his figure in what may be called the “blacksmith complex” presents a mass of contradictions – Laura Makarius, ‘The Blacksmith’s Taboos: From the Man of Iron to the Man of Blood’, 1968.

As it happens, in Mande culture it is the smiths who make all the sculpture, and they own and operate, as administrators, chief priests, and horizontal mask dancers, the powerful Komo secret initiation association – Patrick R. McNaughton, ‘From Mande Komo to Jukun Akuma’, 1992.

Mastering the sacred is a social practice—a performance art of persuasion, imbuing the mundane with a sense of awe and otherness, in ways that are not uncommonly deceptive and self-interested. Men sanctify their labors and their property and monopolize their consecrations with force, as their domination of supernatural forces invites competition and resentment.

The occupation of the blacksmith in small-scale societies can tell us much about men and their pretentions to the control of esoteric knowledge, and from the Mande blacksmiths of West Africa in particular there is much we can learn.

Ubiquitously across societies, metalworking is a male dominated behavior. Yet this is not merely an inevitable, nature-endowed monopoly men enjoy but one they may consciously act to protect, through secrecy or coercion if necessary. Anthropologist Patrick McNaughton writes that among the Mande, “Women in the [heredity] blacksmith clans own the rights to make pottery. Men nearly monopolize wood carving and absolutely monopolize iron working.”

Before we get to how iron working is monopolized, let us consider what Mande blacksmiths actually do. McNaughton provides an extended description of the central role blacksmiths play in Mande society,

We can begin with craft and art, the most material manifestations of blacksmiths’ expertise. We have seen that smiths make nearly every wood and iron product used in Mande society. Many of their products, such as furniture and farming tools, are utilitarian. Many of them, such as komo masks and iron alter staffs, are also sacred and supercharged with potent occult forces. Even in instances, such as boat making or leather working, where smiths are not the manufacturers, they make the tools the manufacturers use.

In a realm that uses material elements to achieve nonmaterial ends, smiths are masters at other types of manufacture. As herbalists they make medicines to improve the physical state of their clients. As soothsayers they use a variety of natural materials to make prophecies and proffer explanations regarding the present and future state of things. As circumcisers they use the human body to make fundamental changes in the human condition that affect forever the social and spiritual domains in which men operate.

Finally, in a realm that ignores material and balances spiritual and social elements, blacksmiths are masters at making, verifying, and helping to enforce arrangements among people. Their counsel is sought in important family and community matters. Their wisdom is sought when people compose new social or political alliances or break society’s rules, and it is sought again when parents consign their sons to the smiths who govern komo associations, where the youths’ education and socialization proceeds in earnest. With komo as our example we see how any of the works of smiths can blend into a single arena, because here sculpture is used, amulets are made, and soothsaying transpires, all with the goal of transforming boys into men (McNaughton, 149).

Amidst this description illustrating the central, prosocial role of the blacksmith in Mande society, the allusions to the komo association hints at a much more complex character. McNaughton writes that,

Many Mande believe a legendary smith named Ndomajiri created the ntomo association, which provides an arduous, trying, and sometimes painful program of socialization. Indeed, this boys' association is the first organized effort on the part of society to make irresponsible male children into responsible male adults. As part of that process the neophytes are at a certain point led to the bush and forced to confront what is for them at their age and stage of cultural development a most horrifying instrument. They are visited by a monstrous horizontal mask, which belongs to one of the most powerful secret Mande initiation associations, komo. It consists of enormous jaws, huge horns, and all kinds of organic matter, apparently held together by what looks like a surface of filth. This unsavory creature seems clearly to be in its own domain, wild space, and it suggests with graphic force the kinds of problems antisocial citizens are likely to encounter. In spite of its obvious social dislocation, it appears on behalf of society to encourage youth in their proper development, thereby adding confusion to fear. Since their earliest days these boys have heard about komo. They have been told that it kills sorcerers and any intemperate soul who sees it without being initiated into its cult. Gradually, as they grow older, they learn that the mask and its association articulate concepts about nature, the spirit world, sorcery, and the nature of people and society, and they come to see the mask in a wholly different light. At this first sighting however, they understand very little about the beast. They do know, however, that the mask and the association are things of blacksmiths, the same group of people who will circumcise them and the protect them from the operation's hazards, who will provide them the tools of their trade and possibility visit sorcery upon them. It is easy to see why people view smiths with ambivalence (McNaughton, 19).

Elephant Mask, Komo society

McNaughton also describes the insular secrecy of the endogamous blacksmith clans, writing that,

In the minds of most Mande, and certainly in the minds of the blacksmiths, endogamy (with its corollary, inherited membership) is a primary characteristic of the nyamakala [specialized professionals] group. While anyone can leave one of these special professions to become a carpenter, a modern mechanic, a government employee or anything else one likes, only children born to families that belong to these professional clans can take up the trades their parents practice. It is first of all a matter of corporate identity and of monopoly. A tremendous body of technical expertise is associated with each trade, and it must be learned over many years of apprenticeship that traditionally begin before the novice turns ten. That makes it inconvenient for outsiders who might want to enter these professions. Then there is the matter of special attributes. Nearly everyone believes that members of these special clans possess a mysterious spiritual power that underpins occult practices and makes the people possessing it potentially dangerous. These powers go well beyond the practice of the clan's special trade, but they are also considered essential to anyone who takes it up. Often members of these clans go to great lengths to nourish a belief in their power among the rest of the population. Indeed, they generally believe in it themselves. Furthermore, they say they are born with much of this power. It is part of their heritage and one of the things that makes them so different from everyone else. That too creates a profound handicap for any outsider who might want to earn a clan's special trade (McNaughton, 3).

Underneath the secrecy we find once again coalitions of men monopolizing esoteric knowledge for themselves and their lineage, with the concomitant benefits and dangers this may incur.