Different Sources of Variation in Marriage and Mating Systems in the !Kung San Hunter-Gatherer and the Yanomamo Horticulturalist Societies Essay Example

Marriage is a fundamental practice that influences village dynamics and political processes in many societies in past and present human cultures. Not only is marriage a process that supports human kinship systems, it allows for alliances and reciprocity systems between groups that create variation in human social organization (Walker et al. 2011). This paper explores the sources of variation in marriage and mating systems in two very different societies, the !Kung San and the Yanomamo, in terms of the vastly different environments each of them inhabit. The !Kung San, a traditional nomadic hunter-gatherer society, reside in the Dobe area on the edge of the Kalahari desert of Botswana (Shostak 1981, p.7). Due to the demanding environment of the desert, the San live in mobile groups of approximately ten to thirty individuals in semi-permanent villages (Shostak 1981, p.7). These highly mobile villages enable people to move to access resources, such as a variety of nuts, bulbs and fruits, of which women contribute approximately 60% to 80% of the total, as well as hunting game, which is primarily attained by men (Shostak 1981, p.11-13). The Yanomamo, a horticultural society, live in the Amazonian tropical rainforest of Venezuela and Brazil, where they are settled in villages of approximately forty to fifty people, and tend to gardens of endemic plant species (Chagnon 2009, p.1, 5). The Yanomamo rely heavily on the plant species they procure from these cultivated plants that make up approximately 80% to 90% of their diet, although men go hunting daily for meat from a variety of game animals (Changnon 2009, p.5, 63). These differences in the environment cause changes to marriage and mating systems, thus causing variation in social organization.

The village dynamics in Yanomamo society are largely determined by kinship, descent, and marriage arrangements made within and between villages by older male kin (Chagnon 2009, p.7, 121). The giving and receiving of marriageable