Band

Bands have been found primarily among foragers, especially self-sufficient pedestrian
foragers. The total number of people within these societies rarely exceeds a few dozen. Bands
are essentially associations of families living together. They are loosely allied by marriage,
descent, friendship, and common interest. The primary integrating mechanism for these
societies is kinship. Bands are extremely egalitarian--all families are essentially equal. There is
no economic class differentiation. However, there are often clear status differences based on
gender and age.

There is a horizontal status and power relationship in bands between all adults of the same
gender. They are more or less equal as far as community decision making is concerned.
However, some individuals in a band stand out for their skills and knowledge. These often are
the people who have the best memories, are the best hunters, most successful curers, most
gifted speakers, or have some other special ability. Such people become informal leaders.
Most often they are given authority by community consensus arrived at through casual
discussion without the need for a formal vote. This is possible because the entire society is
small and everyone knows everyone else intimately as a result of living and working together
throughout their lives. Band leaders generally have temporary political power at best, and they
do not have any significant authority relative to other adults. They can give advice and propose
action, but they do not have the formal authority to force others to accept their decisions.

The principle goal of politics in most bands is making sure that people get along with each other.
This is not easy given human nature. There is always the potential for social disruption brought
about by individuals failing to share food, sexual competition for the same mate, or other
personal conflicts. Given the small size of bands and the fact that everyone is involved in the
lives of everyone else, quarrels quickly become community problems that have the potential for
splitting the band along family lines. In fact, band fissioning apparently has been a common
occurrence. As the number of people in a society increases, the potential for disruptive
interpersonal conflicts inevitably rises. Subsequently, the likelihood of families deciding to leave
and form their own bands increases. Richard Lee has referred to this process as social velocity.
He observed that among the ju/'hoansi of southwest Africa, fissioning often occurred before
a community reached the full carrying capacity of the environment. In other words, it was not
food scarcity but, rather, social discord that was the cause of the break-up.

Typically, there is no leadership position in bands that has the authority to conclusively settle
disputes, punish criminals, prevent families from leaving, or represent the entire community in
dealings with outsiders. Decisions are made by community consensus, but people who don't
agree with the consensus generally do not have to accept it. During the late 19th century, this
highly democratic diffused political system of bands made it difficult for the U.S. government to
create binding treaties with some Native American societies in the West. It was naively
assumed by the federal government that when "spokesmen" for a band agreed to a treaty that it
legally bound all members of their society to its terms. From the perspective of the band
members, it really only obligated those specific individuals who agreed to the treaty. If others in
the band failed to follow the terms of the agreement, the federal government assumed that they
were going back on a legal agreement. This cultural misunderstanding on both sides was the
consequence of having radically different kinds of political systems as well as profound
ethnocentrism.

Ethnographic accounts suggest that the political power and status of women in many pedestrian
foraging bands was surprisingly high, especially compared to pastoralist and agricultural
societies. Since forager women in all but the cold polar regions usually provided most of the
food calories consumed, they performed economically critical roles for their families and society
as a whole. Men generally hunted for meat. This was often the most desirable but usually the
least dependable food source. The central economic role for women in providing vegetable
foods, along with traditions of diffused political power in bands, allowed women to voice their
opinions at important community meetings. Clearly, women in some types of foraging societies
had significantly less political clout. The status and authority of women in aquatic and
equestrian foraging societies was usually far lower than that of men. This may be due to the
fact that men generally provided most of the food in these societies that depended on meat as
their principal source of calories. In addition, the passionate military focus of equestrian
foraging societies put men in a position to dominate political decision making.

No band level societies survive today with their traditional form of political organization intact.
However, they did until the last half of the 19th century in out-of-the-way regions of northern
Siberia, the desert and sub-arctic regions of North America and Greenland, the tropical lowlands
of Central and South America, the Australian desert interior and tropical north, as well as a few
isolated areas of Southeast Asia. While it is easy to think of these people and their traditional
way of life in the past as oddities, it is important to keep in mind that the distant ancestors of all
people on earth lived in bands at one time. Before the end of the last ice age, around 10,000
years ago, it is likely that very few societies had more complex levels of political integration.
Members of an Inuit and in northern

Canada during the late 19th century