A Comparative History of Indigenous Gender Roles: The Case of the Khoesan and the Great Plains Indians

Calumet Links, Stellenbosch University
Anne McCants, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Seventeenth century Khoesan and nineteenth century Great Plains Indian societies used a combination of nomadic pastoral and hunter-gatherer activities to sustain and reproduce their communities and have been theorised as communities within which women enjoyed a great deal of agency. Nevertheless, these classless, kin-centred communities were often much more complex than this reductive view leads us to believe. This paper makes use of Collier's (1975) ideal-typic marriage models for analysing gender inequality in kin-based, non-stratified communities to compare and contrast these cases. These models present a useful theoretical framework within which to compare gender dynamics in seventeenth century Khoesan and nineteenth century Great Plains Indian societies. In the case of the Khoesan, Collier's framework suggests that they operated under an unequal-bride wealth system. Women had limited power or decision-making authority, and their role was largely confined to the domestic sphere. The unequal bride-wealth model implies that Khoe women were often treated as commodities and had very little agency. As the price paid was often very high, male dominance was perceived as a bought privilege. That said, Khoesan women had some degree of autonomy within their households, especially as tribal survival often critically depended on the hunter-gatherer and trade activities of the women. In contrast, the Great Plains Indians had significantly varied gender dynamics depending on specific tribal practises. Hämäläinen (2008), shows that Comanche women played a significant role in the household economy, while men were responsible for hunting, warfare, and horse-raiding. However, women also had a say in decision-making within their communities, such that their role was not confined solely to the domestic sphere. This suggests these hunter horticulturalists which operated under a bride-service model appeared to be uncharacteristically egalitarian. Other tribes such as the Cheyenne employed an equal-bride wealth model with different gender power implications than for the Comanche.

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 Presented in Session 47. Gender Roles