A critique of Anderson et al.’s (2023) PLoS ONE paper on Women’s hunting
We present a critique of the methodology employed by Anderson et al (2023) in their study of women’s hunting in foraging societies. When this new article was published, my students (undergraduate Jordie Hoffman and master’s student Kyle Farquharson) and I were putting the final touches on our own cross-cultural study of women’s hunting. This paper has been posted as a pre-print here. Given our recent immersion in this literature, we feel well-positioned to comment on this new study. We have identified a number of issues with Anderson et al’s (2023) methodology. While we applaud their investigation of this important issue, and we thank the authors for drawing our attention to sources that we ourselves had not discovered, we believe the main conclusions of their paper are invalidated by these issues.
We argue two main points about this paper:
-The sampling methodology is likely biased toward reports of female hunters, producing an inflated estimate of the frequency of women’s hunting (80%). More realistic estimates are offered.
-The claim that women commonly participate in the hunting of large game does not hold up under closer scrutiny.
This critique is by no means exhaustive. It does not deal with other significant problems about this paper, including the misrepresentation of consensus views on divisions of labor in foragers and of the intellectual history of Man the Hunter (Venkataraman 2021). Other critiques may be read here and here.
Sampling Methodology
Anderson et al (2023) surveyed 391 forager societies in the D-PLACE ethnographic database and found that 63 societies were associated with ‘explicit’ information about hunting. As the senior author told the newspaper El Pais, the final 63 societies were arrived at by explicitly looking for “studies detailing hunting behavior and strategies,” and that if the studies lacked tables, statistics or details, they were discarded. This sampling strategy suggests the authors believe these 63 societies represent an unbiased sample.
Of these, 50 showed evidence of women’s hunting. For each society, women’s hunting was indicated by a binary variable for presence/absence. The authors did not describe what level of involvement in hunting qualified as presence; however, as the paper is written, it is implied that direct involvement in hunting is required.
Anderson et al (2023) argue that 50/63 (80%) forager societies show evidence of women’s hunting. For the estimate of 80% to hold up across all foragers, their sample of 63 societies would need to be representative of the broader literature. However, there are a number of societies with detailed information on subsistence behavior, including hunting, that were not included in their study. These might be found in sources with large compilations of foraging behavior such as Kaplan et al (2000) and Kraft et al (2021), among others. Dozens of such societies could appear in such a list. Because there are so many populations with ‘explicit’ - if not in-depth - descriptions of foraging returns, we are not confident that Anderson et al’s (2023) sampling strategy was not biased toward reports of women hunters. The lack of description in their methods does little to allay this concern.
Estimating the frequency of women’s hunting
Based on our forthcoming paragraph-level survey of women’s hunting (Hoffman et al. in prep) using the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), we found that reports of women’s hunting were genuinely rare. Our analysis revealed only 232 paragraphs across 53 societies in this large database. If we consider data from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS), which consists of 186 societies, we found that 29 societies had evidence of women’s hunting. This translates to a frequency of 15.5%( 29/186). We also conducted a search on the D-PLACE database, focusing on the “Sex Difference: Hunting” variable. Out of 965 societies, only 14 (1.4%) were coded for the presence of women’s hunting. Of those 14 groups, 12 were hunter-gatherers, and the other two were agriculturalists. If we treat 965 as a reasonable denominator for the number of societies and consider the 53 societies we found, this would raise the frequency of women’s hunting to 5.5% (53/965). This estimate covers all subsistence types. If we consider only the forager cases (n=391), the frequency would be calculated as 13.5% (53/391). Finally, Koster et al (2020) synthesized data on hunting across 40 small-scale societies. There was little data on hunting by women. Though the authors caution against generalizing about sex differences based on low female sample sizes, it is important to recognize that much of the data in that study came from well-studied populations (e.g. Ache, Batek, Pume). This would suggest the behavior is indeed uncommon.
Our search of reports on women’s hunting using the SCCS in the HRAF revealed nearly an 80% match with the ethnographies found by Anderson et al (2023). This convergence suggests our study and that of Anderson et al (2023) have synthesized the vast majority of ethnographic reports on women’s hunting, and do not support the idea that there is a large unsampled literature on the topic. Therefore, assuming that 80% of the 328 societies unsampled by Anderson et al (2023) will also show evidence of women’s hunting is not warranted.
In summary, the frequency of women’s hunting depends on the type of calculation performed. We argue that any reasonable calculation puts this number well below 20%. Our findings confirm previous cross-cultural work on the topic and contrast starkly with those of Anderson et al’s (2023) estimate of 80%, which, we suggest, likely results from biased sampling.
Presence-absence coding
Anderson et al (2023) coded their data at the society level; they did not conduct a paragraph-level analysis, so it was not possible to ascertain where the relevant text was located that provided evidence for or against a given variable. Their analysis is not easily replicated. Their coding scheme does not account for the frequency of women’s hunting in a society or the amount of prey acquired. It would code women’s hunting as present if the case were a single report or habitual involvement. This gives no indication about how important women’s hunting actually is when situated in a broader societal context, nor whether hunting represents a common female strategy. As noted below, we find that such cases are regularly conflated in this dataset.
Coding errors
Of the 50 societies for which Anderson et al (2023) documented women’s hunting, 28 were coded as involving small- or medium-sized game. Of these 28, we were able to confirm 21 cases. Seven societies coded with positive evidence for women’s hunting (all linked to small-game hunting) had no associated references. There were other cases that we could not verify. Below we provide commentary on select cases that we find problematic or that warrant further consideration.
Ganij
In Table 1, the authors reference Hewlett (1996), which has only one reference to the Ganij in a paragraph that is about breastfeeding. We were unable to locate any mention of women’s hunting.
Kalaallit
In Table 1, the authors reference Issenman (1997), which contains evidence of women’s active contribution to the communal hunting of caribou but provides no evidence of women hunting for small- or medium-sized game. It is not clear why this wasn’t coded as an example of large-game hunting.
Lardil
Memmott et al (2008) focused on fishing techniques and the trapping of fish, dugong, and turtle. The latter two prey types would, in fact, be quite large and perhaps better classified as large game. However, it was not explicitly noted that women were participating in the hunting.
Iroquois
The Iroquois are not foragers but rather agriculturalists focusing on maize.
Kikuyu
This Bantu ethnic group from Kenya are agriculturalists, not foragers.
Tsimane
The Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon are small-scale hunter-horticulturalists, not foragers.
Maidu
The reference to the southern Maidu is to Faye (1923). The article mentions the making and setting of snares but does not specify if men or women are using them. The only mention of women concerning hunting practices was the use of women’s hair in the creation of snares.
Torres Strait Islanders
Anderson et al (2023) code this society as 2, indicating medium-sized game, but with a note that the reference is about fishing. The reference, Bird (2007), discussed women’s focus on shellfish collecting and reliable types of fishing. It is not clear why this case of fishing warranted inclusion but others did not.
Matses
The Matses of Peru and Brazil are Amazonian hunter-horticulturalists (p. 1, Romanoff 1984). They are not hunter-gatherers.
Wopkaimin
As noted in the reference cited by Anderson et al (2023), to Kyndman(1984), the Wopkaimin are hunter-horticulturalists from New Guinea. They are not hunter-gatherers.
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Large-game hunting
Anderson et al (2023) argue that women participate in large-game hunting in one-third of their surveyed societies. This claim is surprising - if not extraordinary - because it contradicts the consensus that women in foraging societies do not generally participate in big-game hunting.
Of the 50 societies with reports of women’s hunting, 45 societies had information on prey size. For these 45 societies, Anderson et al (2023) coded three types of hunting: small game (1), medium game (2), large game (3), and all (4). Women were found to conduct large-game hunting in 17 of these 45. The way in which these size categories are distinguished is not specified. In some cases (generally not specified), the size of prey was determined indirectly. For example, Anderson et al (2023) coded prey struck with large sticks and machetes as large game. Needless to say, this is a problematic assumption.
In the following, we analyze reports of women’s hunting that were coded by Anderson et al (2023) to indicate pursuit of large prey (coded as 3 or 4). Outside sources of literature were sought about those societies, as a number of references given were secondary rather than primary sources. Of the 17 putative cases of large-game hunting by women, 9 are associated with references to secondary sources (with no indication of the authors having searched through the original sources) or not referenced at all.
As we show below, few of these cases show any compelling evidence for large-game hunting by women. Most reported prey sizes are small- or medium-sized. Of the cases that do involve large-game hunting by women, some pertain to whale hunting; some involve firearms and/or dogs; some occur in the context of husband-wife pairs in which women contribute to hunting success indirectly; some involve cases of women hunting large game alone out after the death of their husbands; other instances of large-game hunting are explicitly stated by the ethnographer to be very rare. This is not to say that these are not cases of large-game hunting, but the broader context of their occurrence casts suspicion on them as cultural regularities. This provides a starkly different picture of women’s hunting in these societies compared to the analysis of Anderson et al (2023).
Societal Overview
!Kung and Ju/’hoansi
Two references are given for this single ethnolinguistic group, and notably, the data are treated as two independent data points. A 3 is coded for the !Kung, in reference to Lee (1979), but no page number is given. In Chapter 9 of that book, called ‘Men, Women, and Work’ Lee reviews the subsistence behaviour of the band he studied. He presents original data on time allocation and foraging returns. The !Kung hunted with dogs, snares, and clubs. The species hunted included warthog, steenbok, porcupine, python, honey badger, bat-eared fox, hare, kori bustard, and korhaan (Table 9.7). We were unable to find any reference to women’s hunting in this section. All hunters are men. Table 9.3 presents data on person-days of different kinds of work. In that table, women are listed as performing zero person-days of hunting. This zero is important because it shows that Lee was attentive to the possibility that women were participating in hunting. These are genuine zeros. Indeed, one of Lee’s major contributions from his field study was demonstrating the caloric importance of women’s gathering returns to the band’s diet. Given Lee’s precision and theoretical orientation, it is difficult to imagine that women were conducting big-game hunting and that it escaped his notice, or that he noticed and decided to not write about it.
Though the Ju/’hoansi are coded as a 2 (medium-sized game), we examined this reference because they are identical with the !Kung. The reference is Brightman’s (1996) review article, but it mentions little about Ju/’hoansi women hunting. The Ju/’hoansi are mostly mentioned as being a society in which women are prohibited from hunting. For example: “Men are not excluded from gathering, whereas women are totally excluded from hunting. Women never participate in a !Kung hunt. Furthermore, the !Kung that femaleness weakens the hunters' prowess and endangers his chance of success, and they practice certain avoidances for keeping femaleness apart from hunting. No such beliefs and no social regulations restrict men from gathering whenever they wish” (Marshall 1976). Brightman (1996) also writes: “The Dobe Ju/'hoansi pose an interesting case of women who own arrows and loan them to men but, predictably, do not hunt with them. (Lee 1979).
Shostak (1982, p. 220) gave some description of women hunting small game but refutes that idea that women are considered hunters:
“The economic picture becomes more complex when hunting and gathering activities are looked at more closely. Animal protein is not brought into the village only by men. Women collect lizards, snakes, tortoises' and birds' eggs, and insects and caterpillars, as well as occasional small or immature mammals. They also provide men with crucial information on animal tracks and animal movement that they observe while they travel in the bush. But !Kung women cannot be considered hunters in any serious way. The one prominent exception I heard about was a middle-aged woman who allegedly craved meat so intensely and was so tired of complaining that her husband was lazy that she decided to go out and hunt for herself. I was, unfortunately, never able to meet her. Those who knew her (including men) said that she was a fairly proficient hunter, but it was clear that she was considered eccentric and was in no way seen as a model for other women to emulate. She earned far less respect for her accomplishments than a man would have, as was evident from the snickering that accompanied discussions about her. No one actually said that what she was doing was wrong, but it was repeatedly pointed out that she was the only one. She was, however, considered accountable for her actions primarily in relation to herself, rather than in relation to her husband; her behavior was not seen as emphasizing his shortcomings or publicly emasculating him. This would probably not have been the case in many other societies, including our own.”
The reader should consult Biesele and Barclay’s (2001) for a more thorough explication of !Kung hunting practices and women’s contributions, in particular their excellent descriptions of how !Kung wives contribute to their husbands’ hunting success.
Efe
The reference given for this Central African rainforest population in Anderson et al (2023) is a secondary reference to Brightman (1996). In that paper, the original references point to two sources: Terashima (1983) and Bailey and Aungur (1989). Terashima (1983) found Efe women participating in a limited number of special hunts, which he described as follows. He writes that “A few women must participate in musiolo hunting for symbolical tasks.” He goes on to say:
“The part women played in the hunt was symbolic and ritual rather than practical. Before setting out for the hunt a pre-hunt ritual was performed by some women of the host band of the hunt. In this ritual they set fire to certain herbs and other materials which have symbolic meaning of a good hunt. In the forest they made a hunting fire at the root of a certain tree before the hunt started. During the hunt they sometimes cut a vine into about one-meter-long piece and shaked it strongly several times, sprinkling the forest with the water contained in that vine.The women progressed in accord with the male hunt team, often occupying the rear part of the formation.They sang songs or shouted something occasionally, but most of the time continued their march in silence. They never took the lead in beating game which was the business of the men and dogs. Considering the small number of the women-participants evidently they were not expected to be practical hunters.”
Bailey and Aungur (1989) note that Bailey has unpublished observations that Efe women participated in a limited number of hunts that occur only during one season, and they conclude that “hunting by archer women is a rare event.” There are also other references to women’s hunting in this population. Across 387 hours of observation, Peacock (1985) found that Efe archer women spent no time hunting. Peacock (1991, p. 355) also notes that women’s hunting is rare: “For women, the most common activities are village work, food processing, foraging, and collecting firewood and water.” In regard to hunting, a carrying role seems to be more common: "The association of burden carrying with women's work is so strong that when men kill a very large animal, they will travel considerable distances back to camp in order to fetch women to carry the meat, rather than carrying it back themselves." (Peacock 1991:356)
Peacock (1991) also writes “A minimal exposure to danger is one feature said to characterize women’s work activities, and this seems to be the case for the Efe….when women participate in hunts (occasionally among the Efe and routinely among net hunters), they always act as ‘beaters,’ so that they are behind rather than in front of fleeing animals are not in the immediate vicinity of weapon use….in short, although efe women frequently suffer relatively minor traumas, it is the men who are placed in potentially fatal situations during the course of their regular subsistence activities.”
In summary, the role of Efe women in hunting appears to be important in its ritualistic and symbolic elements. But there is little evidence that Efe women conduct big-game hunting.
Mbuti
Of the Mbuti net-hunters of the Central African rainforests, Anderson et al (2023) offer a secondary reference to Brightman (1996). Our search for Mbuti in this article did not reveal any reference to hunting behaviour, but Brightman (1996) cites Ichikawa (1987, p. 101), who writes:
“The principal hunting method in the Tetri region is net hunting in which both men and women participate.The major animals caught by the nets are forest duikers and chevrotains which together account for more than 80% of the total catch (Tanno,1976:Ichikawa 1983). These animals are collectively called amapanda or hapanda. Women are prohibited from eating the heart, lung, liver, spleen, kidney and testicles of these animals and the head of medium-sized duikers. Moreover the women in the Tetri region are entirely prohibited from eating chevrotains and Bate's antelopes. It is said that if the women should eat such prohibited animals or apan of them it would spoil the net hunting. On the contrary only women and children can eat frogs freshwater crabs and snails. When they eat these animals, however they should not be cooked in the same pot that used for cooking meal. To do so would spoil the hunt.”
Chevrotain average 9-12 kg, and forest duikers are generally small-bodied, ranging from 5-25 kg (Ichikawa 2021). Ichikawa (1987) notes that duikers are a relatively minor portion of the Mbuti diet.
Bailey and Aunger (1989) present evidence that Mbuti women’s participation in hunting (versus working agricultural labour for farmers) depends on the value of meat, with higher likelihood of hunting when meat is more highly priced. They note that women’s participation in net hunting is frequent but slightly less than men’s. The common target of net hunting is duiker antelopes. In another study of net-hunters, Wilkie and Curran (1991, Table 4) describe how net-hunters caught six species of duiker, one species of guenon monkey, in addition to guinea fowl and tortoise. This mirrors the descriptions of Hart (1978), Hart and Hart (1986), and Terashima (1983).
Taken together, small game are generally targeted by the Mbuti as a reliable source of meat (Ichikawa 2021). Ichikawa (2021) describes an elephant hunt by the Mbuti in which women danced ritualistically the night before the hunt. Pursuit occurs by specialists (batuma), who are men. Accordingly, Mbuti women’s involvement in cooperative hunting is prominent but not oriented toward large game.
Bakola
The primary description of this rainforest group from Cameroon (Ngima 2006) describes similar hunting techniques as the Baka from southeastern Cameroon and the Aka of the Central African Republic. As among the Mbuti and Aka, women play an important role in Bakola net hunting, but their main subsistence responsibility is gathering. Women also kill small animals with machetes, and dogs are frequently used. Ngima writes that “married women also carry the spears of their husbands whenever they enter into the forest by themselves to gather wild food, or to hunt small animals like Gambian rats. Spear hunting is practiced individually, even on the spot when they encounter with a target.” No explicit mention is made of large game hunting by women in this source. It may be the case that women hunted bushpig in the past, which may constitute large-game hunting in the style of the Agta (Goodman et al 1985). Taken together, women’s hunting among the Bakola is similar to other Central African rainforest foragers. We do not consider this group to show evidence of women hunting large game.
Ainu
References to this Indigenous population from Japan are not from a primary source but rather from a paper about the Agta of the Philippines (Goodman et al 1985). The original report appears to come from the Man the Hunter volume itself, in a contribution by the anthropologist Hitoshi Watanabe (1968). He reports that women’s hunting among the Ainu involves the use of rope and dogs. His remarks on women’s hunting are worth quoting in full (p. 74):
“Hunting of small animals by women is not a rare phenomenon. Among such peoples as the Shoshoni and the aboriginal Australians, it is, in fact, a woman’s occupation…In case of relatively large mammals there is information from various peoples that women take part in communal hunts. Occasional cases are not unknown of women hunting large mammals alone. Some Copper Eskimo women hunted seal and the caribou occasionally; Ainu women and children sometimes hunted deer with sticks, ropes and/or dogs when they had opportunities. But there is no society in which individualistic or noncommunal hunting of larger mammals is the socially recognized regular occupation of women. It is this individualistic hunting of larger mammals that is invariably the task of males. Communal hunts, however, do not always exclude females…Among modern hunter-gatherers, exclusion of females from the individualistic hunting of larger mammals seems to be closely related to the making and using of hunting weapons and associated economic and/or religious ideas. Women have no weapons of their own which are specially made to hunt animals. If they want to hunt they must do so without weapons such as sticks. Rarely do they use specially made hunting weapons such as harpoons or spears, although these might be borrowed temporarily from males. Under these restrictions women’s hunting activities are confined to small animal hunts, communal hunts in which they take part in driving, and, very rarely, individual hunts of larger mammals.”
This final paragraph is Watanabe’s general description of women’s participation in hunting among Arctic foraging populations. It is telling that his assessment is that only ‘very rarely’ do women conduct individual hunts of large mammals. These cases should be regarded as genuine but rare. More common seems to be the hunting of small mammals, as has been widely documented.
Agta and Ayta
Two rows are coded for this single ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines, both citing Goodman et al (1985), an article which describes women’s hunting in several Philippine groups: the Pinatubo Negritos of the Zambales mountains of western Luzon, the Agta of northeastern Luzon and Cagayan provinces (p. 1201). This is perhaps the most famous report of female hunters in the ethnographic record. Oddly enough, no mention is made in Goodman et al (1985) about the actual game that the Agta hunt, so it is unclear how Anderson et al (2023) arrived at prey size estimates. However, other sources on Agta female hunting reveal this to be mostly wild pig, deer, and monkey (Estioko Griffin and Griffin 1981). The former two may be classified as constituting large game.
Australian Martu
Anderson et al (2023) reference work by Bird and Bird (2008) on the Mardu/Martu of Western Australia. Oddly enough, the major finding of this classic paper is that divisions of labour derive from differential risk aversion profiles for men and women, with women focusing on smaller game. Table 3 of Bird and Bird (2008) present data on the gendered division of labour. In terms of kilocalories produced, women exceed men in the following: goanna (~6 kg), perentie (max 15 kg), yellow monitor lizard (Varanus panoptes, ~7kg), fruit, root, feral cats, grubs, seeds, and nectar. The only large game animal pursued by the population was kangaroo (30-50 kg), and ~97% of the kilocalories from kangaroo hunting was produced by men. This reference does not support the idea - and, in fact, contradicts - the idea that Martu women are large-game hunters.
Iñupiaq
The reference to Indigenous peoples from the North and Northwest coast of Alaska is again secondary, to Brightman (1996). However, there is no detail in this paper about direct hunting by Iñupiaq, only that women have ritualistic influence over men (Brightman 1996, p. 708). The original reference is to Bodenhorn (1990), an interesting paper about gender relations. Bodenhorn’s main argument is that women contribute to hunting success in a variety of ways, largely pertaining to ritual performance. Bodenhorn (1990) writes (p. 58): “Wives ritually attract the animals and are thus classed as hunters by Iñupiaq men.”
Animals pursued include bowhead whales, beluga, seals, walrus, and waterfowl, as well as inland fish and caribou. Of the gendered division of labor, Bodenhorn (1990) writes:
“When I asked questions about women's or men's work and looked at what activities seemed classified by gender, they reflected almost exactly the division of labor as set out by 19th century ethnographers (Murdoch, 1892; Simpson, 1875). Men make tools, hunt and fish. They might hunt alone, with a spouse, or with other partners. Larger animals (bearded seal, walrus or beluga, for instance) are frequently pursued in groups. Women fish, hunt occasionally, help to butcher, preserve and prepare the food, tan the skins, sew (both clothing and the skin covering of the whaling boats) and take care of the children. ” The author emphasizes that the spousal partnership is the main economic unit of the society, which includes hunting.”
Bodenhorn (1990) also says: “It should be emphasized that this is a gendered, not a sexual, division of labor, for there is nothing in this model that assigns a 'natural’ meaning to the tasks that men and women perform. Men and women are not thought to be somehow congenitally incapable of doing something generally assigned to a member of the opposite sex (see also Briggs 1974). According to Murdoch (1892), for instance, going out in the whale boat was considered a man's job. If there was a labor shortage, however, women were immediately recruited, a not uncommon occurrence…” (p. 60)
Continuing, Bodenhorn (1990) writes: “Similarly, Murdoch (1892: 413) talks about a woman who is "a good shot and a dab hand at deer hunting" and who chooses to go hunting rather than accompany her husband on a trading expedition. If a woman was "a crack shot" (and I have known several), she was considered skilled rather than un-womanlike. Traditionally it was a woman's job to bring the hunted meat back home. Consequently, they knew the land as well as their husbands, were better dog handlers than men, and "often better trackers" (Burch, personal communication). Conversely, men's hunting kits always contained a set of sewing tools. A split seam in one's clothing at -40° demands immediate repair. The more you know how to do, the more likely you are to survive. Certainly today, "survival" was the most common reason given in answer to questions about why people did one thing rather than another.”
Bodenhorn (1990) gives a very balanced, and complex, picture of mutual respect and contribution within the marital bond: “Among Iñupiat, as among Northern hunters in general, hunting is a sacred act. Animals give themselves up to men whose wives are generous and skillful; it is also the man's responsibility to treat the animal properly, but it is the woman to whom the animal comes. Shortly after my arrival in Barrow in 1980, preparations for fall whaling began. I mentioned something to Ernie Frankson, a Point Hoper, about "only men hunting". He looked at me for a moment and said gently, "the whale comes to the whaling captain's wife". When asking Leona Okakok about this, she remembered one very successful inland hunter who simply said, "I'm not the great hunter, my wife is". He was alluding to her generosity, not to her skill with a rifle. Confirmation of this from other men was consistent: "yes, these were very strong beliefs"; "it has been like that from way back". “(p. 61)
Bodenhorn (1990) also discusses whaling: “Whaling involves cooperation that extends well beyond the marital couple. Whale crews endure over time. Members may be, but are not necessarily related and each crew includes the specialized positions of harpooner, captain (umialik ) and his wife ("the whaling couple" according to Patrick Attungana 1986: 16). Once a whale is struck, all available crews help tow it close to the village and many people are recruited to pull it onto the ice, butcher it and take it to shore. Redistribution rules effectively ensure a flow of whale meat throughout the community over the course of the annual cycle.”
There is further description of how the butchering of the animals falls to the wife and must be done properly to ensure future success. Wives would also ask the moon for success in attracting animals to hunters. As Bodenhorn says “It is the woman's job to attract the animals and thus, to hunt.” Women are also involved in sharing meat. The reader is encouraged to read this nuanced paper for more detail.
In summary, Iñupiaq women contribute to hunting success in the context of husband-wife collaborative teams, largely through ritualistic (attracting animals) and logistical (sewing, butchering, sharing) support. Importantly, these are considered by the population themselves as constituting hunting skills (Bodenhorn 1990). However, for the purposes of the present discussion, it is notable that Iñupiaq women only rarely participate actively in hunting, and much less so than their husbands. This case might be considered as a circum-Arctic parallel to the description of husband-wife collaboration described for the !Kung in Biesele and Barclay (2001).
Belcher Island Eskimo
The references are from a paper by Guemple (1986), who writes (p. 13-14):
“Women's traditional work includes tending the household lamp, preparation of food, basic infant care and child supervision, the maintenance of the home and its furnishings, and the construction and repair of dog harnesses, etc. Women along with children of both genders do some shoreline fishing, and berry picking; and women are solely responsible for gathering dried willow branches for fuel. Only women engage in skin preparation and sewing, whether for clothing, tents, or the covers of skin boats. By the 1960s women's work had been expanded to include maintenance and repair of sewing machines, cooking stoves, and the like and to house cleaning, laundry, etc. Men, however, did most of the shopping at the store, even for food items. Island women were traditionally excluded from hunting the major game species, though they commonly fished and hunted ducks, geese, and other small animals either alone or in the company of male hunters while traveling. Their exclusion from men's activities was expressed symbolically through taboos which prohibited women from touching men's sea hunting implements during menses. Men were similarly barred from undertaking women's work although there were no explicit prohibitions from doing so. Ridicule was the major device used to maintain the male side of gender related work boundaries. Giffen (1930: 2) noted that this same means of boundary control is common elsewhere in the Arctic. Now it should be understood that this division of labor by gender was purely conventional and had little to do with a differential distribution of skills and perhaps nothing whatever to do with knowledge. Island males claimed that women lacked the requisite skill for seal hunting so that it was necessary that men hunt for them. But to judge from casual comments, some men were themselves pretty short on ability in this area while a few women had established reputations for casual shoreline seal hunting and even spring ice hunting with rifles. In the 1920s some women were singlehandedly responsible for sustaining their entire households during peak fox trapping years when all the males spent virtually all their time working trap lines. These women routinely hunted seal and small game to provide for their families; and some even ran traplines of their own. It may be that women genuinely lacked the skills necessary for hunting larger species - polar bear, walrus, bearded seal since these are difficult and dangerous even for male hunting teams to confront and their pursuit frequently requires an attack by kayak, something only men have sufficient training and experience to undertake. But since the introduction of the rifle in the 1920s, the exclusion of women from routine hunting, especially of the less dangerous animals such as fjord seal and small land mammals, has been little more than a convention whose primary purpose may well be to symbolically underscore the differences between genders for customarily apportioning work.”
As noted in these paragraphs, women did not participate in large-game hunting and were more likely to tend to trap lines and small game up to the size of seal. This may be considered a borderline case of large-game hunting.
Ojibwa
No reference is given for this North American population in the supporting Excel file of Anderson et al (2023). Upon searching, a few references emerged from our search of Brightman (1996). Landes (1938) apparently described a woman hunting when her husband died, which was later disputed by Hickerson (1962). This reference is similar to the !Kung example above and does not support the idea of habitual large-game hunting by women.
Missinippi Cree
The reference to these populations from northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba is again to Brightman (1996). The relevant information appears to be from an undated (and apparently unpublished) manuscript by that author. The quote is as follows: “Similarly, a Missinippi Cree woman recalled hunting caribou with a rifle while carrying an infant in a cradleboard; she positioned the board in a tree while firing and then pulled the child on a toboggan when retrieving the game (Brightman nd).” The evolutionary implications of this case are weakened by the use of a rifle.
Central Eskimo
This reference is to Boas (1888), based on his work in the Pacific Northwest. Boas writes: “All the inhabitants of the settlements set out at once, men, women, and children, and occupy every seal hole over a large area. The men keep their harpoons ready to strike the animal when it comes up to blow, while the women and children are provided with sticks only, with which they frighten away the seals whenever they rise where they are standing. The animals are compelled to rise somewhere, as otherwise they would be drowned, and thus an ample supply is secured in a short time..” He also writes: "Rae, in describing the method of hunting, states (I, p. 170) that the women at Repulse Bay are very skillful, and when they have no harpoon frequently use a small wooden club, with which they strike the seal on the nose, killing it."
We interpret this example to indicate that women don’t typically use harpoons and focus on killing game with small clubs within the context of cooperation in groups. As seals can reach a significant size, this may be considered an example of direct involvement in large-game hunting.
Nootka
The authors reference Morris (1995), which contains a brief reference to Collard and Contrucci (1988), which contains an excerpt from Cameron (1981, p. 97) :
“No woman would kill a whale. Whales give birth to livin’ young, they don’t lay eggs like fish. They feed their babies with milk from their breasts, like women, and we never killed them. The man who killed the whale never tasted whale meat from the time of his first kill until after he’d retired as a whaler. And neither did his wife, because he had to be purified and linked to the whale by way of the woman’s blood and woman’s milk. No one linked to them will eat of them. It is a promise.”
This passage seems to provide a rationale for the prohibition on Nootka women engaging in the act of killing whales rather than serving as evidence of women actively participating in the hunt.
Mescalero Apache
The reference for this equestrian group is to a secondary source, again Brightman (1996). In that paper the reference is to Flannery (1932), which contains the following paragraph (p. 29):
“Young married women might go hunting with their husbands, not merely to accompany them, but actually to take part in the chase. My informant on this point was such a shriveled-up, decrepit old woman that it was hard to believe that she was once active and skilled enough to rope a buffalo, wind the rope around a tree, and kill the animal with an axe. I was informed by others that this was not such an uncommon feat for a woman in former times, and that as a group would be moving camp women would, if they needed food, kill whatever animals they came upon.”
This interesting report suggests that women participated in collective buffalo hunting in the past, which is consistent with existing knowledge of Native American hunting strategies.
Matses
Of the Matses of the Peruvian Amazon, Romanoff (1983) writes:
“On hunts with their husbands, adult women spot game, take part in the chase, retrieve arrows, bring water to flood armadillo holes, encourage dogs, strike animals with sticks or machetes, participate in orienting the party, and carry meat home. On long hunts involving a forest camp, they pack food to the base, butcher and smoke meat, and carry meat home. While living in the longhouse, they catch frogs, fish, and small animals that blunder near a house; with children, they set garden traps for immature rodents. As is the case in many Amazonian groups, women participate in fishing expeditions.”
Romanoff (1983) writes about one interesting episode of women’s hunting:
“Men say that too many women can spoil a hunt, that excessive or inopportune intercourse can lessen a man's skill, and that women's presence at the tapir trap would leave an odor disgusting to the tapir. They say that women walk slowly, and that hunters can go farther in all-male groups(while a man thus complained to me, his wife, lagging a bit with a baby on her hip, located a paca; we all gave chase until she, correctly positioned, struck the animal with a machete). (Romanoff 1983, p. 342).
Romanoff also reports that the Matses are polygynous, and this is what facilitates high participation in women’s hunting, as co-wives take care of other co-wives’ children when they go out hunting. From Romanoff’s (1983) short report, armadillos and other small game are the only ones reported being hunted by women. It is unclear from this source what kind of armadillo the Matses hunt. Information on this point is contained in Romanoff’s (1984) PhD dissertation, in which he clarifies that the Matses mostly hunt the nine-banded armadillo (3.5-7.7 kg). As noted above, they also hunt the paca (5-13kg). The tapir (150-320 kg) would qualify as large game hunting but the above ethnographic quote suggests it may be prohibited. In summary, though many Matses women are skilled and knowledgeable in terms of hunting, this case is not consistent with women’s participation in large-game hunting.
Conclusion
We have critiqued a number of aspects of the Anderson et al (2023) paper. We find, on the whole, that their data do not support their conclusions. We have argued that their sampling methodology suffers from significant problems related to sampling bias. Moreover, a re-examination of their data contradict the conclusion that one-third of their sample of foraging societies show evidence of female participation in large-game hunting. With the exception of a few cases (such as the Agta and some Arctic cases, totaling roughly six), the data do not present compelling ethnographic examples of women participating habitually in large-game hunting; and in virtually every case, hunting is communal. The findings of Anderson et al (2023) do not pose a significant challenge to current consensus views on divisions of labor among foragers.
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