Headland, Thomas N., Doris E. Blood, & Alan Barnard (eds.)
2002 What Place for Hunter-Gatherers in Millennium Three?. Publications in Ethnography 39. Dallas: SIL International and International Museum of Cultures.
Notes: xvii + 105 pp.Reviewed 22 Apr 2005 by:
Robert Lawless <robert.lawless@wichita.edu>
Department of Anthropology, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USAMedium: Written Literature Subject
Keywords:Hunting and gathering societies - Asia
Hunting and gathering societies - Africa
ABSTRACT: Taking a look at some of the few remaining foraging societies, this thin volume assesses their future in the 21st century.
Although four of the eight chapters are on the Agta of Northern Luzon, the nine authors represent some of the best authorities on foragers and deforestation. Since, indeed, foragers largely depend on the forest ecosystem for their survival, it is fitting that two of the authors, S. H. Sohmer and Ben J. Wallace, are specialists in forest-based ways of life in general. While documenting the deforestation of the Philippines in Chapter Three, Wallace describes what some consider one of the few successful applied anthropological reforestation projects in the tropical world. Sohmer, nevertheless, concludes in Chapter Six, "The ways of life of the Philippine Negrito hunter-gatherers, and other Philippine tribal peoples who depended on these forests, will be totally extinguished well before the end of the twenty-first century" (p. 52).In the first chapter Robert Hitchcock packs a considerable amount of information on the San of southern Africa into eight pages. Focusing primarily on human rights, Hitchcock, who has been studying the San for more than two decades, shows that they are among the politically best-organized indigenous group of foragers in the world.
Robert C. Bailey, a specialist in epidemiology, draws on his two decades of research with the foraging Efe and the agricultural Lese in Central Africa to write in Chapter Two about his efforts with others to create the Ituri Forest Fund. He points out, "The local people designed the programs, and they run the programs" (p. 16), most of which focus on health and education.
In the fourth chapter, Headland demonstrates that the major reasons for the depopulation of the Agta are the recent destruction of the forest homelands, imposed "development" programs by outsiders, and, especially, violations of indigenous human rights and land rights. He concludes with the plea "that indigenous peoples should be allowed the freedom to change as they wish, at the speed they wish, without violation of their human rights" (p. 36).
In the four pages of Chapter Five, P. Bion Griffin reviews Agta history from 20,000 B.P. to the present and concludes, "The future is bleak. . . . The Philippine's population growth is out of control. Natural resources have been stretched and broken. Marine and riverine foods have been depleted. . . . Armed conflict is again on the rise. . . . with the demise of communism and socialism, world capitalism has run amok, leaving the Third World and especially its more vulnerable populations terribly at risk" (p. 45).
Headland's Chapter Seven uses 23 photographs to illustrate the changes in the habitat of the Agta and the accompanying changes in their lifestyle.
The final chapter is a bibliographic review of 174 items on the Agta.
Although admittedly slim, this book is a valuable addition to our growing understanding of foragers and the impact of the modern world on them.
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:
Lawless, Robert
2005 Review of What Place for Hunter-Gatherers in Millennium Three?. Anthropology Review Database. April 22. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=2593, accessed February 10, 2010.© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)