Seasonality shows our capacity to deliberately change how we live

Anthropological studies and the fossil record do reveal one consistency: many human societies change with the seasons.

These changes can be dramatic.

Early cities, like Stonehenge, were seasonal centers--people shifted from urban to rural and back again.

On this page:

• Plains Indians had seasonal cops, the Buffalo Police
• Many cultures, including the Nambikwara alternate between agriculture and less intensive forms of food production with the seasons.
• In other cultures, like the Kwakiutl, individuals have different names in summer and winter.
• And studies of resource use by the Inuit show that seasonal shifts aren't primarily driven by ecological or technological constraints; they are deliberate choices.

Seasonality provides more evidence that civilization and "progress" and cities and agriculture are not one-way ratchets.

Buffalo Police

The Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine, and Lakota peoples of the Great Plains had rotating and seasonal cops: the buffalo police.

The Plains Indians knew that the police power was dangerous. They limited that power by rotating the responsibility between clans and moieties. One season you were the police, the next you were the policed.

(Ethnographer of the Plains Indians: Robert Lowie.)

Nambikwara

The Nambikwara (in present day Mato Grosso, Brazil) spend the dry half of the year foraging and hunting. During this dry season, a single male leader bosses everyone around.

Then, in the wet season, they settle into horticultural villages around charismatic leaders. But in the wet season, this leader loses their power to command.

In the wet season, power is based on the ability to run a redistributive welfare program. Leaders are expected to lead by example.

1. They work harder than everyone else, to set an example.
2. They demonstrate their wealth by giving everything away.

These charismatic leaders are sophisticated political actors. And so is everyone else.

Like the buffalo police, the Nambikwara's seasonal system is designed to prevent the establishment of fixed leaders or a coercive state. Amazonian groups like the Nambikwara knew enough about empires to want to avoid becoming one. After all, the Inca were right next door.

(Ethnographer of Nambikwara: Claude Levi-Stauss)

Inuit

The circumpolar Inuit (circa 1903) had 2 sets of social structures and laws.

season	mode	leadership	gender	property
summer	hunting and fishing in small, mobile groups	coercive hierarchy	male leaders	private
winter	large wood houses near seal and walrus	no formal leadership	equality, non-monogamy	shared

Physical conditions were not determinant for the Inuit. By Mauss' calculations, the availability of food and lumber only explain 40% of the decision. Seasonal changes reflected a deliberate choice to live differently.

(Ethnographer of the Inuit: Mauss and Beuchat's "Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo")

Kwakiutl

The Kwakiutl, on the Northwest Coast, inverted the Inuit.

They were hierarchical in winter, collecting in grand palaces and hosting the potlatch. They were more egalitarian in summer, when they left to fish.

More: Indigenous Americans of the Pacific Coast

(Ethnographer of the Kwakiutl: Franz Boas)