The Hadza and Kaguru of Tanzania: gender roles and privileges at two subsistence levels

Abstract

Author provides a cultural-ecological interpretation of the roles and place of women in two societies of Tanzania possessing two different subsistence techniques. With a comparison/contrast of the two, this paper demonstrates that the particular subsistence adaptation of a group towards a given environment can be shown to have definite links to the ways in which women function within that society. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first discusses the ecology of the Badza, a hunter-gatherer society of northern Tanzania. Included in the section are a description of the physical characteristics of the Hadza environment, an overview of their significant social interactions past and present, and a discussion of the particular subsistence techniques which the Hadza have adopted. The second section provides a parallel account of the ecology of the Kaguru agriculturalists of east central Tanzania. The third and final section uses the ecological infonnation presented in the previous two studies to analyze several aspects of women and women's roles in these two societies. With the infonnation provided by these examples, author shows the centrality of a group's subsistence mode to the fonnation of its cultural attitudes and practices in regards to women.