The Contexts of Female Hunting in Central Africa

1. What they did

Ethnographers sometimes mention women who hunt, but few studies have looked closely at when and why they do. The authors studied the Aka forest foragers of Mossapoula, in the Central African Republic, where women net-hunt more often than men. They set out two sets of predictions about when women are likely to hunt: one from human behavioural ecology (an evolutionary approach) and one from cultural anthropology. They then checked which of these conditions were present among the Aka.

• Daily activity records. From September 1993 to December 1994, Andrew Noss recorded the main daily activity of every adult and adolescent in the village (126 females and 116 males) over 90 weekday observation days.
• Following the hunts. He accompanied 76 net-hunts and weighed every animal caught.
• Comparing groups. They compared Mossapoula net-hunting with other Aka and Mbuti net-hunting groups, using earlier studies.

In an Aka net-hunt, the hunters hang their nets in a circle or semicircle. Usually the men beat the bushes and shout to drive animals out, while the women wait hidden by the nets, chase the animals into them and grab them before they escape.

2. What they found

The hunts

• Hunts averaged 45.6 people (5 to 99), about 14 nets, and 16 casts of the nets over about six hours. The hunters covered roughly 11 to 13 km.
• Blue duikers made up 75% of captures. With brush-tailed porcupines, bay duikers and Peters’ duikers, they made up 97%.
• Only 5 of 76 hunts caught nothing; the average was seven animals per hunt.
• Elephants were seen on 14% of hunts and gorillas on 6%.

Women’s part

• Only 3% of women never net-hunted, against 10% of men.
• Women spent 18% of their time net-hunting, men 11%. Men spent much more time in formal paid jobs (24% against 5.5%).
• The keenest hunter was a 40-year-old woman who joined 43% of hunts, often with her husband’s 33 m net, the longest in the village. One woman hunted into her eighth month of pregnancy, and a great-grandmother over 60 hunted with her own net.
• Women owned 26% of the nets.
• Twice, the hunting group was made up only of women. The only hunts without women were those put on for tourists.
• The village often gave “the women have all gone into the forest” as a reason for no hunt that day: women were seen as essential, men were not.

Returns

• Hunts with more than 60% women brought in more meat per hunter (1114 g) than hunts with more than 60% men (623 g).
• Overall there was no clear link between the share of women and the return. Some of the poorest hunts had more than 85% women; the authors conclude hunts work best when women and men complement each other.
• Younger women (20 to 35), who were more likely to have infants, hunted as often as older women.

3. What they concluded

• Most conditions predicted to favour women hunting were present: game was plentiful and returns high; animals were caught regularly; women hunted together with other adults; women had access to nets; men had little control over women; and there was a long cultural tradition of women hunting.
• Some conditions are seldom discussed in the literature: smaller nets and shorter hunts that may let women hunt while carrying an infant and a basket; women’s control over sharing the meat; and the gender expectations of employers who hire only men.
• Neither evolutionary nor cultural theory explains female hunting on its own. The authors propose four interacting factors: different reproductive strategies of men and women; male control and patriarchy; cultural history and precedents for women hunting; and the social and natural environment.

7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

• The data were collected to judge the impact of Aka hunting on the new Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve. The paper notes that the conservation agency, logging company and other employers shape Aka choices, for example by hiring only men.
• Farming near the reserve is limited to 500 m from the main road and is reduced by crop-raiding elephants, which affects what work women can choose.