# The Contexts of Female Hunting in Central Africa

> In one Aka village in the Central African Republic, women net-hunt more often than men. Over 76 hunts, women made up most of the hunters, hunted while pregnant and into old age, and hunts led mostly by women brought home more meat per person. The authors ask why women hunt here and not everywhere.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2001-noss-hewlett-contexts-female-hunting-central/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Andrew J. Noss and Barry S. Hewlett
- **Year published:** 2001
- **Journal or source:** American Anthropologist
- **Full citation:** Noss, A. J. and Hewlett, B. S. 2001. The contexts of female hunting in Central Africa. American Anthropologist 103(4): 1024–1040.
- **DOI:** 10.1525/aa.2001.103.4.1024
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2001.103.4.1024

## Tags

- **Species:** Humans
- **Region:** Africa > Central African Republic
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Hunting
- **Methods and technology:** Chi-square test; Descriptive statistics; Direct observation; Ethnographic fieldwork; Linear regression; Literature review
- **Data type:** Existing data; New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Anthropology; Just interesting; Social science
- **Year published:** 2001

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: humans (Aka forest foragers, also known as BaAka, BiAka, Bayaka, BaBenzele and BaBinga). Prey caught on net-hunts: blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola), 75% of captures; brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus africanus); bay duiker (Cephalophus dorsalis); Peters’ duiker (Cephalophus callipygus). Also caught by women: one python (Python sebae), one long-nosed mongoose (Herpestes naso) and three tortoises (Kinixys erosa). Seen on net-hunts but not studied: elephants (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Plants gathered: payo nuts (Irvingia excelsa), koko leaves (Gnetum buchholzianum), wild yams (Dioscorea spp.), kosa bark (Manniophyton fulvum), ngongo leaves (Megaphrynium macrostachyum), rattan (Eremospatha sp. and Ancistrophyllum secundiflorum).
- **Location and habitat:** Mossapoula, an Aka village of about 300 people, 5 km north of Bayanga, in the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, southwestern Central African Republic; tropical forest. Hunts began 200 m to 10 km from the village; forest camps 10 to 25 km to the east. Comparison data from other Aka groups in northern Congo-Brazzaville and Mbuti groups in the Ituri Forest (Congo-Kinshasa).
- **Topics:** female hunting; women hunters; communal net-hunting; sexual division of labour; gender roles; gender task allocation; time allocation; hunting returns; food sharing; cultural precedents; human behavioural ecology; “show off” hypothesis; child care and hunting; male control and patriarchy; wage labour, logging and conservation agencies; tourist net-hunts; forest foragers.
- **Statistics or models:** Chi-square test (who never hunted); regression of husbands’ against wives’ participation (r² = 0.28); t-tests (time allocation by sex; returns on female-dominated versus male-dominated hunts); means, standard errors and percentages. Edible meat estimated as 60% of live weight. Inconsistencies in the paper: the t value for net-hunting time is 4.73 in Table 2 but 4.69 in the text; Table 3 gives 43 and 8 hunts with 46 degrees of freedom (43 + 8 would give 49); the men’s time allocation figures in Table 2 add to 97.6%, not the 97.4% shown; Table 1 gives 16.5 casts per hunt, the text 16.
- **Data type:** New field data: activity records and accompanied net-hunts, September 1993 to December 1994 (90 observation days, 76 net-hunts). Existing data: comparison of net-hunting in other Aka and Mbuti groups from published and unpublished studies, and a review of evolutionary and cultural theory.

## Synopsis

### 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.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: The Contexts of Female Hunting in Central Africa (Noss and Hewlett, 2001). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2001-noss-hewlett-contexts-female-hunting-central/