Egalitarian Hierarchies?
Historically, archaeologists have tended to assume that social complexity results from aggregation of population, and this is always associated with non-egalitarian ways of life. It important to understand that a number of traditional North American societies did not invest their leaders with authority backed by strong force. These societies were egalitarian as well. Some of these societies, however, were able to effect a cohesive rule over relatively large geographic territories and large numbers of people. Anthropologists have long recognized that largely egalitarian societies can be organized like hierarchical ones along political and territorial lines.
The extension of political leadership within a group is one aspect of social organization which may differentiate levels of social complexity. It is important to recognize that the principles of individual autonomy and of leadership based on effective influence rather than on formally ascribed status pertains to not only individuals but also towns. The Cherokee, Delaware, and other Middle Atlantic Coastal Algonkians illustrate the differentiation of villages or towns. In the eighteenth century, Cherokee social organization was marked by "capitals" which actually were villages with special influence. This influence could shift depending upon the effectiveness of one village to lead. The basis of organization for each of these groups was through subtle and influential authority so long as leadership did not become overly authoritarian. To a large degree, political organization was by consensus, but it was highly successful because it blended both influential leadership with an egalitarian background.
The Owens Valley Paiute of Nevada, for example, illustrate another aspect of variability in social organization and how connections can be hierarchically formed. Villages formed a basic autonomous level which was commonly superseded by a district level organization. Villages became politically allied with one another at the district level. The district was a relatively well-defined political entity that owned and made exclusive use of a sharply circumscribed subsistence territory. An influential leader held immediate authority, and this position was inherited. The leadership provided direction for communal undertakings and was especially important to regional resource distribution that permitted the population to remain more locationally stable.
e We can explore another society and find a chief is not exactly a "chief". These are the observations of a Spanish official assigned to what is now Arkansas. He would discover that the Quapaws and their chief, Cazenonpoint, had views of authority very different from those of Spaniards like himself. The Quapaw villages had traditionally ruled themselves separately, and each village had two or three of its own chiefs. While it is difficult to reconstruct the details of eighteenth-century Quapaw social structure, there seem to have been two moieties, the Sky People and the Earth People, and twenty-one clans. Each group had specific rights and responsibilities for rituals and practices within the villages and the community at large. Representatives of the moieties and clans came together to make political decisions for the whole. This decentralized structure depended on mutual obligations and reciprocity, not a hierarchical change of command. Thus, Quapaw chiefs did not rule their people. Indeed, a French missionary had called the "Chiefs only in name". They created and maintained influence and respect by fulfilling their obligations within the community, for instance, by being generous with presents.
European contact had changed the role of chief in Quapaw society. Europeans expected each tribe to have a main leader with whom they could negotiate, and they usually gave the greatest number of gifts to that chief. The Quapaw chief or chiefs responsible for negotiations with the French had probably thereby increased their power within the tribe. In addition, devastating population losses had affected Quapaw political structures. Smaller in number and more vulnerable by the mid-eighteenth century, the Quapaws condensed their towns and moved them closer together. The largely autonomous towns gave way to a more united tribe with one great chief. But the powers of that chief were still very limited. The great chief remained bound by the system of mutual obligations and shared what little power he had with other leaders. Presents and other signs of respect from outside figures of authority such as the Spanish commandant helped a chief to maintain influence within the Quapaw community.
Therefore, one of the implications of the process of development of social complexity from a model such as presented above where there is a shift from residential mobility to logistical mobility is that leadership would be based initially on influence within a relatively egalitarian society. Hierarchical structure would evolve as population growth increased and the need for greater political authority and control developed. The issue becomes one of how much control and how far does it reach. Clearly at the heart of what can be viewed as "egalitarian leadership" was the ability to influence through exchange of gifts and the ability to draw concensus.
Another important issue lies in the terminology which archaeologists typically use to classify social groups (Fried 1975; Service 1962; Steward 1955). Terms such as band, tribe, and chiefdom take on significance when archaeologists discuss different levels of social complexity. Perhaps it is the use of this terminology which creates so many problems to archaeologists trying to delineate the nature of prehistoric social organization. There is so much variability in the ethnographic literature in what is recognized as a "tribe", for example, that it is sometimes difficult to see how it differs from a "chiefdom". The ethnographic and ethnohistorical record of political organization of North American Indian groups abounds in contradictions. It may be necessary at the outset of this discussion to break away from the band-tribe-chiefdom taxonomy and its implications and instead discuss levels of political authority and political processes.
There are a number of characterizations that can apply to groups associated with increasing levels of social complexity:
(1) Some form of centralized leadership with varying degrees of power will be apparent. The force of leadership can be largely without any coercive power or may reflect an almost supreme power that may be extremely intimidating.
(2) In cases where leadership lacks coercive power, it is probable that a hierarchical society that maintains an egalitarian basis will be present. With increased levels of power held by group leaders, the society will become more hierarchical.
(3) As that hierarchical structure develops and political authority expands, there will be a need to symbolically mark this authority. Material culture items will be developed to symbolize different status levels not only at the leadership level but throughout the social group as the social hierarchy becomes more defined.
(4) Kinship relationships form the basic affiliation of people within groups. There will be a kinship network which tends to be an endogamous unit regardless of the size or structure of the population. It is therefore logical that kinship is one means by which cultures bond larger aggregates of people together. However, as the hierarchy within a society becomes more complex, the importance of kinship as a bonding mechanism tends to diminish.
(5) The production and flow of goods and services is tied into the nature of political influence. A network of economic production and/or distribution will develop concurrent with the formation of hierarchical structure within a society.
Conceptually, the standard terminology of band, tribe, and chiefdom allows no leeway for qualitative distinctions both in terms of organization and political power in different kinds of social groups. It is typically thought that in egalitarian societies, "chiefs" have influence but no formal authority and are no more than "firsts among equals". This type of individual leadership is often considered to reflect only a "leader" or "headman". In actuality, once leadership becomes important to a group for reducing scalar stress, it takes on the concomitant assumption that it is backed up by some kind of force or sanction no matter how informal or formal.
(By Richard Effland and Barbara MacNider, Archaeological Consulting Services Ltd.) (The information on the Quapaw was extracted from: Kathleen DuVal, The education of Fernando de Lebya: Quapaws and Spaniards on the border of empires, The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, pp. 1-30, Arkansas Historical Association 2001 (volume LX, Spring, Number 1)