COMMENTARIES 405

Bronowski, Jacob 1956 Science and Human Values. New

York: Harper. Festinger, Leon, et al.

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Freeman, Derek 1983 Margaret Mead and Samoa. Cam-

bridge: Harvard University Press. Holmes, Lowell

1957 A Restudy of Manu’an Culture: A Problem of Methodology. Ph.D. disserta- tion, Anthropology department, North- Western University.

1958 Ta’u. Wellington: Polynesian Society.

1930 The Biological Basis of Human Be- Jennings, H. S.

havior. New York: Norton.

Konner, M. 1982 The Tangled Wing. New York: Holt,

Rinehart, & Winston. Kroeber, Alfred

1915 Eighteen Professions. American An- thropologist 17 : 283-288.

Levinson, P., ed. 1982 In Pursuit of Truth. New Jersey: Hu-

manities Press. Marsack, C.

1964[ 19611 Mead, Margaret

1928

Samoan Medley. London: Hale.

The Role of the Individual in Samoan Culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropolo- gical Institute 58:481-495.

1961[ 19281 Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Morrow.

1977 Letters from the Field, 1925-1975. New York: Harper & Row.

Popper, Karl R. 1967 In Einstein: The Man and His Achieve-

ments. G. J. Whitrow, ed. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.

Raum, 0. F. 1967[ 19401 Chaga Childhood. London:

Oxford University Press. Stocking, G. W., Jr.

1968 Race, Culture, and Evolution. New York: Free Press.

1974 The Shaping of American Anthropol- ogy 1883-1911: A Franz Boas Reader. New York: Basic Books.

Vaughan, J. H., Jr. 1968 Herskovits, Melville Jean. Interna-

tional Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 6:353-354.

Egalitarian Society and Myths of Women’s Status: A Reply to Sanday

RONALD COHEN University of Florida

In her review of Leacock’s collected articles, Peggy Sanday ( A A 84:930-931, 1982) states that I display the kind of thinking that has given rise to myths of male dominance. According to Sanday, my critique of Leacocks article “Wom- en’s Status in Egalitarian Society” (Leacock 1978:247-276) employs negative evidence from one band society to challenge Leacocks notions, then jumps to the conclusion that men “had greater authority than women in all band soci- eties with respect to access to scarce resources” (Sanday 1982:931). My use of Mbuti material is mentioned as an illustration of the generaliza- tion.

This caricature of my views requires a correc- tion. First, I did not refer to only one society in my brief comment and then jump to a conclu- sion. The piece referred to is a critique of Lea- cocks application of outmoded 19th-century generalization to 20th-century data. In it I men- tioned Chipweyan, Shoshone, Mbuti, Yahgan, and Yir Yoront. From these few examples I derived a generalization that is phrased very carefully because it is untested, therefore theoretical. These cases “are logically consistent with the proposition that leadership of organzied activity involving both sexes was in the male do- main of the division of labor for band society” (Cohen 1978:258, emphasis in the original). I most particularly avoided the phrase “access to scarce resources” because the literature is also clear in mentioning widespread and obligatory sharing of material resources during periods of normal food supply. My theoretical statement was concerned with the authoritative ordering of relations to accomplish collective tasks, such as cutting up and distributing meat from beached whales (Yahgan). This does not mean that men “dominate” women, or that power and authori- ty should be confused; it simply implies, again theoretically, that there is a nonrandom tenden- cy among such societies to organize activities in the predicted manner. I am aware from partici- pant-observation in the Mackenzie River area that quite complex organized tasks among camp groups can be carried out with little or no visible leadership. And when asked about who is the leader in this activity, local people often reply, “We don’t like a bossy guy.” Nevertheless, I of-

406 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [86, 19841

fered the proposition because even with a low incidence of communally organized activities, my reading of the literature is consistent with the proposition offered.

But the myth is the message. Somehow in the telling and retelling of all this the critic has been branded with his own barbs. I criticized Lea- cock for applying the overgeneralized notion of “egalitarian society” to all band societies as if these people represented a uniform invariant type. I then offered a theoretical generaliza- tion-a theory for burning if you like-about one particular activity under particular circum- stances. I did not concoct an entire societal form whose egalitarianism characterizes all of their social relationships in the real world (cf. Berndt 1978:256). I also argued as clearly as I could for an approach that emphasized the van’- ability of band society “and the capacity of such variation to interact with the environment and create new forms of society and authority pat- terns” (Cohen 1978:259). I would now add that adaptations to environmental stresses are associated with sociopolitical variations such as warfare that depress women’s statuses even in small-scaled band societies (Divale and Hams 1976). Certainly this is the main point of Schlegel’s (1972) research, which I was closely associated with. Yet Sanday feels that I over- generalize, because I will not accept Leacock’s overall characterization of all band societies as egalitarian, and wish to work instead with par- ticular societal features and their effects.

But all of this sidesteps the other critical issue, curiously avoided in Sanday’s review (and made as well by Judith Brown [1978] in the same CA article). Simply put, there is no way to falsify Leacocks assertion that any observed lack of male-female egalitarianism in band socie- ty is the result of biased reporting, or a displace- ment of the precontact pristine state of affairs through contacts with Western culture. The on- ly argument for this assertion, it seems to me, is a deep faith in the paradisal image of a primor- dial egalitarian state of grace from which we have of late unfortunately fallen. One can ap- preciate and enjoy such beliefs, esthetically, and the myths they perpetuate. But the epistemolog- ical status of untestable propositions is unalter- ably clear -they are imaginative representa- tions whose validity cannot be supported outside the realm of an abiding faith in their functional utility as myths.

Sanday has accused me of overgeneralizing about band society, and of perpetuating a

myth. In all sincerity, I believe the shoe is on the other foot.

REFERENCES CITED

Berndt, Catherine H. 1978 Comment on Eleanor Leacocks “Wo-

men’s Status in Egalitarian Society.” Cur- rent Anthropology 19:256.

Brown, Judith K. 1978 Comment on Eleanor Leacocks “Wo-

men’s Status in Egalitarian Society.” Cur- rent Anthropology 19:256.

Cohen, Ronald 1978 Comment on Eleanor Leacocks “Wo-

men’s Status in Egalitarian Society.” Cur- rent Anthropology 19:257-259.

Divale, William Tulio, and Marvin Hams 1976 Population, Warfare, and the Male

Supremacist Complex. American Anthro- pologist 78~521-538.

Leacock, Eleanor 1978 Women’s Status in Egalitarian Soci-

ety. Current Anthropology 19 : 247 - 27 6. Republished with Ronald Cohen’s comment in Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Ar- ticles on Women Cross-Culturally. Eleanor Leacock, ed. New York: Monthly Review Press. 1981.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves 1982 Review of Myths of Male Dominance:

Collected Articles on Women Cross- Culturally. American Anthropologist 84: 930- 93 1 .

Schlegel , Alice 1972 Male Dominance and Female Auton-

omy. New Haven, Conn.: HRAF Press.

The Miahuatlan Valley Survey: Reply to Byland

CHARLES W. MARKMAN Northern Illinois University

In a recent review of the Miahuatlan Valley settlement patterns study (Markman 1981), Bruce Byland ( A A 84:944, 1982) has expressed doubt that the Miahuatlan data can be com- pared with data from the neighboring Valley of Oaxaca collected by Richard Blanton’s group. He thereby calls into question the conclusions that deal with historical relationships between the two areas. I submit that the comparisons and synthesis are valid and, despite Byland’s