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Prestige, possessions, and progeny

Cultural goals and reproductive success among the bakkarwal

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Abstract

It has been suggested by some that the acquisition of symbolic capital in terms of honor, prestige, and power translates into an accumulation of material capital in terms of tangible belongings, and that on the basis of these goods high reproductive success may be achieved. However, data on completed fertility rates over more than one generation in so-called traditional societies have been rare. Ethnographic and demographic data presented here on the pastoral Bakkarwal of northern India largely corroborate the hypothesis concerning the interdependence between the attainment of various cultural goals and differential reproduction rates and indicate that the numbers of (especially male) surviving offspring and siblings are crucial to a man’s position in society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cologne University, Germany

    Michael J. Casimir & Aparna Rao

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  1. Michael J. Casimir
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This article is offered in memory of Christian Voegel, whose untimely death robbed us of an esteemed colleague.

Michael J. Casimir is Professor of Anthropology, Cologne University, Germany. He was associated with the Max-Planck-Institute for behavioral physiology in Seewiesen and taught at the Institute of Psychology, Zurich University and in the departments of anthropology at the universities of Göttingen, Hamburg, and Münster. Since the mid-seventies he has been engaged in research among pastoral nomads in western Afghanistan and in the Western Himalayas and has published extensively on their economy, ecology, food and nutrition. He is currently co-chair of the International Commission on Nomadic Peoples (a sub-commission of the IUAES), is responsible for anthropological research in the framework of the project on “Global Environmental Change: Social and Behavioural Dimensions” sponsored by the German Research Council, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the IDNDR (International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction).

Aparna Rao is acting Head of the Department of Anthropology, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, and has taught in the Department of Anthropology, Cologne University. Since the 1970s she has researched mobile populations of peripatetics and pastoralists in Europe, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas and has published extensively on aspects of social organization, economy, gender relations, and ethnicity. She is co-chair of the International Commission on Nomadic Peoples and has just completed a book on life cycle, gender, and social status among Himalayan pastoralists.

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Casimir, M.J., Rao, A. Prestige, possessions, and progeny. Human Nature 6, 241–272 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734141

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