domestic labor intensity and the incorporation of
Malian peasant farmers into localized descent
groups
JOHN VAN D. LEWIS-Howard University
Sahlins (1972) has reworked Chayanov’s (1966) methodology for comparing the per
capita surplus production of neighboring peasant farm families into an intriguing procedure for obtaining a “profile” (Evans 1974) of economic stratification in a subsistence
farming community. The proportion of family firms producing a given degree of surplus is
measured against both the number breaking even and the number showing deficit food production. Combined with the proper sort of ethnographic information, these proportions are
used to predict political trends affecting the social structure of that community.
In this article I have applied Sahlins’s procedure to the production statistics from a
millet/sorghum farming village in central Mali. The result shows how vulnerable an interpretation of the “Sahlins profile” is to the sort of ethnographic information that is worked
into the analysis. The wide variation in food production per capita among the compounds
of this village during the study year (1974) would seem t o reflect a degree of economic
stratification. However, when each family compound is looked at not only as a farm operation, but also as an operation for maintaining unsalaried farm labor, the village profile
begins to take on a more egalitarian cast. The development cycle of each domestic group
(Fortes 1969), such as it affects the proportion of consumers to producers in a given compound at a given time (cf. Goody 1958), turns out to have different implications for families
isolated from, as opposed to those embedded in, a larger, corporate segment of a
Few inferences about the dynamics of crop production in a Malian peasant community can be drawn without giving parallel consideration to the
dynamics of farming group reproduction. Data on the farming inputs and
outputs of domestic groups in one village reveal little until each group is
located in the kinship and marriage networks. A Sahlins curve of domestic
labor intensity is plotted for one farming season in that village to highlight
the influence of descent relationships on production. This example bears
on the larger question of the extent to which the economics of peasant
farming, characteristically dependent on extradomestic coalitions, can be
pursued on the basis of household-level production data. It also offers a
generalizable explanation for the remarkable persistence of patrilineal affiliations in contemporary West Africa. [Mali, Bambara, savanna agriculture, West African peasants, patrilineal descent]
Copyright 0 1981 by the American Ethnological Society
ooS4-0496/81/010053-2152.60/1
domertlc labor Intenrlty
53
patrilineal descent group. It i s precisely the embedded families that produce the greatest
surplus or display the greatest deficit. The more isolated families are generally closer t o the
break-even line (the Chayanov slope; see below).
Dukolomba is a community of Bambara-speaking’ people lying southeast of Segou between the Niger and Bani rivers. Like other Mande communities further west (Hopkins
19711, it is a nucleated settlement divided into wards, each centered on a patrilineage.
Segments of this and other lineages form patrilocal compounds, the members of which do
most of their farming and eating as a unit. Compounds vary in size depending on the
genealogical and political history of each. Farming-age, married sons of full brothers will
attempt to remain together in a compound. Where this is not possible, all the sons of one
man will be found together. Only exceptionally will half-brothers split into separate compounds. Rare cases of full brothers splitting are looked upon with such disfavor that one of
the parties usually has t o leave the village.
This emphasis on large farming units appears to be better adapted to mobilizing farming
labor than to making the best use of the dry savanna environment (800 mm. average annual
rainfall). I will return t o this point at the end of the article.
scarce labor’
In Dukolomba, a key preoccupation of most compound heads is guaranteeing the return
of male youths from their wage-labor employment (usually in the Ivory Coast) for the twomonth weeding season (July to August) of the farming year. Given that these wages offer a
better exchangeable return on labor than anything they could farm, I find the reasons for
the compound heads‘ success in this endeavor particularly intriguing.
This article is not the place to evaluate the extent to which the growth of capitalist enterprises in the Ivory Coast has made labor harder to keep home on the Malian farm. The
farmers themselves state that keeping their youths at home to farm has always been a
struggle since Biton Kulubali, the founder of the Segu state (ca. 1712; see Tauxier 1942),
toured the area overturning local altars and recruiting mercenaries. It is known that there
was a strong demand for Bambara mercenaries since at least the days of the 1951 Moroccan invasion of the middle Niger (Willis 1971). As the transatlantic demand for slaves
reached down the Niger River in the 18th century (Park 1799), the Bambara youth often had
the limited choice of either becoming a mercenaryftonj6n)or a slavefjdn). In either case he
had a master and was therefore a jdn (see Bazin 19741, rather than a bamana (literally, “one
who has refused a m a ~ t e r ” ) . ~
Warfare, slave raiding, and mercenary recruitment continued through the period of the
French military conquest and rule (Suret-Canale 1971). The advantages and coercions with
which the French sought to recruit the Bambara soldier throughout World War I (Ward
1976) can be seen in the same light as a threat to the village-based farming unit. Wage labor
on the Senegalese peanut fields in the inter-war period and the post independence boom in
the Ivory Coast have prolonged and increased this threat. Labor for low wages is in greater
demand than ever in West Africa (Amin 1974, Rey 19761, but for the Bambara farm manager
the problem is not significantly different than it has been for hundreds of years: male youth
can find a better market-value return for his labor off the farm than he can on it.
It is the aged and the children who need the farm, but the farm needs the able-bodied
youths. If too many of these youths neglected the farm, then food grains for their old and
their young would become too expensive for their earnings. It is thus that the laborer who
neglects the farm tends to lose his young to a collateral descent line that has maintained a
continuing output of food grains. When this is the case, the laborer’s fate as an old man
54
american ethnologist
becomes problematical: he will be taken in, of course, but the loss of pride in such a case i s
considerable.
It would seem that these peasants’ problem is one of maintaining a full granary through
the seasons of fluctuating rainfall. The more successful wage earner can hire temporary
labor (or, in former times, purchase slaves) to this end. But many bamana youths with earnings to justify this course of action consider it either too risky or a denial of their bamanahood. Using their earnings for this purpose, they could only produce surpluses in those
years in which those earnings were adequate. There would be no carryover to the inevitable
years in which earnings were deficient. I will try to show in what follows how such a carryover is more likely in the context of a bamana lineage affiliation.
More important than the full granary itself is the control of the ability to produce one indefinitely. For those who have styled themselves as bamana, patrilineal descent has been
considered a more secure form of this control than even slavery itself. More than a slave,
client, affine, or employee, a patrilineal descendant can be relied upon to a farm virtually
irrespective of the outside market opportunities for his labor at any given time.’
It would seem obvious that the bamana youth returns to his home village during the twomonth weeding season in order to participate in the cultivation of food grains for his family. However, if food were the sole reason for the return, in a good wage-earning year he
could send money. This does not seem to happen. Furthermore, good wageearning positions are foresworn by returning youths whose compounds do not show an appreciable increase in grain production as a result; nor are their rarer absences always reflected in a
.~
farming serves
grain loss to the family. Yet these youths continue to r e t ~ r n Clearly,
organizational purposes for these peasants which transcend the goal of yearly food production. I propose to measure that food production for one relatively good year (1974) in this
village to get a better idea of what other economic goals were being sought,
sorghum and millet ylelds
I follow Sahlins (1972) in using subsistence crop yields as a measure of domestic labor intensity in the case of Dukolomba. I do not think that Minge-Kalman’s (1977) well-taken
critique of this method as neglecting other forms of domestic labor input too seriously invalidates my measure for this particular peasant village. Crop farming absorbs almost all of
the peasants’ labor from sunup to sundown during the short three-month rainy season (June
to September) on this West African savanna. Except for cooking, other activities-among
them, house building and weaving, not to mention migrant labor-are postponed for the
dry season, particularly the postthreshing (January) dry season. Only rope, tool-, and
mat-making can be tentatively combined with preharvest field guarding. Iron- and woodworking are the domain of casted specialists at all times of the year.
Women do work on the gathering and processing of the shea butter nut [Sutyrospermum
park$ during the later farming season. But in 1974, the season for which these data were
gathered, the shea tree did not bear fruit because of the 1972 drought.
Another measure of domestic labor intensity, which Sahlins (1972) also uses, could be the
area cleared for cultivation. Usufructory rights to land, though owned and inherited by the
compound segment of the lineage of its first clearer, are easily obtained. Although some
landholdings have better soil and some have lain fallow longer than others, all farmers are
welcome to clear as much land as they think they can weed. Furthermore, they have the entire dry season in which to clear this land. Since weeding is, however, a more stringent bottleneck on yield than land clearing, I must emphasize field space weeded rather than field
domestic labor Intensity
55
space cleared in my measurement of the intensity of labor inputs. This measurement,
therefore, must be made in terms of labor output at the other end, in yield.
I have not even included in my measure all of the crops grown in this short farming
season. However, I do not believe this to be as serious a drawback t o my measure as it may
at first appear t o be. Sorghum and millet, which I use in my measure of domestic labor intensity, constitute well over 95 percent of the kilograms of crops harvested for all the
families in the village. The relative percentage of labor that they receive during the farming
season is even greater. In almost all cases, peanuts, at 40 Malian francs per kilogram ( a p
proximately twice the official sale price of millet that year) were grown, exactly as the
farmers claimed, in proportion t o a compound’s cash needs for paying the head tax’-no
more, no less. Peanut yields were, with a few exceptions (see Lewis 1979). a function of
compound size rather than of domestic labor intensity. Fonio (Digitaria exilis) yields were
more variable relative t o compound size but in all cases were small. Furthermore, fonio
cultivation requires no weeding and is harvested and threshed during a slack period by the
ward as a whole. Therefore, the variation in fonio yields, proportionately small in relation
to sorghum and millet in any case, only represents a variation in labor intensity, at most,
during the hoeing and seeding stages, These are not key labor bottleneck periods in the
farming cycle.
All of the unmeasurable crops’-maize, Bambara earthnuts [Voandzeia subterreanea),
cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), and okra (Hibiscus esculentusl-were grown in insignificant
proportions; no maize field, for example, was larger than half a hectare. Of these, only
cowpeas and okra were stored for long after the harvest. Except for seed maize, all of the
village’s maize was eaten (mostly on the cob and by little children) by the end of
September.
Table 1 shows the dependency ratios (C/W, consumers/workers)as well as the sorghummillet (grain) yields for each of the 43 compounds in this bamana village.’ The compounds
are listed in order of their size and given a number according to their position on the
genealogy. Minimal lineage segments comprising more than one compound are: #s 1-6,
7-9,lO-12,13-15,16-19,
20-25,30-31,33-34;9and compound # s 1-26 form a patrilineal
clan holding the office of the village chief.
Figure 1 plots the empirical yield per worker against the dependency ratio (C/W) for each
compound to form the points for what Evans (1974)calls a “Sahlins curve.” The straight
line on the graph is the “Chayanov slope” (see Sahlins 1972)of what each worker would
need to produce to feed his compound for one year. I calculated this need on an assumed 2
kg. per day consumption requirement for an adult male. Following Sahlins’s (1972:103,115)
usage, I valued women, children, and the aged as 0.8 against the adult male standard of 1 .O;
infants were counted as 0.5. If anything, 2 kg. of raw grain per day is a liberal estimate of an
adult male’s consumption. Hill (1972)follows other observers of grain farming on the West
African savanna in interpreting her findings in terms of a one kg. average daily grain requirement. However, the farmers I observed themselves insisted on a 2 kg. figure, and I was
unable systematically t o measure intake such as t o contradict it. The spot observations that
I was able to make never showed less than 1.5 kg. being consumed by an adult male on any
given day. In any event, even if the Chayanov slope (Figure 1)of kilograms each worker
needed to produce for the consumers of his compound were calculated on the basis of a 1
kg. per day requirement, and therefore ran somewhat to the lower right of it s present position, the interpretation given in this article would remain unchanged. Those compounds
would remain soon either
whose production is significantly deficient (#s 6,9,10,14,33,40)
graph.
I have counted married women as 0.8 to the adult male worker’s 1.0.Elder men who
made token appearances in the compound house field, and elder women who only worked
56
amerlcan ethnologlst
26
11
2
35
16
1
8
30
39
36
29
9
6
28
7
3
34
10
37
13
25
17
32
33
22
14
31
26.2
20.6
19.9
n.3
20.6
12.1
12.4
11.9
9.7
9.3
8.7
8.5
8.0
8.5
8.5
8.2
7.7
7.5
6.9
6.9
6.4
6.2
6.2
6.5
5.9
5.7
5.1
14.0
11.0
10.6
12.2
13.0
4.6
6.4
4.6
5.4
3.6
3.8
3.6
2.6
4.6
3.8
3.6
3.8
2.8
4.6
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.8
1.8
1.8
Compound # Consumers (C) Workers (W)
1.87
1.87
1.88
1.74
1.58
2.63
1.94
2.59
1.80
2.58
2.29
2.36
3.08
1.85
2.24
2.24
2.03
2.68
1.50
2.46
2.29
2.n
2.n
2.32
2.11
3.17
2.83
ClW Dependencv ratio
19,126
15,038
14.527
15,549
15.038
8,833
9,052
8,687
7,081
6,789
6,351
6,205
5.840
6,205
6,205
5,986
5.621
5.475
5,037
5,037
4,672
4,526
4,526
4,745
4.307
4.161
3.723
ke.
1,366.1
1,367.1
1,370.5
1,274.5
1,156.8
1,920.2
1.414.9
1,888.5
1.3l1.3
1,885.8
1,671.3
1,723.6
2,246.2
1.348.9
1,632.9
1,662.8
1,479.2
1,955.4
1,095.0
1,798.9
1,668.6
1,616.4
1.616.4
1,694.6
1,538.2
231.7
2,068.3
ka.lw
--
CYlW
(C:365 davs . 2 kn.1
Needed:
CY
EYlW
1,602.1
1,765.9
1,710.8
1,377.9
1.537.7
2.621.7
1,398.4
2,172.8
1.415.7
2,854.1
1,948.7
825.0
696.2
1,626.1
1,834.2
1,931.9
1,507.9
1.1 58.9
1,400.0
2,273.2
1,562.5
2,187.5
1,756.1
1,205.4
2,237.5
1,083.3
1,858.3
ka.lw
Harvested:
22,430
19,425
18.135
16,810
19,990
12,060
8,950
9,995
7,645
10,275
7,405
2,970
1,810
7,480
6,970
6,955
5,730
3.245
6.440
6,365
4.375
6.1 25
4.w 7
3.375
6,265
1,950
3,345
ke.
EY
Table 1 . Compound dependency ratios and sorghumlmillet yields
3.486
1.054
-3,235
4.030
1,275
765
969
109
-2,230
1,403
1,328
-297
1,599
391
-1,370
1.958
-231
-378
564
3.304
4.387
3.608
1,261
4.952
3.227
-102
1.-
(ke.1
EYCY
Absolute
surplus
2.7
1.5
7.8
1.9
1.6
6.9
16.1
6.7
6.0
7.5
0
6.6
0
4.1
12.7
24.0
0
4.5
0
15.9
17.2
6.7
11.6
7.7
19.0
48.1
0
Percent of
weeding labor
recruited from
outside
compound
.8
.8
.8
3.1
.8
2.8
2.8
1.o
1.8
2.4
1.8
.8
1.8
.5
1.8
2.0
2.8
1.8
5.2
4.6
4.6
4.4
3.9
3.8
3.3
3.4
2.6
3.2
2.3
2.1
1.8
1.3
a Destitute stranger.
KEY
C = Consumer
W = Worker
CY = Chayanov yield
EY = Empirical yield
16x
12
43"
2l
24
27
18
15
40
3a
23
19
4
5
41
42
Compound # Consumers (C) Workers (W)
Table 1 continued
c/w Depen2.89
2.30
1.64
2.44
4.87
1.36
1.18
3.40
1.44
1.33
1.28
2.62
1.oo
2.60
1.oo
3.87
dency ratio
~~~
2,263
584
3.7%
3,358
3,358
3.2l2
2.847
2.774
2.409
2,482
1.898
2,336
1,679
1,533
1,3l4
949
2.108.9
1,679.0
1,199.3
1,784.4
3,558.7
990.7
860.4
2,482.0
1,054.4
973.3
932.8
1,916.2
730.0
1.898.0
730.0
2,828.7
CY/W
(C:365 days. 2 kg.)
Needed:
kg.
ke./W
CY
EY/W
2,225.0
1,497.5
1,146.4
2.061.1
1.412.5
1,969.6
2.012.5
2.245.0
3,344.4
2.075.0
1,072.2
2,025.0
1,402.8
1.840.0
2,718.7
43.7
Harvested:
kg./W
4,005
2,995
3,nO
3,710
1.130
5.51 5
5,635
2.245
6,020
4,980
1,930
1,620
2.525
920
2.175
35
ke.
EY
209
-363
-148
498
-1,717
2.741
3,226
-237
4.1 22
2.644
251
87
1,nl
29
1,591
2.n9
EYCY
Absolute
surplus
(kg.1
25.4
18.0
6.1
18.0
39.7
13.1
14.5
32.3
0
0
18.2
0
n.l
8.7
17.4
8.9
Percent of
weeding labor
recruited from
outside
compound
KILOGRAM
YIELOIWORKER
3.400
4
3.300
3.200
3.100
3,000
2.900
38
2.800
2.700 l2
4
2,600
2.500
2.400
2.300
/
22
17
2,200
2.1 0 0
19
30
5
23
2,000
38
1.900
1.800
11
2
1.700
??I
1,000
1.500
1.400
21
40
35
37
1.300
33
1.200
10
1,100
41
::: /
1,000
700
8
600
500
8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2.0
2.2
2.4
2.0
2.8
3.0
3.2
3.4
3.0
3.0
4.0
4.2
4.4
4.0
4.8
NO.OF CONSUMERS/ NO. OF WORKERS
Fig. 1. Chayanov slope and Sahlins curve of domestic labor intensity.
in their private fields and never in the compound fields, were not counted as workers.
Neither did I count infants, uninitiated children, or unmarried women. The latter were omitted because they were as frequently found in their mothers’ private field as in the
compound-wide, collective field. In neither case did these unmarried women do very much
work; they were given a bit of a vacation out of respect for the bridewealth they would
soon be bringing in and in deference t o the workload they would have to assume after marriage.
Married women work continually, but they are rarely in either their own or their
husbands’ compounds’ grain field for more than 80 percent of the day. An adult male,
though, i s almost by definition to be found in his grain field throughout the daylight hours
during the farming months. To be found in the village at such times (as I too often was) i s
considered shameful for a male and becomes the focus of much criticism. Married women
generally arrive at the compound grain field at mid-morning with the midday meal and
leave in the mid- or late afternoon to prepare the evening meal. Through their fuelgathering, food processing, and cooking (not to mention their child-rearing) activities, they
contribute considerable energy to the field-weeding capabilities of the men. Nevertheless,
as I rarely observed one of them clearing, tilling, or weeding the compound field even half
as much (in terms of work accomplished) as an adult male, maintaining the convention of
scaling their labor contribution to grain production as 0.8 that of the adult male seems
justified.
This i s not to imply, however, that the off-farm, particularly the child-rearing, activities
of women do not make a substantial contribution to a compound’s farming capability. The
’
domestic labor intensity
59
main thrust of this paper is to demonstrate the ways by which such domestic activities are
crucial to farming organization and, therefore, t o cropping strategy. The fact that this contribution cannot be quantified as part of the inputs to a given year's yield limits what a
quantitative, input-output analysis of the farming system can tell us about the overall production system.
domestic labor intensity
Figure 1 shows that 13 ( # s 2,3,7,8,11,16,26,28,29,30,34,35,39) of the 17 compounds
with over a 7.5 consumer level form a curve running parallel t o the Chayanov slope,
somewhere just above it. The remaining 4 ( U s 1,6,9, 36) of these 1 7 larger compounds are
among the furthest removed from the Chayanov slope. Above the slope, #s 1 and 36 produced some of the largest relative surpluses; below the slope, # 6 had the biggest deficit in
the village, and # 9 was only less short of grain (relative t o i t s needs) than 2 other compounds. However, these 4 represent half of the larger compounds with dependency ratios
over 2.1 (see Table 2).
Of the 25 remaining compounds-those with a consumer level of 7.5 or less-only 10
(#s 15,24,32,37,41,42 just above and #s 16x, 18,25,27 just below) are near the Chayanov
slope. The other 15 smaller compounds are either far above ( # s 4, 5,12,13,17, 21, 22, 23,
38) or far below (#s 10,14,19, 31, 33, 40)the slope.
These data on grain yield per compound show that smaller compounds are more prone
to extremes of overproduction and underproduction than larger ones. But when the social
identities of the individual compounds are considered, more interesting features emerge
from the data. Of the 10 small compounds near the slope (#s 15, 24, 32, 37, 41, 42 just
above and # s 16x, 18, 25, 27 just below], only 4 (#s 15, 18, 24, 25) are from the large
patrilineal clan which holds the village chieftainship (#s 1-26).'' And of these 4, only 2 (#s
Table 2. Explication of figure 1.
Consumer coefficient
Small compounds
Large compounds
Consumer level" s 7.5
Consumer levela > 7.5
Dependency
Dependency
Dependency
Dependency
ratio
ratio
ratio
ratio
s 2.1
Compounds far
above the
Chayanov slope
4,S, 12,21,23,
38
Compounds Just 37, 41
near the
above
Chayanov
Just 18
slope
below
Compounds far
below the
Chayanov slope
> 2.1
> 2.1
s 2.1
13,17,22
1, 36
15. 24. 32, 42
2, 1 1 , 1 6 ~ ~ 2 63,, 7.29, 90
16x. 26,27
35, 39
8, 34
10, 14, 19, 91, 33,
40
a See Table 1.
Note: Numbers of compounds managed by a member of a corporate lineage segment extending
beyond that compound are in boldface (see note 12).
60
amerlcan ethnologl8t
18 and 25) are managed by a member of that clan; #15 is managed by a widow of a clan
member and #24 by the estranged wife of #23.” On the other hand, of the 1 5 small compounds more distant from the slope (#s 4, 5,12,13,17, 21,22, 23, 38 far above and #s 10,
14,19, 31, 33, 40 far below) only #38 (far above) and #40 (far below) are unattached by
agnatic kinship to a minimal lineage segment. Furthermore, # 40 i s a casted woodworker
who is expected to fall short in his farming performance while working on the village’s mortars and pestles. Of the 13 attached compounds (in boldface) on Table 2, all but U s 31 and
33, which belong to small minimal lineages of their own, belong to the central patrilineal
clan ( #s 1-26).
It should be clear, then, that membership in a lineage correlates with a farming performance skewed either heavily above or heavily below the compound’s consumption needs
(the Chayanov slope). A compound with lineage support may produce very much more-in
order to consolidate that support for the future-or very much less, without worrying about
the consequencesof a diminished grain supply. The course that a compound follows in this
respect is often related to the stage it has reached in i t s development cycle. Here, I cannot
look at the development cycles of each of the 43 compounds in question more than to say
that, in a general sense, lineage membership permits a compound with a high dependency
ratio t o survive as a member of the village and lineage so that, when i t s dependent infants
become workers, they are still around to assist other agnates. O f the nonlineage compounds with high dependency ratios, however, only #40 (the casted woodworker) dared
fall too far below the Chayanov slope (see Figure 1).
A t the other extreme of the graph, the isolated compound without lineage ties has less to
gain by producing more of a surplus than is necessary. Women from needy compounds
may seek donations of this grain. But when the tables are turned, these needy compounds,
in the absence of descent ties, can more easily forget the past generosity of the nonlineage
compound. By the same token, the isolated compound has more to lose by falling too far
below the Chayanov slope-there are few other compounds that have t o help them out.
Only if they have married women from some of the established lineages in the village can
they expect help for the children of these wives.
For the 17 larger compounds, the situation is similar. Of the 4 most distant from the
Chayanov slope (#s 1 and 36 above and #s 6 and 9 below) all have high dependency ratios
and all but #36 are from the central clan (#s 1-26). Compound #s 1 and 6 are from the
same minimal lineage; it is thus to be expected that their divergent farming performances
should complement each other.
The record harvest of the “stranger,” #36, is the exception that proves the rule. As the
grain weigher and buyer for the government cooperative centered at the arrondissement
seat, # 36 had advantageous access t o fertilizer and insecticides against seed-carryingants.
It would be more risky for a lineage member t o be a grain weigher and buyer: a jealous
agnate could practice sorcery if he felt the scale was not responding t o the patrilineal bond
between them. The agnate, if he were a grain buyer, could risk losing cooperative aid from
his agnate if the latter felt that he was not sharing his advantages, Thus, it is hardly likely
that he could keep to himself whatever inexpensive fertilizer he might gain through the
post. Unlike the agnate, the ”stranger,” on the one hand, would not be expected t o share
his advantages; nor, on the other hand, would the cooperative norms of hospitality be extended to him when grain was short or labor scarce.
absolute rurpluses
Compound #1, for all its distance from the Chayanov slope, did not produce the most
surplus grain in 1974. The distance of a compound’s point above the Chayanov slope on the
domostlc labor Intonslty
81
graph only represents a surplus produced relative to the needs of that compound. But when
a recirculation of that grain to other compounds is called for, it is the absolute amount of
that surplus that becomes important. Here, again, lineage membership is the key to
understanding the production data. For all its distance from the slope relative to other large
compounds, compound # 1 produced an absolute grain surplus (3,227 kg.-see Table 1)
that was surpassed by compound U s 2, 4, 11, 16, 26, 36 and equaled by #23--all clan
agnates except for U36.
Eight of the 10 small (less than or equal to 7.5 consumers) compounds that produced
over a thousand kilograms of surplus grain are from the central clan (#s 4, 5,12,13,17, 21,
22, 23). Of the other 2 ( U s 37 and 381, #37 has strong marriage ties with two minimal
segments in that clan, and U38 has many agemates from the central clan who gave him
strong exchangelabor support. These surplus producers cover the full range of dependency
ratios. Nevertheless, of those 8 compounds with dependency ratios of 1.5 or lower (#s 4, 5,
12, 21, 23, 37, 38, 41), all of the members of the central clan, in addition t o #38, produced
over a thousand kilograms of surplus grain; #41, who did not, is a casted woodworker like
# 40.
As noted earlier, most of the compounds with deficient grain production in 1974 were
either from the central clan ( # s 6, 8, 9, 10, 14,18,19, 25), integrally attached to one of its
more successful compounds through matrilateral or client ties ( # s 16x [to 161 and 27 [to
261). or from another minimal lineage (#s 31 and 33). The only isolated, nonlineage compounds that permitted themselves an insufficient grain production that year were the
and the destitute stranger (#43). Yet for all these deficits, only
casted woodworker (#a)
compound #43, which was continually identified as being “from another village,” was
thought of or saw itself as being close to “household failure” (Sahlins 1972:69).
extradomestic labor intensity
So far it has been shown that criteria of lineage membership have a significant effect on
farming production. The compilation of input and output data on this production has
helped us t o recognize the historical importance of patrilineal descent ties for the
reproduction of this peasantry. Can the production data also help us to discover why these
particular ties should assume such importance? I propose to look once again at these farming outcomes to see if they constitute important material “transactions” that help to
“generate” (Barth 1966) or provide ”feedback” (Barth 1973:19) to the dominant descent institutions.
The final column of Table 1 lists the percentage of weeding labor performed in the compound field by laborers other than compound members. There are several institutions providing for reciprocal and cooperative labor in most Malian villages, the most celebrated being the ton (village-wide youth group [Leynaud 19661 named for the tonjdn army of the Segu
state). In Dukolomba, exchange-labor groups moved workers between compounds as often
as did the ton.
Table 1 shows that outside assistance during the weeding labor bottleneck did not
necessarily lead to a superior yield. Weeds are the biggest thread to millet and sorghum
plants during their growing cycle, and the speed with which they impose this threat can
frustrate the crop growth of even the most diligent farmer unless he can obtain outside
labor in time. But even such assistance during the weeding labor bottleneck cannot
significantly help the crop of a less conscientious farmer when the bird and monkey threat
occur later on. Even a small amount of assistance makes a crucial difference when it
comes at the right time, but this difference cannot manifest itself in final yield unless there
i s the proper follow-up.
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amerlcan ethnologl8t
Among the 18 compounds that received over 10 percent of their weeding labor from outside the compound (see Table 1), 6 ( # s 1,14,19,25,27,40) produced below their consumption needs (the Chayanov slope) and 6 more (#s 3, 7, 15, 32, 41, 42) barely broke even.
Again, it is worth pointing out that all of these except the casted woodworkers (#s 40 and
41) and one cripple (#421 are members or close matrilateral relatives (#s 27 and 32) of the
central clan (#s 1-26). Only # s 4, 5, 12,13, 22, 38 turned this amount of outside help into
significant surpluses. Again, except for #38 all are members of the central clan.
However, these divergent performances did not affect the access of these groups to outside labor the following season (1975). The inefficient farmers were not denied access to
cooperative labor; in fact, they got more of it than in 1974 (Lewis 1979). Nor were the
surplus-producing compounds showered with more offers t o participate in exchange-labor
groups. On the contrary, in 1975 these compounds used less outside weeding labor (Lewis
1979). Once again, what is significant is the lineage membership of most of the compounds
in these two groups; it entitles them to outside labor assistance regardless of how well they
manage with it.
My measure of domestic labor intensity-grain yield-forcibly includes this extradomestic contribution. A more precise measure of purely domestic labor inputs would
require that the impact of the extradomestic contribution be somehow quantified and
subtracted from the total grain production in each case. But whether this would yield a
truer measure of the intensity of compound labor i s questionable. Those who used this
labor assistance most effectively were laboring the most intensely, in any case; those nearer
to the Chayanov slope might have worked harder t o break even if this outside assistance
had not been available; those far below the Chayanov slope did not manage to turn the outside assistance that they received to any advantage. Thus, even if extradomestic labor
were subtracted, the empirical slope of domestic labor intensity would s t i l l show a significant deviation from the Chayanov slope by compounds with membership in a
patrilineage.'
Extradomestic cooperative labor more readily complements lineage solidarity at the
compound or ward level than it substitutes for it. The technical problem of matching available labor to exploitable resources so as to maximize farm production cannot be solved in
any enduring fashion without recourse to the mechanism (patrilineality) through which that
labor i s socially reproduced. This problem, and its solution, constitute the underlying
characteristics of this peasant farming system. The politics of claiming peasant labor
transcends and can interfere with the economics of utilizing peasant labor. In Dukolomba,
farming success is contingent on the political success of a lineage structure.
grain and soclal networks
The production data demonstrate that, to the degree that one is incorporated in a farming lineage, one's status as a farmer is not linked to crop output. One's reputation as a
farmer can suffer with poor output, but one's claims on outside labor assistance and food
relief remain undiminished. The physical viability of the lineage itself is, of course, related
to the material feedback of crop output, but the compound appears t o have other concerns
of equal importance as it practices i t s farming. I turn now to these concerns as they relate
to ultimate survival of the lineage grouping to demonstrate that this survival does depend,
at least in part, on farming success.
The data show that it was primarily lineage members who risked insufficient yields,
casually abusing the privilege of labor assistance offered to them by other compounds in
the village." However, the data also show that it was lineage members who cultivated
more grain than they could consume even after three years of storing it. A t the same time,
domestic labor Intensity
63
nonlineage compounds with comparable production abilities turned away from grain farming toward more profitable pursuits, such as growing peanuts, livestock trading, and yearround migrant labor, after their long-term subsistence needs had been met.
Thus, close agnates have the privilege of neglecting grain yield, particularly at a given
point in time when the compound’s development cycle has left it with a high dependency
ratio. But it is also primarily lineage members who will cultivate food grains for the mere
glory of it [nyd togo ba, big grain-name) even when surrounded by more profitable uses of
their time.
For a nonlineage member, there is less glory t o growing unlimited amounts of food grain.
Just as it is unclear who will be able t o avail themselves of the nonlineage surplus grain
when the need arises, it i s also unclear who is t o bestow glory on the nonlineage villager
growing itaThis nonlineage farmer would not want to grow all that surplus grain and then
have it unheralded. So, as the graph shows, he rarely does so. In the case of both the
lineage and the nonlineage farmer, the number of people attending a funeral is said to be
an index of the surplus grain grown by the deceased. Whereas a lineage farmer is certain to
receive a more immediate social return on his generosity within his lifetime, a nonlineage
farmer may have to wait until his funeral to receive his just reward.
Furthermore, if a nonlineage farmer did grow such an abundant surplus and redistributed it
without a descent tie binding him t o the recipient, he would not have secure claims on the
return of that generosity. He would be considered a fool for giving his grain away. Thus, the
nonlineage farmer has no choice but t o ensure his own subsistence every year. He can
either see to it that his descendants will have a denser lineage network than he was born
with-by being a generous citizen, so that they can gain reliable marriage ties through
which to produce more descendants-or he can put that labor left over after subsistence
needs have been met to its most profitable end-seeking to accumulate enough wealth so
that he can live with security outside of the social system of the village. The latter alternative is a more risky undertaking.
Farming does have a role in the management of lineage politics in the village, but that
role is not always directly related to the crop output of that farming. These villagers are
more committed for their security to a permanent subsistence-producing organization than
to increasing subsistence production itself. Where these two become mutually exclusive
(see below), it is the corporateness of the organization that is chosen over crop yield.
Therefore, where reliable production ties are available, they are reinforced and no invidious distinctions concerning farming skill are allowed t o mar them. The desirability of
increasing these ties has produced a stable settlement pattern in this and neighboring
savanna villages,
patrlllnoal dorcont and farmlng
Why have these ties taken the form of patrilineal descent? Goody (1958) shows how
patrilineal descent, as opposed to dual descent, for example, favors a larger farming group
with a larger central granary. Under any other rule of succession, the laborer would be less
willing to put the fruits of his labor into a grain store in which outsiders might inherit
claims. The short farming season in Bambara territory favors the large weeding group,
while the storability of the grain favors the large granary. But these considerations do not
tell us why patrilineal descent itself would come t o be the dominant principle of organization. This is a question as old as social anthropology (Fortes 1953). I will quote three recent
statements on the subject before returning t o the Bambara.
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american ethnologlrt
It i s only because of the fact that to the actors kinship is moral, that it is non-specific and longterm, that is produces an adaptability potential to long term social change. If more rational ties
were used, i.e., ties which are the fruit of a process of maximisation,they would be more efficient in
the short term but more costly in the middle and long term . . . would it be too much to suuest that
the selective value of kinship is precisely the combination of the many functions which it can perform without it being reduced either in character or in time to any single one. In other words it is the
generality of kinship and the continuity of kinship which is of prime significance and these features
are due to its morality (Bloch 1973:86-87).
Government by elders is therefore determined by the structure of reproduction itself. Like all coop
tative systems, it is because reciprocity between elders only ceases to operate at the death of a particular elder, that the chiefs are not eliminated after middle age; and it is because all juniors must
become elders (as long as no appropriate methods of administrative control are activated), that
every old man is nearly always replaced at his death by another old man.
Put in another way, the mode of production determines the unit, the lineage, which must serve a5
the base on which the structure of society is built, that is, the only unit where there is a permanent
hegemony of function (Rey 1975:58-59).
The circulation of produce between generations, a circulation necessary to the reconstitution of the
human energy of each individual producer and future producer, depends on all the other members
of the communaute. The capacity of each producer to produce an energy excess i s subordinatedto
his membership in the communaute. The energy of each producer is the social and temporal product
of the communaute and of the relations of production and reproduction spanning three generations
(Meillassoux 197592; my translation).
The force with which a subsistence farmer produces is not seen t o be his own since he
did not produce that force himself. It belongs to the ancestors and therefore to the lineage.
When one agnate produces more than another, it does not matter since both of their forces
come from the same source, i.e., the ancestor. The word for this force in Bambara is ni. Ni is
a root o f the general word for lifeforce, nyama (Ciss6 1974), in this and many other West
African languages. One‘s ni is inherited from one’s patrilineal ancestors, while one’s ja
(one’s image or double) is acquired through upbringing (Henry 1910; see Fortes 1959 for
parallel notions among other West African savanna societies). But is it primarily the concept, or “morality” in Bloch‘s (1973:87) terms, of this lineage-derived lifeforce which keeps
the laborer from being swayed by the force of more immediate material successes which
could break up his lineage group? I prefer Meillassoux’s (1975:92; my translation) more
materialist reasoning over that of Bloch.
From a strictly economic point of view, the part consecrated to the subsistence of the nonproductives, in particular the elders, would appear superfluous. But that is to forget that the conditions of production themselves lead to placing the eldest at the center of the relations of production
thereby contributing to the growth of their authority, the concentration of their management functions in their hands, and the development of an ideology of seniority. The structures define the outcome of this mode of production: the perpetuation and the multiplication of its members. . . .
Thus, in the communaute domestique, the survival of post-producers is not possible except
through the investment of productive years in the formation of future producers. Without investing
in a cell of production and reproduction, an isolated worker cannot survive-as soon as he stops
working-or at least beyond the period through which he can conserve foods accumulated before
his retirement-that is to say, only several years.
The issue, then, is not so much how well a man or his descendants farm as that there must
be descendants to farm.
The Bambara have not been acephalous members of a communaute domestique for centuries. But their situation as taxed peasants has confirmed rather than undermined the
security-giving functions of the lineage. In the bamana situation in Malian history, the
farmer’s security has come to depend not only on having enough to eat but on paying one’s
taxes. The loyal collateral agnate, not t o mention the direct descendant, can assist one with
this exaction. As with starvation, failure to pay one’s taxes can lead to removal from the
community. In precolonial times, this was done by making one a pawn or slave; since then
the state makes one a prisoner. Taxes can be paid with earnings from the Ivory Coast, if the
domostlc labor Intondty
68
compound head is not too proud t o accept money from the youths; but unless the youth
comes home regularly (to farm), this can become an unreliable form of security.
why do young rgnrtor como homo?
I have described the farming-season return of laboring youths from wage-earning jobs in
the Ivory Coast as a precondition for the survival of the elders, the infants, and the lineage
system that links them. I have not recapitulated the laboring youths' own reasons for r e
turning except t o imply that they too will be elders someday and that their employment
situation, for all its short-term advantages relative to cash earnings possible on the farm,
does not provide for their security as retirees. Conveniently, for the Ivory Coast (Amin
1974), as foreigners from Mali they have no claims on the state for any retirement benefits.
While some of these migrant laborers might, at times, earn enough to support children out
of their wages, they will rarely earn enough t o support their elders too. The level of wages
adequate to support children outside of the natal farming village can never be sustained
from month t o month, or year t o year, even for the hardiest migrant. To become a family
man, the young migrant must fulfill his obligations in his natal farming village.
M y emphasis here has been t o situate his concern for family in the social and production
organization in the home community, rather than t o trace it t o the uncertain employment
situation to the south. Stated simply, the home community cannot survive without the annual return of most of the youth. This is more crucially significant than the fact that the offfarm employment sector cannot absorb these bamana youths.
The analogous continuity of Tallensi lineage organization displays some differences
from the Bambara case in this respect. The continuing ties of Tallensi youths to their
lineages are t o be attributed more to the underdevelopment of the off-farm employment
sector than t o their role in the viability of Tallensi agriculture.
Labour migrants were young men whose absence did not disrupt agricultural production and whose
reintegration into the home lineage (for the sake of marriage, if nothing else) was
inevitable. . . despite considerable developments in the social division of labor, the ties which link
most Tallensi to lineage land have not yet been decisively broken.. .the dominant landholding
units are still fluid small groups of male agnates. Local commerce and wage opportunities cannot
support the bulk of Tallensi young men and the pressure to emigrate for long periods is intense (Hart
1978:210-211).
The Tallensi lineage, like the bamana one, protects its members from the uncertainties of
the external market.
The lineage has become a buffer against the vagaries of a market which, either through wages or
petty commodity production, has usurped its dominant function in the supply of income to Tallensi
families (Hart 1978212).
But the Tallensi lineage does not need the annual agricultural participation of the majority
of i t s laboring members in order t o be able t o provide this service. lineages have retained
control of the land for those who need it, and such group control remains possible as long
as too many members do not need this recourse at the same time. With increasing pressure
on the land, one might expect (Worseley 1956) that a system of individual, alienable
holdings would develop. This does not appear t o have happened, in part because of the
role of lineageheld land in providing a measure of security t o lineage members dependent
on uncertain employment elsewhere.
Land does not have the same value in the bamana agricultural system. It cannot provide
this security t o absent lineage members unless i t s potentiality has already been transferred
to the granary. Therefore, if lineage continuity depends on marriage through the payment
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amerlcan ethnologlrt
of a bridewealth, support for that bridewealth can be earned through the fulfillment of a
farming obligation. Remittance of wages, as among the Tallensi, is not sufficient.
The young agnate’s obligation to farm is enforced by village sanctions which appear to
override even the lure of a favorable wage-earning situation in the Ivory Coast. The first
time they miss a farming season, their names come under severe criticism back in the
village. The sight of an elder “father” struggling alone out t o his field is a daily indictment
of the absent ”son.” Each villager is born into an age-set, usually spanning two t o three
years. When an ageset matures t o working age (postcircumcision for the males), it
becomes part of a youth group work force (ton) for 1 5 to 20 years, depending on the labor
needs of the village in question. The ton is usually called out during peak farming periods
to perform cooperative labor capable of overcoming tilling, weeding, and threshing bottlenecks characteristic of this savanna agriculture. As this can happen twice a week during
the farming season, the absence of a given youth at this time can become quite conspicuous to his agemates, the other members of the ion, and to the village as a whole. The
ton organization will fine such an absent member a few kola nuts for each work seance
missed, or a flat rate-at least two kola per ton member-for an absence lasting the entire
season. One’s own age-mates refrain from berating one for missing a farming season.
Relations with age-mates are normatively pleasant, such that one can only feel regret at
having forsaken their company during all of these cooperative farming occasions.
If a youth stays away for a second farming season, it might prove difficult for him to get
even close relatives to contribute to his bridewealth expenses when it comes time for him
to marry. He could find a wife at a lower bridewealth cost in the Ivory Coast or from
another part of Mali, but even if obtained locally, such a low-bridewealth wife would invariably be a stranger t o the area with few local relatives upon whom claims for assistance
could be made. I t is primarily the lack of such matrilateral relatives that makes a lowbridewealth, stranger wife less attractive. A migrant maintains ties with his home lineage
segment in order to guarantee his own subsistence security in old age, as well as that of his
children in their infancy. But he must ensure that those ties are properly constituted so as
to ensure these intended guarantees. Marrying a stranger-wife can be counterproductive in
this respect. While the migrant’s agnates may appreciate the fact that they do not have to
contribute to a bridewealth payment in such a case, the children of such a marriage are not
initially seen as an asset for their lineage segment. With such a small bridewealth payment,
it is difficult for the lineage segment or compound in question to retain control over the
children of this marriage in case of divorce. And permanent separation is always more likely when the wife’s family is not known locally and cannot be contacted to effect the wife’s
return with the small children.
Thus, the young migrant who overly absents himself from farming as a youth and who is,
therefore, obliged to marry a low-bridewealth wife, may find that he has few claims on
neighbors in the home village at times of famine. Furthermore, food shortages become
more likely in his case as he loses access to cooperative work groups suited to the labor
bottlenecks of this short farming season. To marry a stranger is t o have fewer affines
(matrilateral relatives for his children) with whom he can ally in the formation of vital
cooperative work groups. Furthermore, he will experience more difficulty in getting his age
mates t o include him in an exchange labor rotation, since he has been absent too many
times at past ton labor seances.
It is conceivable, though unlikely (Lewis 1979), that an absent migrant could return from
the Ivory Coast with enough money t o pay the bridewealth required by the lineage of a
local woman.” In such a case, an absent male could pay the bridewealth for a wellconnected local woman without the financial assistance of his agnates. This option,
however, presupposes that his agnates, though not called upon to assist materially, are s t i l l
domertlc labor Intenslty
67
willing to assist politically in the marriage negotiations with the other lineage segment.
They are not always anxious to negotiate on behalf of a groom who has been absent so frequently and so long as to have been able to earn a substantial portion of the bridewealth.
Their reluctance anticipates the potential bride’s lineage’s reluctance t o marry their
“daughter” to one who had missed so much farming. Furthermore, neither lineage likes to
encourage the flow of outside money t o its village specifically for the purpose of paying
bridewealth. This cash comes in from the outside, adding to the amount of liquid wealth in
the community. As the money supply increases, particularly when stimulated by the need
to pay bridewealths, marriage costs can only inflate. The peasants are aware of this danger
and for this reason prefer t o see bridewealth payments raised out of liquid wealth
(livestock) already in the village.
The bridewealth requirement for marriage is seen more as a mechanism for forcing a prospective groom to pass through lineage channels than as an opportunity to buy out of
them. Hence, when such an opportunity becomes imminent-that is, when a migrant
returns with adequate funds t o pay the entire bridewealth-the political protocol of marriage is elaborated to ensure that lineage ties are reinforced rather than circumvented by
the ensuing liaison. Various means of making these negotiations complicated are intended
to discourage the use of income from the market for bridewealth payments, because of its
inflationary consequences.
The hold of the barnana lineage segment on i t s young migrants appears to be more
straightforward than that of the Tallensi. Among the latter, highly ritualized claims on
lineage land offer the migrant agnate a last resort of security should his outside employment falter. Certainly, if pressures on the land had led t o a breakup of lineage control over
it, as Worseley (1956) predicts, this security option would no longer be available t o the a b
sent agnate. So, rather than break up the land for a more optimally productive agriculture,
Tallensi have retained a lineage-based relation with the land, ensuring a measure of security for the absent agnates and their families (Hart 1978:212). In both the Barnana and the
Tallensi case, agriculture is used t o bolster the lineage structure as well as to feed the
population. In both cases, these goals tend to compromise each other at certain junctures.
The difference is related to the fact that, in central Mali, agriculture would be riskier
without a lineage support structure. Lineage affiliation, perhaps, does not need t o be as
ritualized there; rather it must be linked more closely to direct participation in agriculture.
While rights in the barnana lineage are linked to agricultural participation, they are not at
the same time linked to agricultural performance. This fact highlights a feature of barnana
patrilineal organization that I emphasize here. That feature cannot be measured as we
measure farm inputloutput data; yet it has a significant impact on these quantifiable
features. In fact, the degree t o which rights in the lineage are not measured in material
terms seems to contribute t o a continuity of loyalty between lineage members that
mediates the fluctuating market demand for their labor.
agronomy and farm group management
Farming, particularly that segment of it which is the compound, represents a form of
homage to the lineage, in addition to being a source of subsistence. This political aspect of
farming is reflected in several farm management practices. Aside from the small, annually
manured house fields, all of a compound’s sorghum i s grown in a single “bush field.”
Similarly, all of the compound’s millet is grown in one area of the bush. The larger the compound, the larger each of these fields. Smaller parcels of the nitrogen-fixing legumes, Barnbara earthnuts, and peanuts are kept as separate as possible from the grain fields for two
68
amerlcan ethnologlst
reasons. First, these legumes will attract monkeys and wart hogs that will destroy the grain
stalks while on their way to search out a peanut or earthnut. Monkeys, in particular, like t o
suck sugar from sorghum stalks, but they will often not come upon them unless the prospect of pulling out peanuts has brought them into the vicinity. Second, laboring youths
might be tempted to give greater attention to the cash crop (peanuts) if it were adjacent to
the subsistence crop field. Peanuts are often placed in an abandoned field and, except for
their back-breaking harvest, worked only by elders. Although the nitrogen-fixing advantages of rotating grain with legumes are well recognized by these farmers, it is nonetheless
difficult to rotate any of the millet and sorghum space with peanuts. Smaller, separate
grain fields could be instituted to permit one at a time to be alternated with peanuts,
without the youths being brought any closer to the latter. But with the youths split up
among more than two grain fields (sorghum and millet, although frequently only one of
these is grown in a “bush field” in any given year), they would be working separately.
The importance of farmers seeing themselves as working in and for a corporate group
could be overshadowed by considerations as to the profitability of their work. The farmers
continuously stress the importance of the united farming group. If one laborer has to be
detached for a separate task, it is usually the compound head himself; if he is infirm, it is
either his immediate junior or the most recently circumcised boy. No worker i s taken out of
the middle of the pack for special attention. There are no farming competitions or contests.
No one’s farming ability i s praised relative to that of another. Only a compound head i s
called a “wild farmer” (chi wara; see lmperato 1970), where applicable. If his junior in the
compound were given this praise, it would imply that his compound head, if close in age, i s
a weaker farmer or, if more senior, i s failing to provide the desired degree of farming
leadership.
The history of the introduction of the plow into this village furnishes yet another example of agronomic proficiency being sacrificed to the larger organizational design of these
peasants’ existence. Two reasons are given by the farmers for the recent resistance to plow
use: (1) it depletes the soil too quickly, and (2) it interferes with the involvement of the compound labor unit in preparing the field. Plows first become acceptable in the last decade
for preparing the cash-crop peanut field. Since then, a farmer is not considered too selfish
or lazy in plowing his grain field so long as he does not plow the same parcel of land for
two consecutive years. Tool bars with weeding attachments have yet t o be accepted in this
village. Ironically, because weeding is the most serious labor bottleneck, it is the work sector in which the elders can least afford the risk of replacing the youths of the lineage with
machinery, for to do so threatens i t s corporateness. As long as it remains difficult and
precarious to keep plow oxen; as long as group labor is needed for threshing; as long as
bridewealths can only be kept from rapid inflation by the groom‘s manifesting a secure
farming operation with a nevertheless small cash flow; as long as compounds are not confirmed by the state in their ancestral landholdings (to name a few reasons for the continuing vitality of the lineage); then lineage juniors will s t i l l be lined up, each at the end of a
row, to weed the millet.
conclurlon
In the analysis of a peasant economy, inputloutput data, tabulated at the level of the
farm management unit, must often be interpreted in terms of the wider political constraints
that define that peasantry as a group. Among central Malian peasants calling themselves
bamana, the establishment of a large, localized, reproductive organization is as much an
outcome of subsistence farming as a superior crop output. In this peasant situation, s u b
domertlc labor Intenrlty
69
sistence farming takes on a political significance that transcends, and even occasionally
contradicts, the goal of maximum subsistence. These bamana are involved in a long-term
structure for survival t h a t involves the reproduction of allies in a delineated space. The role
of patrilineal descent in this survival structure need not b e attributed to a set of culturally
relative norms or concepts (cf. Sahlins 1976). It can also b e inferred f r o m an overview of
regional economic history where labor has been an important commodity on the market for
centuries (Meillassoux 1971). With f e w market means, the M a l i a n peasant majority has
sought to control this labor b y tying it to its reproductive source. Thus, the lineage has come
to control two key elements of social reproduction-food production and marriage-in its
o w n name.
notes
Acknowledgments. I would like to thank Harold W. Scheffler and J . Keith Hart for reviewing earlier
renditions of this material. Fourteen months (1974-75) residence in this village was financed by the
West African Regional Economic Development Services Organization (REDSO/WA) of the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Research Foundation of the State
University of New York (RFSUNY), Contract No. AlD/AFR-C-1045, with the administrative support and
assistance of L’Office Malien du Betail et de la Viande (L‘OMBEVI). Drs. David Shear, Michael M.
Horowitz, and Boubacar Sy, of these three organizations respectively, are to be thanked as much for
making the research materially possible as for their professional interest in its outcome. Dangui
Sissoko of L‘OMBEVI and Brihima Coulibaly of the Service des Eaux et For& should be given separate
acknowledgment for their daily assistance and consultation in the field.
Bambara, the Arabic and Fulfulde rendition of bamana, has been until recently the ethnic tag
given to these peasants in the literature. Since their own word, bamana, has a particular set of meanings that I am obliged t o analyze in this article, I have retained the use of Bambara to geographically
identify the group and i t s dialect of the Mande language. Bambara words are spelled with the official
alphabet established by UNESCO and the Ministry of Education in 1966 for Mali’s alphabetization program.
See Harner (1975) for a discussion of the role of scarce labor relative to that of scarce land in
social evolution.
When the Segu king [fama) had succeeded in taxing a self-styled bamana village, these peasants
reaffirmed their paganism, insisting that Allah was the master whom they had refused since it was
clear that they could no longer refuse their secular master. Thus they maintained their identity as
bamana refusers and avoided classification as tonjbn subjects of the king (Lewis 1978). Beginning with
the colonial period, Islam has been associated with resistance to political and economic control from
above. Nowadays around Segou, one finds very devout Muslims who are extremely proud of their
bamana heritage. A tradition of freedom is implied in each case.
This interpretation of bamana descent institutions bears some resemblancest o Bohannan‘s (1959)
application of the “spheres of exchange” concept to the Tiv, except that here it is the circulation of
labor rather than of certain goods that is being confined to the community. Ortiz’s (1973:272-274) use
of the term in discussing the subsistence sector among Colombian Indians shows how restricted
spheres of exchange can become part of a peasant survival strategy. But in West Africa, as Berthoud
(1969-70) shows for the Tiv themselves, such restricted spheres, where they exist, are more important
for controlling producers than produce. Along the Middle Niger, where a monetary economy i s over a
thousand years old (Johnson 1970; Lovejoy 1974) producers could not be kept off the marketplace
through restrictions on prestige goods. For this purpose, the bamana use patrilineal descent ties directly.
Hart’s (1978) reconsideration of this fact for the nearby Tallensi reveals organizational, if not
economic, similarities to the Bambara case discussed here. Hart (1978:202) considers how the problem
presented itself to Fortes.
Hedonistic and materialist considerations would generally lead Tallensi to seek a life anywhere but
in their home communities-their continued attachment to these communities must be explained in
terms of cultural and moral propensities. The development cycle model is adapted to account for
the persistence of Tallensi descent groups through economic change.
He then concludes that “lineage-based agriculture has retained its viability at the heart of the Tallensi
social security system even though it no longer contributes i t s former share of total domestic consump
tion” (Hart 1978:213).
’
‘
70
amerlcan ethnologist
In 1974 this consisted of a basic charge of 2,150 Malian francs per head, with minor taxes added
on (such as a 570 Malian francs per head school tax). Since 1968, 100 Malian francs have been
equivalent to 1 new French franc.
Unmeasurable in the sense that, unlike millet, sorghum, and fonio, they were harvested and carried to the village day by day as they ripened. Measuring millet, sorghum, and fonio was a manageable
affair as almost all of the compound’s harvest for each was threshed and sacked for cart transport to
the village at a single time. Peanuts were also brought from the fields in sacks, albeit on successive
days (and on donkeys, two at a time-a sack of peanuts was lighter than a sack of millet) and therefore
were easier to measure than the odd calabash load of maize, Bambara earthnut, cowpea, and okra
that would come in from the fields from time to time.
I have not taken up any of Evans‘s (1974) suggestions as to how this data might be statistically
analyzed as the ”Sahlins curve” of domestic labor intensity i s plotted. Here, I am only looking at the
data in terms of the social identity of each compound domestic unit in order to define an
ethnographically accurate direction for such a statistical analysis to take.
These minimal lineages and compound #37 have close agnates settled in a nearby hamlet; #20
has also settled in this hamlet, but only temporarily, as he plans to return when he inherits the chieftainship. I gave him a number for this reason. His son, #21, has remained behind in the village.
l o Elder women (those with laboring sons) are permitted to concentrate much of their farming time
on their own, private “woman‘s field.” The labor of such women has been scaled as 0.5 of the adult
male standard because it was difficult for them to get their fields weeded in a timely fashion and, consequently. the yields were minimal [Lewis 1979). Their sons helped weed these fields but rarely before
the compound field had been effectively weeded. By such time, weeds had often taken their toll in the
women’s fields.
” Compound #16x i s an offshoot of #16s father’s ex-slave and therefore not of this chiefly clan,
although it does some of i t s farming with #16.
” For this reason compound # s 1 5 and 24, even though they include members of the chiefly clan,
are not in boldface in Table 2. Compound # 8 is not in boldface for the same reason: it is not managed
by a member of the chiefly clan even though many of i ts members are in that clan. The head of compound # 8 is the son of the former compound head‘s client-servant (slave) and, therefore, not a
member of the chiefly clan. However, as he is older than any of the sons of the former compound
head, he has assumed the compound headship. Although there was never any question about his right
to do this, there is some friction between him and the younger, “noble” compound members, which (in
1974) hampered the overall productivity of the compound (see Table 1).
The varied, though in some cases considerable, contribution that cooperative labor makes to
weeding (not to mention harvesting and threshing) throws into question the meaning of measuring at
all labor inputs at the level of the domestic group. But in this article I am approaching this question
from another direction: as measured, domestic labor intensities do show a significant variation as a
function of certain extradomestic social ties of each group. In pointing wt these ties, then, the
domestic group measure does give us an idea of which extradomestic groupings are significant. In
another study I hope to explore the role of cooperative labor in ensuring that farming serves the incorporation process of these significant groupings at the same time as (enough) crops are being grown.
“ The networks used in this cooperative labor reveal interesting facets of the politics of kinship
among this peasantry (see Lewis 1979).
” Rey (1975) explores how this effort leads to rapidly inflating bridewealth demands which in turn
make the peasant community even more dependent on wage earnings. But the juniors’ structural ability to make this attempt should not be overestimated:
If . . one considers the elder as a member of the group of elders, it is quite clear that the harshness
of an elder who sends his own juniors away gives rise to an analogous harshness among the other
elders who will allow him to acquire other juniors from the side of his maternal family, in equal
numbers in principle. Moreover, a junior who changes lineage affiliation remains a junior, and often
loses status. In short the different strategies available to a junior are largely illusory, and anyway are
limited in number (1975:53).
’
’
’
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Submitted 11 May 1979
Revised version received 9 September 1980
Accepted 24 September 1980
Final revisions received 1 5 October 1980
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