狩猟活動における儀礼性と楽しさ

コンゴ北東部の狩猟採集民アカのネット・ハンティングにおける協同と分配

抄録

Recent studies on hunter-gatherer economy are dissociated into two trends. Behavioral biology and micro-economics have been employed to elucidate the adaptation of a hunter-gatherer to given natural environments, using fitness value or utility. Meanwhile, economical anthropologists, so called substantivists who emphasize the social implication of economic activities, have accentuated the relevance of the economic behavior such as sharing with unique characteristics of hunter-gatherer society, especially ‘egalitarianism’.
Here, the net-hunting activity of the Aka hunter-gatherers living in the tropical rain forest of northeastern Congo is described according to time sequence. The aim of this description is to better understand the experiential reality among participants of net-hunting. Two questions are set beforehand. One is how the individual participants are involved with others in the net-hunting activity. Another is how the Aka's view of nature is related to the activity.
Consequently, it has become clear that net-hunting has some ritual aspects in association with ancestral spirits dwelling in the forest who control the cycle of the Aka and game animals between this world and the future life.
The ancestral spirits stress collaboration and solidarity among domestic groups, the basic social unit of Aka daily life, and reinforce their social identification based on gender and generation through role-taking in the hunt and subsequent distribution of meat.
Furthermore, when net-hunting is compared to ritual group dancing with regards to pleasure experienced and the effect of ideologically binding the participants, they are both found to be quite similar. It is individual pleasure that underpins ritual aspects of net-hunting.