Yuqui Foragers In The Bolivian Amazon - Subsistence Strategies, Prestige, And Leadership In An Acculturating Society

Although the relationship between the acquisition and distribution of meat and systems of prestige has been widely reported, analyses have tended to be qualitative. Studies using quantitative data have focused either on prestige or on food sharing, without attempting to explore important linkages between both systems. In this paper, quantitative data on Amazonian resource use and distribution, particularly of fish and game, are used in an analysis of changing patterns of prestige and leadership among the Yuquí of lowland Bolivia. This analysis suggests that strategies relating to food acquisition and sharing might condition and be conditioned by the strategies employed to acquire prestige and that the data generated in studies of this nature have implications for indigenous cultural survival