Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

alone. A variety of binas 4 may be applied to dogs in the course of their training, or
to a dog whose success declines for any reason. There are also many binas used by
hunters on themselves, to develop and maintain stamina, patience, accuracy,
alertness or other useful skills.
4.3.2 Social and spatial organisation of hunting
The majority of hunting is done opportunistically: men carry their weapons and take
their dogs whenever they go into the forest, for example when going to the farm, to
fish or to gather wild fruits or other forest products, in order to take advantage of
chance encounters with game. A good deal of hunting also takes place in the course
of travel to and from fishing grounds on the Kwitaro or other major rivers, as the
main hunting roads all double as routes to important fishing sites. Hunting also takes
place during extended stays at the farm, when the farm house acts as a base for
forays deeper into the forest. Extended visits to the forest in which hunting is the
major objective are also commonly undertaken, but it is exceedingly unlikely that any
such trip would involve hunting alone, to the exclusion of all other activities.
This accords well with optimality models based upon a prey distribution that is
patchy and unpredictable in both space and time, when encounters with prey are
irregular (cf. Hawkes et al. 1982). The prey species that exemplifies this situation is
the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), and it is probably appropriate to regard
this hunting strategy as being at least partly adapted to the pursuit of this species. In
contrast, excursions devoted exclusively to hunting most commonly take place in
circumstances when prey location and movements are somewhat more predictable
and the likelihood of encounter high. Examples might include shining along creeks for
the riparian laba (Agouti paca), staking out fruiting trees known to be regularly
visited by game animals, or pursuing a persistent farm predator known to be
operating in a particular area.
4 The Creolese term ‘bina’ refers to a wide variety of treatments, based upon preparations
of both plant and animal origin, considered to be efficacious in imparting or enhancing
some desired skill or property in the individual to which they are applied. This concept is
more extensively discussed in Im Thrun [1883], which provides several illustrated