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

manicole (Euterpe spp.), or a combination of these. A group of six workers is able to
construct such a shelter, big enough to sleep all six, in a single day. With
maintenance, they may last for as long as fifteen years. Hunters also construct a
variety of temporary shelters for overnight accommodation when they are unable to
reach a camp. These are usually based upon a basic frame made from saplings and to
which a hammock can be tied, covered with a sloping roof of either palm leaves or
the less durable, but ubiquitous and abundant, wild banana.
Hunting roads and the campsites thereon are considered to be owned by
particular individuals. As is the case with farm roads, ownership is originally vested in
the man who first cut the hunting line and established the camp. Most of the hunting
lines in Maruranau were cut prior to living memory, and their ownership has
subsequently been inherited cognatically through male lines: on a man's death,
ownership may pass to his son, son-in-law, or nephew. Usufruct rights appear to be
transmitted in a similar fashion: a man can retain ancestral rights of use of a
particular area for hunting, even if ownership has been inherited by someone else. An
individual's use of a particular area for hunting will in any case emerge naturally from
their education. Boys learn to hunt by accompanying their fathers and uncles, some
of which latter, under the system of cross-cousin marriage, would in ideal
circumstances later have become their fathers-in-law. As well as the technical skills
involved, they thus acquire a detailed knowledge of the geography and ecology of
particular areas, which in most cases will become their major hunting grounds in
adulthood. For people without inherited rights of use, the permission or invitation of
the owner of a line or camp is formally required prior to its use for hunting or other
activities. In practice I never heard of any instance of permission for access being
refused, although in principle the system does allow for regulation of hunting
pressure, via the decisions of owners of lines regarding who should be granted
access. In practice, the major consequence is that most areas of deep forest are
more or less exclusively hunted by a small number of people, often restricted to
members of a single regular hunting group.
Most hunting expeditions are undertaken by groups of from two to four men, in
most cases relatives or affines. A few men go to the forest alone or with their wives,
although these are exceptional cases. In some cases residential propinquity or simply
friendship is the basis for the composition of hunting groups. Men will often have an
effective choice among different groups of relatives as hunting companions, owing to
the flexibility provided by the cognatic system of affiliation to groups, though most
people on most occasions appear to go hunting with the same partners. This