Henri Claessen - Early State Economics (Political and Legal Anthropology)

EARLY STATE ECONOMICS

Political and Legal Anthropology Series

Myron Aronoff, Series Editor

Ideology and Interest, The Dialectics of Politics, Volume 1, Myron J. Aronoff, editor. 1980.

Culture and Political Change, Volume 2, Myron J. Aronoff, editor. 1982.

Religion and Politics, Volume 3, Myron J. Aronoff, editor. 1983.

Cross-Currents in Israeli Culture and Politics, Volume 4, Myron J. Aronoff, editor. 1984.

Frailty of Authority, Volume 5, Myron J. Aronoff, editor. 1986.

State Formation and Political Legitimacy, Volume 6, Ronald Cohen and Judith D. Toland, editors. 1988.

Outwitting the State, Volume 7, Peter Skalnk, editor. 1989.

Early State Economics, Volume 8, Henri J.M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde, editors. 1991.

Political and Legal Anthropology Volume 8

EARLY STATE ECONOMICS

Edited by

Henri J.M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde

First published 1991 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 90-11294

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Early state economics / edited by Henri J.M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde.

p. cm(The Association for political and legal anthropology; vol. 8)

Papers from the Conference on the Political Economy of the Early State, held during the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences at Zagreb, Yugoslavia, July 28 and 30, 1988.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Economic anthropologyCongresses. 2. Society, Primitive Congresses. 3. Economics, Prehistoric-Congresses. I. Claessen, H. J. M. II. Velde, Pieter van de. III. Conference on the Political Economy of the Early State (1988 : Zagreb, Croatia) IV. Series.

GN448.E25 1991

306.3dc20

90-11294
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-88738-885-9 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-88738-402-8 (hbk)

Contents

Henri J.M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde

M. Estellie Smith

Aidan Southall

Albert A. Trouwborst

Ronald Cohen

Michal Tymowski

Patricia J. OBrien

Elizabeth M. Brumfiel

Federic Hicks

Rien Ploeg

Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka

Martin A. van Bakel

Henri J.M. Claessen

The foundations for this volume were laid during the conference on The Political Economy of the Early State which was held during the Twelfth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences at Zagreb, Yugoslavia, July 28 and 30, 1988. For two days, an international group of scholars discussed a series of papers on problems of the (political) economy of the early state. It there appeared useful to place the phenomenon of political economy in the wider frame of the economy of the early state in general. This approach is, therefore, followed in this volume too. In order to better relate the papers to each other, the editors wrote an introduction, in which several of the problems that were discussed during the Zagreb meetings were placed in a wider perspective.

We greatly regret that not all colleagues who accepted our invitation to participate in the conference actually attended. For various reasons Dr. hab. Michal Tymowski (University of Warsaw, Poland), Professor Ronald Cohen (University of Florida at Gainesville, U.S.), and Dr. Edward Ch.L. van der Vliet (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) could not join us. Their papers, however, were presented in Zagreb. It was possible for the papers of Cohen and Tymowski to be included in the volume.

We are proud that, apart from those whose papers have been gathered into this volume, a large number of scholars attended our conference and contributed to the discussions. We would like to mention in this connection especially Professor Donald V. Kurtz (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, U.S.), Professor Edward I. Steinhart (Texas Tech University at Lubbock, U.S.), Dr. Peter Skalnik (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Dr. Thomas Bargatzky (University of Munich, G.F.R.), Professor Dietrich Treide (University of Leipzig, G.D.R.), Professor Jean-Claude Muller (University of Montreal, Canada), and Dr. Hans-Jrgen Hildebrandt (Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft, G.F.R.).

As usual, it is impossible to name all who have contributed in some way to the realization of this book. From them we want to mention especially Dr. Franklin Tjon Sie Fat for his help in many ways. Our sincere thanks to Peter Deunhouwer of the Institute for Prehistory (University of Leiden) for making most of the maps and figures for us.

The editors feel honored by the positive judgement of the manuscript by the editor of the Political Anthropology Yearbook, and by its acceptance by Transaction Publishers for publication.

HENRI J. M. CLAESSEN

PIETER VAN DE VELDE

University of Leiden

Henri J. M. Claessen and Pieter van de Velde

The Problem

This book discusses the political economy of early states. Central in the discussion will be an analysis of the ways in which the income of the central government is organized. This will be discussed in connection with the ways in which the income is spent by those in government. These movements, in turn, will have to be placed against the economy of early states in general, for without some insight in the general situation the specific problems of political economy cannot be understood clearly.

This way of approaching political economy is reflected in the contributions to this volume. Three of the chapters have a more theoretical or general approach, to which we will return presently, and the other nine concentrate on specific early states or regions. In some respects this collection seems composed in a rather haphazard way: the cases discussed are mainly from Africa, Polynesia, and the Americas; the only case from Asia is the chapter on Nepal by Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka. The American cases comprise a discussion of only archaeologically known Cahokia by Patricia OBrien, two chapters on the highly developed Aztec Empire by Elizabeth Brumfiel and Frederic Hicks, and a chapter on the Maya by Rien Ploeg. Two of the African cases form the ethnographic core in more general chapters by Aidan Southall and Albert Trouwborst (Kongo and the Interlacustrine states, respectively); the other two (Bornu and Wolof) are discussed by Ronald Cohen and Michal Tymowski. The chapters devoted to Polynesia both have a comparative character. In the one Marin van Bakel compares the economy of Hawaii and Samoa, and in the other Henri Claessen compares the situation in Tahiti with the situation in the Tonga Islands. Though this seems a rather arbitrary sample, it meets a number of qualifications. The cases can be divided quite satisfyingly over the three categories of early states as distinguished in