Abstract
In this paper I examine the intracultural variability of parental and alloparental caregiving among the Aka foragers of the Central African Republic. It has been suggested that maternal kin offer higher frequencies of allocare than paternal kin and that maternal investment in infants will decrease when alloparental assistance is provided. Behavioral observations were conducted on 15 eight- to twelve-monthold infants. The practice of brideservice and the flexibility of Aka residence patterns offered a means to test the effect of maternal residence on parental and alloparental investment. There was significant variation in the frequency of investment and who supplied care to infants depending on whether mothers resided with their kin or their husbands’ kin. However, in spite of the variation in allocare, when all categories of caregivers were examined collectively, infants received similar overall levels of care.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Altmann, J. 1974 Observational Study of Behavior: Sampling Methods. Behaviour 49:227–267.
Bahuchet, S. 1985 Les Pygmees Aka et la Foret Centrafricaine. Paris: Selaf.
Bereczkei, T. and R. I. M. Dunbar 2002 Helping-at-the-Nest and Sex-Biased Parental Investment in a Hungarian Gypsy Population. Current Anthropology 43:804–810.
Blurton Jones, N. 1993 The Lives of Hunter-Gatherer Children. In Juvenile Primates, M. Perreira and L. Fairbanks, eds. Pp. 309–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blurton Jones, N., K. Hawkes, and J. O’Connell 2005 Hadza Fathers and Grandmothers as Helpers: Residence Data. In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods, B. S. Hewlett and M. E. Lamb eds. Piscataway: AldineTransaction, in press.
Bowlby, J. 1969 Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
Elmen, S. T. 1982a The Evolution of Helping, 1: An Ecological Constraints Model. American Naturalist 119:29–39.
1982b The Evolution of Helping, 2: The Role of Behavioral Conflict. American Naturalist 119:40–53.
1994 Benefits, Constraints, and the Evolution of the Family. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9:282–285.
Euler, H. A., and B. Weitzel 1996 Discriminative Grandparental Solicitude as Reproductive Strategy. Human Nature 7:39–59.
Fairbanks, L. A. 1990 Reciprocal Benefits of Allomother for Female Vervet Monkeys. Animal Behavior 40:553–562.
Flinn, M. 1989 Household Composition and Female Reproductive Strategies in a Trinidadian Village. In The Sociobiology of Sexual and Reproductive Strategies, A. E. Rasa, C. Vogel, and E. Voland, eds. Pp. 206–233. London: Chapman and Hall.
Gaulin, S. J. C., and A. Schlegel 1980 Paternal Confidence and Paternal Investment: A Cross-Cultural Test of a Sociobiological Hypothesis. Ethology and Sociobiology 1:301–309.
Gaulin, S. J. C., D. H. McBurney, and S. L. Brakeman-Wartell 1997 Matrilateral Biases in Investment of Aunts and Uncles. Human Nature 8:139–151.
Hawkes, K., J. F. O’Connell, and N. G. Blurton Jones 1997 Hadza Women’s Time Allocation: Offspring Provisioning and the Evolution of Long Post-Menopausal Lifespans. Current Anthropology 38:551–557.
Hawkes, K., J. F. O’Connell, N. G. Blurton Jones, H. Alvarex, and E. L. Charnov 2000 The Grandmother Hypothesis and Human Evolution. In Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective, Lee Cronk, Napoleon Chagnon and William Irons, eds. Pp. 237–258. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Hewlett, B. S. 1989 Multiple Caretaking among African Pygmies. American Anthropologist 91:186–191.
1991a Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1991b Demography and Childcare in Preindustrial Societies. Journal of Anthropological Research 47:1–37.
Hewlett, B. S., M. E. Lamb, B. Leyendecker, and A. Scholmerich 2000a Internal Working Models, Trust, and Sharing among Foragers. Current Anthropology 41:287–297.
2000b Parental Investment Strategies among Aka Foragers, Ngandu Farmers, and Euro-American Urban-Industrialists. In Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective, L. Cronk, N. Chagnon and W. Irons, eds. Pp. 155–178. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Hill, K., and A. M. Hurtado 1996 Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Howell, N. 1979 Demography of the Dobe !Kung. New York: Academic Press.
Hrdy, S. B. 1976 The Care and Exploitation of Non-human Primate Infants by Conspecifics Other Than the Mother. In Advances in the Study of Behavior, vol. 6, J. Rosenblatt, R. Hinde, and C. Beer, eds. Pp. 101–158. New York: Academic Press.
1981 The Woman That Never Evolved. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
1999 Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection. New York: Pantheon Books.
2005 Comes the Child before Man: How Cooperative Breeding and Prolonged Post-Weaning Dependence Shaped Human Potentials. In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods, B. S. Hewlett and M. E. Lamb, eds. Piscataway: AldineTransaction, in press.
Ivey, P. K. 1993 Life History Perspectives on Allocaretaking Strategies among Efe Foragers of the Ituri Forest of Zaire. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.
2000 Cooperative Reproduction in the Ituri Forest Hunter-Gatherers: Who Cares for Efe Infants? Current Anthropology 41:856–866.
Kleiman, D. G., and J. R. Malcolm 1981 The Evolution of Male Parental Investment in Mammals. In Parental Care in Mammals, D. J. Gubernick and P. H. Klopher, eds. Pp. 347–388. New York: Plenum.
Kramer, K. L. 2002 Variation in Juvenile Dependence: Helping Behavior among Maya Children. Human Nature 13:299–325.
Marlowe, F. 1999 Showoffs or Providers? The Parenting Effort of Hadza Men. Evolution and Human Behavior 20:391–404.
2005 Who Tends Hadza Children? In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods, B. S. Hewlett and M. E. Lamb, eds. Piscataway: AldineTransaction, in press.
Melancon, T. 1982 Marriage and Reproduction among the Yanomamo Indians of Venezuela. Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.
McBurney, D. H., J. Simon, S. J. C. Gaulin, and A. Geliebter 2002 Matrilateral Biases in the Investment of Aunts and Uncles: Replication in a Population Presumed To Have High Paternity Certainty. Human Nature 13:391–402.
McKenna, J. J. 1987 Parental Supplements and Surrogates among Primates: Cross-Species and Cross-Cultural Comparisons. In Parenting across the Life Span: Biosocial Dimensions, J. B. Lancaster, J. Altmann, A. Rossi, and L. Sherrod, eds. Pp. 143–186. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Pashos, A. 2000 Does Paternal Uncertainty Explain Grandparental Solicitude? A Cross-Cultural Study in Greece and Germany. Evolution and Human Behavior 21:97–109.
Sear, R., R. Mace, and I. A. MacGregor 2003 The Effects of Kin on Female Fertility in Rural Gambia. Evolution and Human Behavior 24:25–42.
Shannon, D. 1996 Early Infant Care among the Aka. M.A. thesis, Washington State University, Pullman.
Solomon, N., and J. French 1997 The Study of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding. In Cooperative Breeding in Mammals, N. Solomon and J. French, eds. Pp. 1–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stacey P., and W. D. Koenig 1990 Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long-Term Studies in Ecology and Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strassman, B. I., and A. L. Clarke 1998 Ecological Constraints on Marriage in Rural Ireland. Evolution and Human Behavior 19:33–56.
Tronick, E. Z., G. A. Morelli, and P. K. Ivey 1992 The Efe Forager Infant and Toddler’s Pattern of Social Relationships: Multiple and Simultaneous. Development Psychology 28:568–577.
Tronick, E. Z, G. A. Morelli, and S. Winn 1987 Multiple Caretaking of Efe (Pygmy) Infants. American Anthropologist 89:96–106.
Turke, P. 1988 Helpers at the Nest: Childcare Networks on Ifaluk. In Human Reproductive Behaviour: A Darwinian Perspective, L. Betzig, M. Borgherhoff Mulder, and P. Turke, eds. Pp. 173–188. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weisner, T. S. 1987 Socialization for Parenthood in Sibling Caretaking Societies. In Parenting across the Life Span: Biosocial Dimensions, J. B. Lancaster, J. Altmann, A. Rossi, and L. R. Sherrod, eds. Pp. 237–270. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Weisner, T. S., and R. Gallimore 1977 My Brother’s Keeper: Child and Sibling Caretaking. Current Anthropology 18:169–190.
Williams, G. C. 1966 Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Courtney L. Meehan is a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology at Washington State University. Her research interests include parenting, alloparenting, female social networks, and female-female cooperation and competition.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meehan, C.L. The effects of residential locality on parental and alloparental investment among the Aka foragers of the central African Republic. Hum Nat 16, 58–80 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-005-1007-2
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-005-1007-2