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The following points highlight the seven main features of primitive societies. The features are: 1. Shifting Cultivation 2. Exchange 3. Absence of Profit Motive 4. Virtual Absence of Innovation 5. Communal Nature of Economy 6. Absence of Division of Labour 7. Concept and Nature of Property Rights.
Feature # 1. Shifting Cultivation:
Primitive economic organisations were of the subsistence type. That is, they fall into the broad category of production-consumption economies. One important reason for this is the absence of technological aids in their attempts to exploit nature, as is illustrated by shifting cultivation.
Shifting cultivation means that the same plots of land are not cultivated for long and that cultivator’s move from one plot to another. The reasons for doing so are understandable. The decreasing yield of land as a result of continuous cultivation can be counteracted through proper manuring. But manuring represents a rather advanced scientific level of cultivation.
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The primitive people were not aware of the various ways of conserving the fertility of soil through manuring. Shifting cultivation was thus the only alternative open to them. This was facilitated by the fact that the primitive people did not experience the problem of pressure of population on soil. They could, therefore, easily explore and exploit virgin lands. Obviously, such cultivation is wasteful, inefficient and uneconomic.
Feature # 2. Exchange:
In the absence of money as a store and measurement of value and a medium of exchange, economic transactions were always based on exchange. There were various forms of exchange prevalent in a primitive society.
Some of these forms are noted below:
Barter:
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Barter is a direct form of exchange. It involves bargaining and haggling unless it is regulated by customs or norms. Barter is an exchange of (a) service for service, (b) goods for service and (c) goods for goods. Money does not figure in the barter transactions.
Silent Trade/Exchange:
There is another type of exchange called silent trade or silent exchange. There are societies in which goods are placed for exchange without the individual concerned being personally present. If the goods are found to be of unequal value, these are not picked up. The person who had placed them understands the problem and adds more to balance the bargain. Such a practice is known as silent trade or silent exchange.
According to Herskovits:
“Similar means of effectuating ‘silent’ exchanges occur today, or did occur until recent times, between the Chuckchee of Siberia and the inhabitants of Alaska”.
Jajmani System:
Jajmani system is another type of exchange. It is akin to barter system. The unique character of Jajmani system lies in the fact that exchange of seine for goods may occur in a deferred manna. The word ‘jajmani’ is derived from the Vedic term for a patron who employs a Brahmin to perform a sacrifice for the community.
In its original meaning, therefore, jajmani economic relations involved the exchange of gifts for Service rendered or to be rendered in future. This meaning has not changed even today. But its ambit has been widened in course of time. Jajmani has come to mean all the basic reciprocal relations of patronage.
It was a privilege and a responsibility for a family to patronize not only the family priest, but also all other specialists in the village. The system ensures the services of specialists like cobblers, washermen, barbers, potto’s, blacksmiths, etc. to the patrons on the one hand, and, on the other, it also ensures subsistence for the specialists who render the service.
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In exchange for the services rendered, the specialists receive annual gifts of products from the soil – a fixed portion of the crops – as well as cloth and sometimes even money. Such rewards or gifts are given in accordance with hierarchical status and not related in any manner to the ‘economic’ value of services rendered.
According to Lannoy:
“The intrinsically religious nature of the system is dramatized during the occasions when it combines exchange of services and of gifts with family rites, festivals and, above all, marriages.”
The jajmani links are between families rather than between jatis. Thus, a farmer’s family gets its metal agricultural tools from a particular blacksmith family and, in return, the latter gets a share of the farmer’s crop at harvest. The jajmani relationship is supposed to be and often is durable, exclusive and multiple.
The relationship is durable in sense that the link may be inherited on both sides. Thus, a blacksmith serves the same farmer family that his father and grandfathers served. In the same manner, the farmer’s family gets it’s took made and repaired by the descendants of the blacksmith family whose members made tools for their forefathers.
If a member of a family dies without any issue, another of its lineage may take its place in the relationship.
Again, if a blacksmith family (and, for the matter of that, any specialist family) has sons than its clientele can support, some seeks other associates in places where there is a shortage of smiths. Some may even take up other employment, often in fanning, since traditionally men of any jati may work on the land.
Jajmani relationships are exclusive in the sense that the farmer family is supposed to carry on such transactions with a particular blacksmith family only. Reciprocally, these blacksmiths should make tools for their own families only.
They are free to make some tools for sale in the market but they are not allowed to poach jajmani associates from other blacksmiths. Jajmani relationships are multiple in the sense that more than economic exchange is involved.
Economic exchange is only one facet of jajmani relations. Thus, “a family of cultivators expects help on its ceremonial occasions from most of the associated families. There is also an expectation of mutual personal support in family emergencies or factional quarrels. Sometimes the specialist families are pressured to support the jati of their patrons when that whole jati is embattled.”
According to Ehr. D. N. Majumdar, such reciprocal services are often formally prescribed, particularly for life-cycle rites. He notes: In a village of Lucknow district, a marriage in a family of Thakurs, the dominant landowners, involves the formal participation of families from ten of the fourteen jatis represented in the village. (D. N. Majumdar et al. Inter-caste relations in Gohanakallan, a village near Lucknow.
Mandelbaum cites an interesting example in this regard:
“A principal ceremonial role is taken by the associated family of the barber jati. The barber’s wife cleans and refurbishes the house; she massages the bride, helps her bathe and dress. She joins in the wedding songs and in the stylized derisions with which the groom’s party is met. The barber himself accompanies the marriage party in the commercial round, doing for the members of the wedding whatever tasks need to be done. He is present through all the ritual, helping the priest, performing such bits as the formal tying of the groom’s shirt to the comer of the bride’s dress. In return, the barber and his wife are given a sum of money………… when they perform some special service in the course of the rite.”
These Examples clearly indicate that more than economic exchange is involved in jajmani relationships.
Coercion and Consensus in Jajmani Relationships:
Some writers condemn jajmani relationships “as the means by which the rich and powerful exploit the poor and coerce the workers into sustaining the power of those who have the upper hand and the higher rank”.
Some students of Indian village life argue, on the other hand, that in spite of coercive element in jajmani relations, there is no doubt those such exchanges “bring solidarity and mutual benefits.” It is also totally wrong, they argue, to conclude that Service workers, such as, artisans, blacksmiths, etc., are totally helpless against the landowners.
Each jati tries to maximise its gain and exercise as much power as it can in the matter of jajmani transactions. Condemnation of jajmani transactions “as brutally exploitative is too sweeping and obfuscating a generalization”
Decline of Jajmani System:
At present, not much of the village economy is carried on through jajmani arrangements. By now, the jajmani relationship has been largely supplanted in many villages, although in relatively few villages it has completely disappeared.
In this connection, we may note the findings of Gould (H. A. Gould, The jajmani system of North India: its structure, magnitude and meaning. Ethnology 1964) relating to his study of contemporary jajmani relations in Sherurpur – Naktipur in a densely populated area south of Faizabad city in UP.
According to his study, families of six specialist jatis maintain regular jajmani relationships with other villagers. Of them, washermen have the largest proportion of their clientele, about 77 per cent, on a fixed grain-payment basis. Carpenters and blacksmiths are next highest in jajmani clientele with 69 per cent and 67 per cent respectively of their customers.
The barbers have 62 pa cent of their clientele on a jajmani basis in spite of the easy availability of commercial barbering and its financial attraction for barbers. Thakurs and Brahmins have 70 per cent of jajmani relationships. Gould concludes that jajmani relationships tend to be maintained on a comparatively larger scale “because of the ritual importance” of the specialists, such as barbers, washermen, etc.
Gould argues that carpenters and blacksmiths were able to maintain a considerable proportion of their jajmani clientele because “the capacity to retain traditional ties with carpenters and blacksmiths marks a household as socially important”
Mandelbaum points out that the above figures of jajmani transactions should not give the impression that such transactions are of great importance in the village economy under reference. The real state of affairs is contrary to this, as will be evident from the following facts.
“The most valuable and productive crop is sugarcane and this cash crop does not enter into jajmani. The harvest of grain and peas in 1960 for the 70 households that engage in jajmani relations came to 221 tons. Of this production, a little over three tons was disbursed as fixed payments to jajmani specialists.”
It appears that jajmani relationships were and, to a large extent, are still important for the ritual and social order. Jajmani interchange in Sherurpur – Naktipur and many other villages, “provides a measure of economic credit and stability; even more, it helps to define the local social order by defining those who can secure ample ritual services.”
Gould says that jajmani system “arises from a religious dichotomy between pure and impure whose implications work themselves out as a complex system of religious and economic relationships embracing, and indeed in large part defining the dimensions of a locality.”
We may further note that jajmani relationship is now increasingly being supplanted mainly because more money is now used in village economy and also because modern transport makes market transactions more feasible.
Ceremonial Exchange:
Yet another type of exchange is known as ceremonial exchange. It is a form of social exchange, as distinguished from an economic exchange. It implies giving of goods or money on an auspicious or a festive occasion to a relation, friend or a neighbour without expecting immediate reciprocity.
The return is expected to follow in course of time on an appropriate future occasion. For example, birthday gifts, gifts on the occasion of marriage, Diwali, etc.
The features of ceremonial exchange are the following:
(a) Value or quality of the gifts is not a consideration. That it matters in certain cases cannot be denied. Gifts of low value or of inferior quality may raise frowns or cause anger. The relationships may also be adversely affected. But, usually, the reciprocity is regulated by customs.
(b) Ceremonial exchange symbolizes goodwill, trust and mutuality, it stimulates social relations.
(c) The form of goods given or the amount of money given as gift is indicative of the closeness of the relationship.
(d) Ceremonial exchange does not involve discussion or bargaining. It “involves the principle that one person does another a favour, and where there is a general expectation of some future return, its exact nature is definitely not stipulated in advance.”
With reference to the Kula a Western Pacific Community) ceremonial exchange, Malinowski states that “the bestowing of a ceremonial gift has to be repaid by an equivalent counter-gift after a lapse of time …. The second very important principle is that the equivalence of the counter-gift is left to the givers, and it cannot be enforced by any kind of coercion…. If the article given as a counter-gift is not equivalent, the recipient will be disappointed and angry, but he has no direct means of redress, no means of coercing his partner.”
Feature # 3. Absence of Profit Motive:
The profit motive that is generally associated with economic transactions is generally absent in a primitive economy. A sense of mutual obligation, sharing and solidarity provide the necessary incentive in all economic pursuits.
Feature # 4. Virtual Absence of Innovation:
The rate of innovation in simple societies is very low, giving the appearance of an unchanging social structure over a period of time. Stability and uniformity of social structure are also the outcome of simple and uniform techniques of production used in these societies.
Feature # 5. Communal Nature of Economy:
Primitive societies show strongly developed features of communal economies. All activities starting from construction of shelters to production of primary consumption goods are carried on through co-operative and collective efforts of the members of the community.
Feature # 6. Absence of Division of Labour:
There is virtually no division of labour except specialisation based on sex. While men generally participate in activities outside home, women take care of the infants and of preparation of food. These activities naturally force women to stay longer at home.
Feature # 7. Concept and Nature of Property Rights:
It will be wrong to apply to primitive society modern conceptions of property. Thus, in a food-gathering society, there can be no property or any type of an economic surplus like cattle wealth. Among herdsmen, there is no ownership of land. Pastures are held jointly. Similarly, cultivators may own their lands jointly.
Cases of individual ownership of land also sometimes exist. A very interesting variation is that of multiple possessory rights as reported from New Zealand, Melanesia and West Africa. Under this practice, several possessors use the same thing, say land, for different purposes.
Thus, in Melanesia and West Africa, a person can own trees on another’s land whereon the latter cultivates crops. In whatever form property may be recognised, its recognition entails the existence of some rules of inheritance.
Inheritance acquires particular importance when individuals possess property. In case of communal ownership, the group as a whole never ceases to exist suddenly as an individual does, and is replenished through fresh recruitment from time to time.