The depth and nuance of ecological knowledge you well describe defies Western cognitive constructs altogether. But a recent paper by Reyes-Garci?a et al. “Schooling, Local Knowledge and Working Memory: A Study among Three Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Societies” scratches the surface: “People with and without schooling have similar levels of accurate and inaccurate recall, although they differ in their strategies to organize recall: people with schooling have higher results for serial clustering, suggesting better learning with repetition, whereas people without schooling have higher results for semantic clustering, suggesting they organize recall around semantically meaningful categories. Individual levels of local ecological knowledge are not related to accurate recall or organization recall, arguably due to overall high levels of local ecological knowl- edge. While schooling seems to favour some organization strategies this might come at the expense of some other organization strategies.”

An additional but integral part of the complexity of ecological intelligence that is rarely discussed is developmental and epigenetic – sensory experience is a powerful process, and I was stunned by the auditory, visual and olfactory perception of the Efe – and not just while foraging. Some of this is borne out by research (Perry et al. 2014), and others by way of warned a half hour in advance that a Cesna mail drop was on its way, or of a thin vine snake 50y away. Smelling flowering and fruiting trees long before they are ripe is advantageous in such an unpredictable and competitive environment, full of other primates.

It would be a beautiful, if difficult film, to attempt to capture some of the density of sensory experience that our comfortable but insulated lives are now deprived of. ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ of tropical rainforests.

You may remember Tom Barfield’s conversations about Afghan folk. Not foragers, but herders. There would be some dominance conflict and a young guy would take off with a portion of the community to start a new group out in the hills. They were just passing through, as it were, and had less than a 50-50 chance of ever being seen again.

I calculate that over half of the food that the Efe obtain from the wild would not be available to the without the enhancement and a priori knowledge. This doe put a bit of a limit on the rate of expansion of human groups into new territories.

Paula, I’m surprised we did not cross paths in the Ituri!

I agree with everything you say. I would add that Efe men also extend the requirement of cooperation where it need not be. For example, at least among the Efe I worked with (near Malembi and Nepoko), the men rarely carried their own arrows, and the person who made the arrow that strikes an animal is included in the list of people who contributed to the hunt (as is the man who trained/owned the dog(s)) Even if a guy kills an animal entirely on his own, between the dog and arrow connection, and some hunting magic someone might have performed earlier in the day, the list of involved parties is large. This gets even larger when the rule that the person who killed the animal should usually not butcher it, and butchering always requires two people (though it can be done).

PS: To this day, I still repeat some of your stories about living with the Efe to show hunter-gatherers’ ingenuity.

Efe have become specialists at planting social seeds for future exchange with Lese farmers, helping in little ways, and gaining a lot when they are able. Certainly, the marriage exchange system among Efe qualifies, as particular clans are visited frequently in efforts to woo future mates.

I wonder what elements of Efe and other H&G men’s social investments yield future economic gains in hunting groups. Some men are particularly good at making arrows, or keeping dogs. Do others (perhaps who are not) engage in small forms of helping in hunting groups that have not been appreciated because they are not as obvious (and sexy) as bringing down game?