Dyadic inter-group cooperation in shotgun hunting activities in a Congo Basin village

Understanding the dynamics of inter-group cooperation in human adaptation has been the subject of recent empirical and theoretical studies in evolutionary anthropology, beginning to fill gaps in our knowledge of how interactions across political, economic and social domains can - and often do - lead to stable, large-scale cooperation. Here we investigate dyadic intergroup cooperation in shotgun hunting in the Republic of the Congo. In the Congo Basin, inter-group cooperation between foragers and farmers is at the centre of an exchange system maintained by traditional norms and institutions such as fictive kinship. Here, we focused on what factors predict cooperative shotgun hunting exchanges between BaYaka and Yambe. We conducted structured interviews with 48 BaYaka hunters and 18 Yambe men who organise hunts in a village along the Motaba River. We used Bayesian multilevel regression models to investigate the influence of Yambe and BaYaka attributes on probability of dyadic cooperation. We found that BaYaka men's reputations as skilled hunters and their family size each predicted cooperation in shotgun hunting, whereas there was no effect of Yambe attributes (status, wealth, family size). We discuss the results in terms of evolutionary models of men as hunters and inter-group cooperation, as well as biodiversity conservation implications.

Intergroup Cooperation in Shotgun Hunting Among BaYaka Foragers and Yambe Farmers from the Republic of the Congo

Whereas many evolutionary models emphasize within-group cooperation or between-group competition in explaining human large-scale cooperation, recent work highlights a critical role for intergroup cooperation in human adaptation. Here we investigate intergroup cooperation in the domain of shotgun hunting in northern Republic of the Congo. In the Congo Basin broadly, forest foragers maintain relationships with neighboring farmers based on systems of exchange regulated by norms and institutions such as fictive kinship. In this study, we examine how relationships between Yambe farmers and BaYaka foragers support stable intergroup cooperation in the domain of shotgun hunting. In the study village, shotgun hunting is based on a specialization-based exchange wherein Yambe farmers contribute shotguns and access to markets to buy cartridges and sell meat while BaYaka foragers contribute their specialized forest knowledge and skill. To understand how costs and benefits are distributed, we conducted structured interviews with 77 BaYaka hunters and 15 Yambe gun owners and accompanied hunters on nine hunting trips. We found that hunts are organized in a conventional manner within a fictive kinship structure, consistent with the presence of intercultural mechanisms to stabilize cooperation. However, because bushmeat demand is high, gun owners can gain significant cash profit, while compensating hunters only with cigarettes, alcohol, and a traditional hunter's portion of meat. To level payoffs, hunters strategically hide kills or cartridges from gun owners to feed their own families. Our results illustrate how each group prioritizes different currencies (e.g., cash, meat, family, intergroup relations) and provide insights into how intergroup cooperation is stabilized in this setting. The example of this long-standing intergroup cooperative system is discussed in terms of its contemporary entwinement with logging, the bushmeat trade, and growing market intersection.