Acephalous Societies

= Acephalous Societies are NOT Non-Competitive Egalitarian Societies

Discussion

Cathryn Townsend:

"Delayed-return hunter-gatherer societies (such as those of Okiek and Inuit peoples), big men societies (such as those of Papua New Guinean horticulturalists), and non-stratified lineage systems (such as those of the Tallensi horticulturalists of West Africa and the Yanomami horticulturalists of Brazil and Venezuela) are all Acephalous Societies that are often misleadingly described as egalitarian because of their lack of enduring hierarchies and/or highly centralized leadership. However, a society that lacks a hierarchical leadership structure but does not conform to egalitarian principles in terms of its other features, such as relative gender equality, is better described as acephalous. Acephalous has the root meaning of headless and is thus better suited to describe social organization that is characterized only by the absence of top-down leadership or centralized power structures."

(https://www.academia.edu/29417676/Egalitarianism_the_evolution_of)