Hawaii Chiefdom

In this Anthropology class, most if not all of the societies that we look at and investigate have some form of evidence that shows the emergence of social complexity and complex structure like states or civilizations. The article of Norman Yoffee states, “All human societies develop along a universal "evolutionary" trajectory from small and egalitarian to large and socially complex”. I believe that this statement is inaccurate, all societies that have come to existence have not all developed on a universal trajectory (small to large). I believe that there are many different evolutionary possibilities in societies. In Norman Yoffee’s article, page 72 figure 6.6 shows a more accurate trajectory of evolution in social complexity where there …show more content…
If we look at Yoffee’s article, he writes about two social groups, the Hawaii Chiefdom and Teotihuacan. In these models, he disclosed the inequalities between the two societies. He compared the size of inequality in the Teotihuacan and the established Hawaii chiefdom. The outcome shows that the amount of inequality in the Teotihuacan is smaller than Hawaii chiefdom at first, but as the time passes, the state shows the likelihood of having far greater inequality than the chiefdom in economy, ideology, and institution (Yoffee 1993, 73). If the equality is a large importance in a certain civilization, then it would be better if they stayed as a simple chiefdom. And this is what some societies do, some are still just tribes that live in secrecy that do not bother to evolve into a chiefdoms or states, this is because they lived in a society where they could survive and strive within themselves. We can take tribes in the Amazon as examples of this, they are uncontacted tribes that do well in their own bubble which made them never evolve into further …show more content…
This is not possible, without territories and “forces”, forming a state would not be an option. In Yoffee’s eyes a state is a state when three essential characteristics can be applied to that certain society. The essential characteristics are that they must have economic power, the societal power, and the political power. The economic power means to have control over resources and riches where the leader/superior force should be able to redistribute that wealth. The second qualities is the societal power, it is being able to maintain the society’s ideology and hegemony of the state. The last is the ability to control its residents with little or no struggle. Adding all of them together, leads to the development of a state. However, these tribes do not do so, they break that kind of system of evolving into a state and stay a