Demographic structure of a primitive population: A simulation

Abstract A stochastic computer simulation model has been used to study the demography of the Ya̧nomamö Indians of Venezuela and Brazil, whose social organization is typical of many primitive societies. It has been found by simulation that perhaps one third of all Ya̧nomamö marriages involve individuals related as first or second cousins, and that more than 16% of all males must leave their villages to find wives, in spite of a strong preference for village endogamy. In the process of validating and experimenting with the model, we discovered (1) the role of sibship size in determining a man's ability to obtain wives; (2) the variability in frequency of cousin marriages through time; and (3) the importance of wife trading in assuring that few men complete the reproductive period without having married at least once. In addition, we strengthened our impressions, gathered from ethnographic data, that the Ya̧nomamö are an expanding population.