It wasn’t just that Amazonian chiefs were calculating politicians. They were calculating politicians forced to manoeuvre in a social environment apparently designed to ensure they could never exercise real political power. In the winter, the groups they led were tiny and inconsequential. In the summer, they didn’t ‘lead’ at all. Yes, their houses might have resembled social service dispensaries in modern welfare states; but as a result, in terms of material wealth, they were actually the poorest men in the village, since chiefs were expected constantly to give everything away. They were also
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