Men's Time Allocation to Subsistence Work among the Ache of Eastern Paraguay

Quantitative data on men's time allocation among the Ache o f Paraguay are presented. The data indicate that Ache men work almost 7 "hours daily in direct food acquisition, which is the major daily activity. The amount o f time Ache men work is compared with the amount reported for other modern hunter-gatherers and tribal horticulturalists. The characterization z~f huntergatherers as the "original affluent societjp" does not agree with currently available data. The results show high variance across societies, both hunting and horticultural, and suggest that time spent in subsistence work is not simply a function o f food "needs." We propose that the value o f time spent in potential alternative activities must be considered in order to predict time spent in subsistence tasks.