The Ecology of the Barí: Rainforest Horticulturalists of Latin America

Appendix. Additional Data on Barí Horticulture

APPENDIX Additional Data on Barí Horticulture Area under Cultivation per Longhouse Unfortunately, we cannot give precise, extensively sampled figures for the amount of land an individual or a longhouse actually has in active production at any one time. On the ground, it is often impossible to measure or pace off the axes of mature subsidiary fields because trails are not maintained through them (as they are in active house-surrounding fields). Aerial photographs from precontact times are not of direct use in answering this question because it is generally impossible to distinguish among actively productive fields, fields recently planted but not yet in production, and early fallow fields in this black-and-white imagery. Compounding the problem, in early fieldwork we were often uncertain whether we had visited all the subsidiary fields associated with some longhouses. An estimate of the range of the area in active production per individual and per longhouse can nevertheless be derived from the following observations. Lizarralde visited the traditional longhouse of Ohbadyá, population 44, in 1961. The house-surrounding field encompassed 0.4 ha. These people also made use of four subsidiary fields associated with a recently abandoned longhouse of theirs, Bariduá. These fields had areas of 1.4, 0.7, 0.6, and 0.6 ha. Thus the total area in active production associated with this longhouse provided its inhabitants with the produce of 0.08 ha/person of cultivated land. A full-sized traditional longhouse (Antraikaira) with a population of 50 had a house-surrounding field of 0.70 ha or a bit less (as assessed by pacing trails through the field) and a nearby subsidiary field of 0.65 ha, as measured on an aerial photograph. Beckerman was told when he visited Antraikaira in 1972 that the house-surrounding field and the single nearby subsidiary field were the only ones in production at this longhouse. This sum of actively productive land works out to 0.027 ha/person, barely above the minimal figure calculated as needed to produce a year’s supply of manioc. These people planted a new subsidiary manioc field of about 1.5 ha during Beckerman’s stay at Antraikaira, bringing the per capita land under crop at this house to 0.06 ha. This local group also had two other longhouses in their migration cycle, each with its own fields, and had recently abandoned a fourth. 238 The Ecology of the Barí A small but traditional longhouse (Ashtakakaira) with nine inhabitants had a measured 0.39 ha in active production in the house-surrounding field in 1970 (Beckerman 1983a: 94). This area is equivalent to 0.04 ha/person. These people also had within 200 m of their longhouse an abandoned temporary house, where they had lived while building Ashtakakaira, whose tiny associated manioc field (about 160 m2) they harvested and weeded. About an hour and a half away was the former longhouse of these nine people, with its house-surrounding field of about 0.36 ha. This overgrown housesurrounding field was clearly at the edge of abandonment. No one weeded it, and it was harvested only occasionally, and then merely for minor crops such as sweet potatoes. Nevertheless, it still contained considerable manioc that could have been harvested if need had arisen. Including it in the active field inventory brings the productive area up to 0.090 ha/person.These people were experimenting with sedentary life and possessed no other longhouses at this time. Another full-sized traditional longhouse (Culebritaskaira, population 55 when visited in 1972) had a house-surrounding field of over 2.3 ha, various private subsidiary fields, and a communal subsidiary field, also in active production, whose roughly paced axes generated an area of about 0.8 ha. These people had recently planted an additional 0.3 ha with manioc in the center of a new field that was not yet producing. They intended to grow Musa on the remaining 0.6 ha of the land they had cleared for this new field. The people at Culebritascaira must have had well over 0.06 ha/person in active production, even without counting the new field. This group at that time had only one other longhouse in its migration cycle. It is easier to produce figures for total land under crop—that is, the sum of newly planted fields, fields in active production, and fields in early fallow— because these data can be obtained from aerial photographs. In 1960 a local group comprising 103 people...