Jodï horticultural belief, knowledge and practice: incipient or integral cultivation?

Stanford Zent,Egleé Zent

doi:10.1590/s1981-81222012000200003

Abstract

This paper describes the Jodï horticultural system, including belief, knowledge and practice aspects. The horticultural practices of the Jodï were previously characterized as 'incipient cultivation' but such practices were poorly described and documented. The antiquity of cultivation among this group is suggested by the prominence and significance of horticultural products and techniques in myth and ritual. Our field observations uncovered a fairly sophisticated system of plant management in swiddens, house gardens, trail gardens and natural forest gaps. An inventory of 67 cultivated plant species was documented, of which 36 are utilized for food, 20 for magical or medicinal purposes, and 11 for technology. The Jodï prolong the productive phase of their gardens for five years or more through successive planting-harvesting-replanting operations. Jodï swiddens display an elaborate polycultivated appearance and they possess at least five principal crops: plantain/banana, maize, yams, sweet potato, and sweet manioc. Another distinctive feature is the extensive use of natural gaps in the forest canopy as cultivation zones. The results of this study suggest that while Jodï horticultural practice is well integrated with a nomadic, foraging-dependent lifestyle, nevertheless this system does not deserve to be labeled as 'incipient' and instead is more integral than was recognized previously.

Highlights

A near universal characteristic of the native peoples of the tropical forest region of South America is that they display a mixed subsistence pattern, in which shifting cultivation, collection, fishing and hunting are combined (TorresTrueba, 1968; Sponsel, 1989)
This type of evidence advises that the distinction between foraging and farming in Amazonia should no longer be treated as qualitatively separate economic types or evolutionary stages but instead are better conceived as heuristic categories that correspond to points on a subsistence continuum ranging from less to more intensive control and management of natural resources by people
Based on the evidence presented in this paper, we contend that the Jodï horticultural system looks more integral than incipient, if we understand the concept of integrality as meaning that the cultivation system is integrated with other systems in a given sociocultural matrix (Conklin, 1957)

Summary

Introduction

A near universal characteristic of the native peoples of the tropical forest region of South America is that they display a mixed subsistence pattern, in which shifting cultivation, collection, fishing and hunting are combined (TorresTrueba, 1968; Sponsel, 1989). Many so-called horticulturalist groups in Amazonia rely extensively on foraging activities and trekking groups oscillate between periods of greater sedentism, during which cultivated foods are the dietary staple, and greater mobility, during which wild foods usually predominate (Maybury-Lewis, 1967; Aspelin, 1976; Werner, 1983; Metzger and Morey, 1983; Good, 1995) This type of evidence advises that the distinction between foraging and farming in Amazonia should no longer be treated as qualitatively separate economic types or evolutionary stages but instead are better conceived as heuristic categories (i.e. as a convenient communicative device) that correspond to points on a subsistence continuum ranging from less to more intensive control and management of natural resources by people

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion