Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 251
Chapter 3.10
Working the terraced land
Introduction
The practice of terrace cultivation on the hillsides had brought about a way of life that was
different from that of similar societies in the adjacent plains. The main difference lay of
course in the mountain environment itself, which invited the building of agricultural terraces,
but there was also the factor of regular soil improvement by the use of animal manure. This
had led to a labour-intensive agriculture which, other than shifting crops, involved the same
piece of land being cultivated for generations. In the past this meant keeping livestock for
dung production, in the context of which the leasing out of cows became crucial. There was
also intensive tree cultivation and certain traditional ways of leasing out trees as well as
terraced land. In this chapter we will go through all the different aspects of working the land,
starting with a short introduction to the general farm layout, followed by types of terraces and
soils, and the socio-economic changes which came about as a result of modernisation.
We will show how iron production was socio-economically linked to the production of
manure, in that people who had the skill of iron production often used the profit to invest in
more cows than they needed. In the context of this, we will not only discuss the overall
importance of livestock and the leasing out of cows in exchange for manure, but also how the
introduction of chemical fertiliser brought about a structural change in the way the social
division of labour had once operated. We will discuss changes in leasing out land and trees,
and distinguish this from how the land was leased out in the past, for example to pay a son's
bridewealth. We will discuss the progression from traditional leasing of land and trees, to a
new system of short-leasing which came in increasingly from the plains while I was working
there in the 1990s.
In the context of this, we will show how in modern times the system of short-leasing brought
about a reversal of the former significance of the cultivation of guinea corn over that of millet.
We will discuss this as being an important cultural transformation, since it highlights the end
of the ritual significance of guinea corn, and the cultural consequences of how manure
production had been integrated into the cosmological belief system of the past. We have
already discussed the seasonal interaction with the mountain environment embedded in the
calendrical sequences, and how they were all ritually linked to the bi-annual calendar of crop
rotation.
We will develop our oral historical narrative, and continue to present the oral accounts of the
Dghweɗe friends John and I interviewed together, and include John's memories as a former
terrace farmer. Following a discussion of these presentations, we will show lists of the
agricultural plants the Dghweɗe knew about and used. We will produce lists of useful trees,
including a special section on euphorbia trees for fencing, as well as a list of useful grasses, a
list of weeds, and a list of vermin. Finally we will discuss some of the already mentioned clan
medicines used to increase the productivity of crops and animals.
General model of Dghweɗe farm layout
The Dghweɗe generally distinguished between susiye (bushland) and kla pana (farmland).
Kla means 'to break' and pana means 'stalk' of guinea corn or millet, and kla pana refers to
cultivated land under more or less continuous cultivation. The most important fields were
those near the houses, which in the past they regularly kept manured. We will see in the next
section about terraces and soils that their idea of farming was comprehensive and did not only
rely on the natural quality of soils. Instead they took care of the land they had inherited and
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