VI - SWIDDEN AGRICULTURISTS

• 1) SETTLEMENT
• 2) FOOD CROPS
• 3) CASH CROPS
• 4) HUNTING, GATHERING AND FISHING
• 5) DIET
• 6) POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
• 7) CUSTOMARY LAND LAW

1) SETTLEMENT

Settlement of traditional swidden agriculturists include both a hamlet near the forest trail and temporary camps right in the forest, within the community's territory, for hunting, gathering and fishing.

Scattered settlement with nearby fields and a forest territory :

In most cases, the population is mainly scattered along the main routes. Generally speaking, one village is one administrative unit and includes several much smaller hamlets. There are from 40 to 400 inhabitants in a village or hamlet, and population density is never higher than 14 inhab./km².

*A Boyela village (Zaïre) of about 200 people is in fact made up of 5 or 6 hamlets of 10 to 15 inhabitants, scattered along the trail, with less than 2 km between any two hamlets. They are made up of the members of a lineage descending from a common ancestor. These residential units are the basis for defining hunting, fishing and farming territories. Following agricultural rotations, villages move their entire settlement by a few 100 metres every 5 to 10 years.[80]

*The Ntumu have the following pattern of settlements (Gabon, Woleu Ntem)[81] : 1) a big "group of hamlets" set up close to each other and separated by narrow strips of forest. It usually covers an area bounded by rivers on either side. The inhabitants of these hamlets all belong to one clan. 2) A small group of hamlets brings together individuals of one major lineage who thus have ancestors and land in common. Those who are not members of the lineage are "strangers". 3) In the hamlet, dza, live those descending from a common ancestor. They eat together, gathered in the "common hut" (abaa). This hamlet has its own hunting, fishing and farming territory.

Dual habitat :

Agriculturists alternate between life in a hamlet or administrative village, near a forest trail, and short-term camps in the forest (to carry out seasonal activities : hunting, gathering or fishing). Some groups even have camps in their fields when the latter are far from the village. Thus, during the dry season, the caterpillar or "wild mango" (Irvingia) season, also a good time for setting up dams accross the streams, the whole village will go into the forest to spend weeks or even several months there.

Example of the Ngandu (Zaïre, Equateur)[82] : the village (administrative group of hamlets) has an average of 800 inhabitants. Three types of habitat prevail depending on season and activity : 1) the village along the forest trail, surrounded by secondary forest and food crops ; inhabitants belong to a variety of different lineages ; the Ngandu spend approximately half the year in such settlements. 2) Hamlets in the forest, with fields of manioc and including several segments of lineages ; occupied 3 to 4 months a year. 3) Hamlets in the forest withour fields of manioc, made up of members of one or several families who live there 2 to 5 months per year. There are several types of camps : camps for individual hunting and trapping (1 or 2 men) ; camps for collective net hunting (6 or 7 men) ; camps for elephant hunting that last 3 to 4 months ; fishing camps.

2) FOOD CROPS

In all cases it is a form of shifting agriculture, usually supplemented by the produce of agroforestery in house-gardens.

Clearing is not necessarily followed by burning.

Every year, a family clears between 0,18 and 3 ha of forest to create 1 or 2 plots for food crops per year, while fields cultivated 2 or 3 years previously are abandonned and left fallow.

Among the Fang (south Cameroon, north Gabon), a woman cultivates 0,52 ha per year to feed her family[83]. In polygynous households, co-wives exploit neighbouring fields, such farms having more land than monogamous households.

Clearing is done by men, but all the rest is carried out mainly by women.

Among the Boyela (Zaïre, Equateur)[84], 58 % of a woman's time is devoted to agricultural activities, while men will only devote 35 %.

Secondary forest is considered ideal for agriculture : for new fields, both fallows (old secondary forest) and primary forest are chosen for clearing, usually not too far from fields chosen in previous years, a few hours walk from the village.

Though they tend to cultivate secondary forest areas, the Mbo (Zaïre, Haut-Zaïre)[85] say they prefer primary forest with long fallow cycles so as to maintain soil favourable to plantain. The Ngbaka-ma'bo in RCA clear a patch of forest to plant the plantain trees and a patch on fallow land near the villages for manioc.

Several crops planted in the fields on the basis of intercropping : intercropped plants ripen at different times and therefore allow for staggered collection throughout the year.

Thus maize, intercropped with manioc and banana trees, ripens several months before the latter. A second lot of plants is often planted after the first has been picked : e.g.

The main plant is either manioc or plantain, different ethnic groups making different choices, but they are always found together and intercropped with other staple crops :

maize, yams, taro, in varying proportions and a whole lot of secondary crops, vegetables and fruits (sweet potato, sugar cane, pineapple, peanuts, "spinach" leaves, gourds, squash, pulses, tobacco, chillis, etc), to which one should add the omnipresent oil palm Elaeis guineense, a plant providing a fermented drink, oil and construction materials.

Thus over 30 different species all grow intercropped on a single plot, and several varieties at once for the more important ones (sweet and bitter manioc, plantain, yams).

The leaves of manioc are commonly eaten as vegetables. The Ewondo and the Bulu (south Cameroon) use 13 species of leaf vegetables in their cooking.[86]

People usually distinguish between different types of plantations, land devoted to different purposes (peanuts, gourds, yams or sugar cane, etc). The nature of the soil varies and each area is therefore referred to with a specific term.

Types of plantations among the Ntumu (Gabon, Woleu Ntem)[87] : in a single village, each family cultivates several different plots : 1) house-gardens (vegetables, macabo, etc) ; 2) cacao and coffee plants, behind the house-gardens (with bananas, and occasionally palms) ; 3) peanuts and gourds ; 4) intercropped fields : gourds, yams, maize, manioc, sugar cane, plantain, etc ; spread out and far from the village (7 to 10km), such plantations are started on 20 to 30 year old fallows ; 5) sugar cane plantations in lowland swamps (with a few gombo and banana trees).

The main characteristic of this type of agriculture, based on planting live plant parts rather than seeds, is the absence of harvest : the plants (manioc, plantain, etc) yield continuously throughout the year, and one need only pick what one wants. Besides, apart from maize, peanuts and gourd seeds, no other crops require storage in granaries.

Mobility and prolonged absence are therefore possible and the work in the fields allows for quite a lot of free time which people devote to non-agricultural activities requiring them to move away for a while

Fallow

This agricultural system is based on long fallows, from 10 to 15 years, though in places they may last only 3 to 5 years.

However, even when a plot has been abandonned and left fallow and another cleared and cultivated[88], people will continue to come to the old plot to pick bunches of bananas, dig up tubers that may still be growing there, and pick ruderal plants eaten as vegetables or condiments. Fallow also provides good hunting grounds.

Fallows are never really abandonned, and the more permanent trees (such as the wild trees that were left to grow when the plot was originally cleared) belong to the person who cleared the plot first and his descendants.

People usually differentiate several types of fallows, each with its own purpose, depending on the degree of regeneration of the vegetation. The Ntumu (Gabon)[89] have : 1) forest fallow (15 to 25 years old), 2) bush fallow (over 3 years old), and 3) herbaceous fallow (1 to 3 years old).

3) CASH CROPS

Introduced and developed during the colonial period, cash crops are now common everywhere : most villages have a plot devoted to cash crops. Depending on the region and rainfall, coffee and cacao are the most popular ; locally, cotton, pepper and rice may also be a source of cash.

Examples : cacao, central and south-west Cameroon ; coffee, east Cameroon, Congo, RCA ; rice and cotton, north-east Zaïre. Local activities : macabo in south-west Cameroon, oil palm in Congo, manioc near the towns...

However, these activities are having to adapt to the setbacks due to variations of prices of raw materials on the world market while coping with economic and political uncertainties within these countries.

Some governments thus try to monopolize the market, buying the crops in the villages, often paying farmers very little ; besides, the roads being in such bad condition, it is difficult to transport the crops from the villages to the commercial centres. A farmer cannot count on selling his products every year and therefore looses one of his only sources of cash.

4) HUNTING, GATHERING AND FISHING

In all places, the agricultural cycles are integrated within a wider calendar taking into account periods devoted to other activities : hunting, gathering and fishing. The area of forest exploited by a single village thus extends far beyond the plots.

The degree to which a population is dependent on the forest environment varies from one ethnic group to another and from one region to another.

Very little quantified data is available. Figures provided here are only examples to give an idea of the proportions involved.

Moreover, some groups obtain forest products through exchanges with hunter-gatherer Pygmies or fishing specialists.

But all over Central Africa, hunting, gathering and fishing provide essential elements to the staple diet of swidden agriculturists, especially in terms of protein. Generally speaking, these populations exploit a large array of animal and vegetable species with a variety of techniques.

Among the Boyela (Zaïre, Equateur), men spend 22 % of their time each day hunting ; during the dry season, women spend 2 % of their time each day gathering and 9 % fishing, by building dams on small streams.

Hunting

Hunting with traps is the predominant technique.

Each ethnic group uses a great variety of traps, mainly snares[90]. Traps are set around the settlements to catch animals attracted by the crops (rodents, small monkeys). But others are set deep in the forest (for antelopes, wild hog) and temporary camps are set up for the purpose.

Individual hunting using bows and arrows, crossbows and even guns is common (monkeys, small antelopes). Collective hunting (especially using nets) are no longer important economically but continue to play a role in social and ritual relationships.

Thus the marked preference the Kote (Zaïre, Equateur)[91] show for hunting is illustrated by the fact that their rituals are more important than those associated with agriculture.

Gathering

Collecting wild products is an activity the intensity of which varies with each ethnic group and region. But very little quantified (or even simply qualitative) data is available. The various products are important on a seasonal basis and provide the necessary supplements to agricultural production : oil-nuts, leaves, fungi, insects (termites, larvae of coleoptera, caterpillars).

*The Mvae (Cameroon, Océan), the Fang and other swidden agriculturists of south Cameroon regularly set out to pick "wild mangos", Irvingia, the kernel of which is roasted, crushed and dried in loaves to be used to thicken sauces. These loaves can be kept for up to a year in the kitchen.

*Populations from the south of the CAR such as the Ngbaka, Mbati and Ngando leave the village once a year, at the heart of the rainy season, and go to camp in the forest and collect caterpillars : for three weeks it will be their only food ; part of the yield will be dried and eaten throughout the year or sold on the markets in town.

Fishing

During the dry season, women will often get together to bail out the small forest streams. Collective fishing with poison is very popular. Hoop nets are also common.

The Mbo (Zaïre), though they obtain most of the fish they eat from fishermen in the area, also fish themselves throwing nets from their dugouts[92]. This technique is also in use among the Kwele of south Cameroon.

Territory

The area of forest exploited by a single hamlet extends beyond the fields and fallows ; it covers several dozen hectares on either side of the forest trail.

The total area of the forest territory of a Boyela village (Zaïre) of 200 people covers about 110 km². the hunting grounds of hamlets (of an average of 34 inhabitants) covers approximately 15 km², 0,4 km² per person. Similarly, a Mvae village (Cameroon) has hunting grounds of about 100 km² [93]. These areas are much smaller than those used by hunter-gatherer Pygmies.[94]

5) DIET

Though agriculture provides the staple food, the diet of swidden agriculturists is dependent on wild forest products, especially for protein.

Agriculture provides mainly the starchy staple food, i.e. carbohydrates ; different each ethnic groups choose different staple foods, manioc, plantain and yam being most common.

A meal always includes two dishes : one of starchy food, another with a sauce containing vegetables and meat or fish, prepared with condiments and fat.

Palm oil is used, but also oil extracted from seeds that have been crushed, both cultivated (peanuts, gourds) and wild (Irvingia for example).

The dish accompanying the starchy food is prepared with products yielded by forest activities, hunting, fishing and gathering. The forest therefore provides most of the diet's protein and vitamin content.

These forest products are meat, fish, insects, molluscs for food of animal origin, and leaves, seeds and fungi for vegetable matter. However, the leaves of manioc (cultivated) are commonly eaten as a vegetable.

Among the Boyela (Zaïre), agriculture provides 92 % in weight and 96 % in calories of the daily food intake, whereas forest activities and their yields provide 8 % in weight but 42 % of the diet's protein content. Similarly among the Ntumu (Gabon) for whom agriculture provides 70 % of calories, but 86 % of protein come from the forest.[95]

Nearly all the diet's protein come from hunting and fishing, domestic animals are only eaten on social occasions.

*For the Fang in Equatorial Guinea, domestic animals only represent 1 % of their meat consumption[96] -whereas giant rodents (brush-tailed porcupine and Gambian rat) represent 35 %.

*Among the Mvae (Cameroon, related to the Fang) a survey on food consumption showed a diet of 1946 kcal per person, with a protein intake of 70,3 g/day (78 % of animal origin), 44,7 g for fats and 316 g for glucides. The meat of domestic animals only provides 2 % of the diet, while 226 g/day/person come from fish, shrimps and meat.[97]

6) POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Villages are mainly organized around men and their conjugal family, all descending from a common ancestor, i.e. members of a single lineage (matrilineal or patrilineal depending on the population concerned). Whenever a community is physically divided into hamlets, or quarters in the case of big villages, each sub-division is a lineage segment.

The position of head of the family is held by the lineage elder (if fit enough to take on the role) and his authority extends over the whole community. In some cases, a hierarchy is established, order of birth providing the basis of its organization : the headman in a hamlet, at the head of his own lineage segment, recognizes the authority of his elder, head of a lineage in another hamlet. Both may in turn recognize the authority of a clan elder (the clan being a set of lineages). These "Big Chiefs" are at the head of "maximal" lineages, and their role is to arbitrate, judge and be the moral guarantors. But the old headmen, whose influence stretches over the "inner" lineages, i.e. the extended families living in the hamlets, have authority on matters pertaining to land, each within his own community. They are in charge of distributing the land in the name of their own kinship group. However, this is carried out after long the discussions with the heads of the various families in the village.

The political institution, with its rather loose centralization, tends to merge with the social structure : kinship provides the model for social relationships and delimits the scope beyond which individual appropriation and sharing as a group are in conflict with the community.

* The Djem and the Kwele (south Cameroon, north Congo) have villages made up of one or several clans ; each clan is under the protection of an old "chief" who settles disputes over land and people. The "village chief" represents the population at the level of regional administration and is usually a younger man who has no real power within the community, but who is chosen for his energetic personality.

* Among the Fang (south Cameroon, north Equatorial Guinea, north Gabon), the eldest member descending directly from the village founder is not necessarily the village "chief" ; he has moral authority, but real authority is in the hands of an able-bodied man (brother or nephew of the eldest) who is the village headman (and seen as such by the authorities). Though he is not a `chef de terre', land chief, he is in charge of distributing the various plots (to strangers for example).

* In societies with a stronger hierarchy such as the Ngombe and the Doko (Zaïre, Equateur) where the political system is more complex[98], the man in charge of matters pertaining to land has authority over the whole village (made up of a group of hamlets). The headman is elected at village-level and is assisted by a customary judge. Among the Doko, it is the village headman and the notables around him who deal with all matters pertaining to land.

7) CUSTOMARY LAND LAW

Among traditional swidden agriculturists, customary land law covers land for cultivation (including fallows) and forest territory. The vast expanses of forest belonging to each clan or lineage segment are always well-defined territories marked off by streams or mountains.

Usually, right over land is only a right of utilization and enjoyment and appropriation is purely symbolic. Priority goes to the descendants of the first person who cleared the patch of forest in question.

Land belongs to a lineage, and individuals within the lineage have equal rights to clear and cultivate the land, but no one may transfer it to an outsider : whether it is to be cultivated or travelled over, land is inalienable common property and the right to use it imprescriptible. Lineages have property rights over the village's entire forest territory. The boundaries are clearly defined but maintained by mutual respect.

Within a lineage, plots are allotted after consultation of all those involved, the village chief watching over the procedures. But as soon as a plot has been cleared, the man who did the clearing and his descendants have priority wheb it comes to clearing the land again after it has been left fallow for a dozen or so years.

Fallow is inherited from one's father. But in some groups, it is handed down through the women, from mother to daughter, or daughter-in-law if there are no daughters ; this is the case among the Fang and Ntumu (Cameroon, Gabon)[99].

Often, a person may have a right to settle within his mother's lineage's territory, thus allowing for some amount of choice and mobility.

The village and its land (for cultivation and hunting) is always part of the land of the ancestors : beyond a purely economic basis, spiritual and emotioal ties link people to their land.

The division of the land into distinct territories is not only based on the range covered by agricultural activities but also on the requirements of hunting, fishing, gathering and collecting various materials.

The Kote for example (Zaïre, Equateur), have a territory of forest exploitation that includes the areas of extraction and production of raw materials (iron ore, coal and timber)[100].

Hunting, or even simply tracking game, over a territory belonging to another community usually entails disputes.

Among the Komo for example (Zaïre), hunting and its ensuing problems frequently entail endless discussions between those who own the land in common. If there is serious conflict, the owner, according to customary law, takes the case to the traditional authorities, whereas a newcomer will tend to refer to the government administration. However, few conflicsts arise between old and recent owners : hunting territories are so vast that one need not hunt anywhere near someone else.

Most problems over the ownership of land can only be solved by referring to the group's genealogies and the hierarchy of tights (especially birthrights). When the genealogical ties between two groups have been forgatten or if they are disputed, the only answer is for each group to become autonomous, and rights are divided up equally accordingly.

When a segment of a clan moves away, it nevertheless remains co-owner of the land belonging to the clan (and this as long as the memory of it remains).

At present, the dynamics of land law are affected by the mobility of some groups and the adaptation to a market economy, including in particular the introduction of rents. Land is no longer simply a basis for subsistence but also a financial resource. But this only affects the use of land and not its ownership.

Cash crops

The traditional system described above has been altered by the decreasing mobility of family groups, the demographic increase and more particularly by the adoption of cash crops. The latter require putting land to permanent use, without fallows or mobility, and imposes permanent settlement for several generations[101]. It entails a stronger idea of ownership, especially over land ; rights arising from the work carried out on the plot are evolving and becoming rights based on the ownership of the land itself.

In these areas where ethnic groups and clans are inextricably interwoven, there is a serious problem of access to land for outsiders. Those who do not belong to the area must apply to the head of the family in the vicinity. He may grant permission to clear a plot for cultivating food plants (i.e. short-term exploitation and no rights over fallows), but they are not allowed to plant coffee or cacao trees.

Those who come from a particular village may cultivate the land belonging to the lineage, but other cultivators are encouraged to continue exploiting the territory of the village they originally came from[102]. This explains why people may set up camps in fields that can be very far from the village.

As villages cluster together and become increasingly immobile, land law is consequently geterogeneous : individualization and family based ownership is emerging within the boundaries of what used to be clan territory.

[80] SATO, 1983

[81] NGUEMA, 1970

[82] TAKEDA, 1990

[83] ALEXANDRE & BINET, 1958

[84] SATO 1983

[85] RÖSLER, reply to our questionnaire, 1993

[86] ALEXANDRE & BINET, 1958

[87] NGUEMA, 1970 ; GANYO, 1985

[88] See for example for the Ntomba in Zaïre, ESOL'EKA, 1986

[89] GANYO, 1980

[90] ALEXANDRE & BINET, 1958 . KOCH, 1968 . BAHUCHET & PUJOL, 1975

[91] VANSINA, 1965. For another example of hunting among the Komo, see de MAHIEU, 1985

[92] RÖSLER, 1993

[93] DOUNIAS, 1993, pers. comm.

[94] SATO, 1983 . BAHUCHET, 1993

[95] GANYO, 1985

[96] SABATER PI & GROVES, 1972

[97] KOPPERT 1991 and pers. comm.

[98] The Ngombe system relies on 5 lineage levels : extended families, the hamlet's exogamous lineages, village lineages, neighbourhood lineages, maximal lineages or sub-clan lineages.

[99] see NGUEMA, 1970 ; GANYO, 1985 ; ALEXANDRE & BINET, 1958

[100] MÜLLER, 1958

[101] ALEXANDRE & BINET, 1958

[102] For Ntumu examples (Gabon), see NGUEMA, 1970 and GANYO, 1985.