D- PALAWAN ISLAND [44]

• GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SWIDDEN CULTIVATORS
• SWIDDEN AGRICULTURE

The island is divided by a forested mountain range. It is inhabited by swidden cultivators.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SWIDDEN CULTIVATORS

Tau't Batu in south-west Palawan, in the high valley of Singnapan, Ransang, Quezon, 200 to 300 m above sea level ; 86 people on a 176 ha territory (density : 2,4 inhab/km²). The higher mountain areas are covered in primary forest but the valleys are covered in secondary forest with a few patches of primary forest considered sacred. The rainy season is at its peak between August and November and ends in December.

The Palawan of Quezon, related to the Tau't Batu, live around the Balabag cliffs (Ransang).

The Tagbanwa on the western coast of Palawan. Malandi village. 75 families (?).

Habitat alternates between village houses and more or less comfortable caves in the cliffs.

Today however, development of prestigious rice cultivation has altered this pattern : during the monsoon, when they ought to be in the caves, they remain in their houses, ill-adapted to heavy rains, and are thus exposed to respiratory diseases (Tau't Batu).

They move from east to west following a regular annual cycle governed by the monsoon.

They move from the dwellings and cultivated fields on the eastern slopes of the Singnapan Basin towards the caves in the cliffs on the western side of the mountains. In other words, agricultural activity connected with the first harvest is carried out on the eastern slopes, while gathering activities, combined with the cultivation of tubers over several years, is done while residing in the caves on the western slopes, when rainfall is at its peak.

Some Palawan will also go to the caves temporarily to catch bats.

Habitat is always near the swidden plot. It is based on a group of family units (bulun bulun) ; residence being uxorilocal, groups of 10 to 20 people bring together sisters and their brothers-in-law. Cooked and raw food is shared (Tau't Batu and Palawan).

Some ethnic groups (such as the Tagbanwa) move their dwellings with each new plot. If the plot is too far, they have a little field hut to facilitate weeding and to keep an eye on the monkeys that are also caught and eaten. The Tagbanwa live in hamlets made up of several households related by blood.

Property. The notion of property does not exist, but people have rights to cultivate the land. The limiting factor is the labour involved to work the land and not the amount of land available (Tagbanwa and Tau't Batu).

Social organization

The nuclear family is the basic social and economical unit ; it is supposed to be a self-sufficient unit but is actually integrated within a network of food exchange (Tagbanwa).

Residence is uxorilocal among the Tau't Batu : sisters and their brothers-in-law live in big houses. Residence is matrilocal among the Tagbanwa.

Power is in the hands of the heads of the family units (Tau't Batu). Though egalitarian, Tagbanwa society recognizes a headman vested with legal authority.

SWIDDEN AGRICULTURE

The fields are on the slopes. Each couple cultivates about 2 fields that are separated by a patch of forest (this avoids the propagation of pests, Tagbanwa). The land is cleared and burnt in secondary forest areas (Tau't Batu).

Traditionally, primary forest or old secondary forest were cleared because the soil is very rich there. Rice is an important and highly valued crop : 140 different varieties are classified according to the time they take to mature, their glutinous content, colour, smell, taste, resistance to pests, etc. Men and women contribute by bringing seeds to the new household when they marry, but they also constantly seek new varieties, and each family is continuously changing the varieties it grows. 7 or 12, sometimes 20 different varieties are planted at any one time and they are carefully harvested separately. Besides rice : sweet potato, manioc, yam, banana, maize, taro, millet. Also vegetables (Tagbanwa).

Size of plots : 1 to 2 ha (Tau't Batu) ; from 1/10 ha (a woman's plot) to a total of 3/4 ha (plot cultivated by both the woman and the man) (Tagbanwa).

For example : one plot 11,845 m² big will be planted with manioc, sweet potato, sugar cane, Moringa oleifera, tree the pods of which produce oil, garlick, pepper, various pulses, taro, tomato, marrow, pineapple, tobacco, different varieties of taro, etc (Tau't Batu).

The sequence of different plants

The land is cleared and burnt and rice is planted first ; when it is 15 cm high, taro and sugar cane are intercropped with the rice shoots, then the yam where there is still some room in the field. Manioc is planted in the field just before the other plants flower, and stays there for 2 or 3 years. Sweet potato comes last and can be cultivated over a whole year if properly cared for (Tau't Batu).

Staggering the different harvests helps the Tau't Batu cope with food shortages.

Depending on the variety (they grow 22 different ones), rice is harvested after a period of 4 or 5 months ; maize takes 3 months to mature and is often harvested twice a year ; yams and manioc are harvested after a period of 7 months and sugar cane after 10 months. Sweet potato, the last to be planted, sometimes takes over the whole field after the other plants have been harvested.

Hunting

Wild pig, pigeon, wild cat, squirrel, shrew, bear, monitor lizards, various monkeys, flying squirrel, various birds, frogs. Pigs are caught around the fields to which they are attracted by the crops. Traps, blowpipe and spear are used (Tau't Batu). The Tagbanwa hunt little : monkeys and wild pigs.

Fishing : fish, crabs, shrimp, crayfish (Tau't Batu, Tagbanwa).

Gathering adequately provides for the shortages of agriculture.

Many vegetables and fruits are collected, and in times of scarcity, sago and Dioscorea hispida, a toxic tuber (Tagbanwa). The Tau't Batu gather 140 different plants : edible plants (fungi (3), fruits (18), leaves and stalks), many medicinal plants, and some for technological purposes : insecticides to protect the rice in the fields (2), construction materials, to make cooking implements, tools, hunting gear, rope, poison and bait for hunting, dyes, plants to light fire (3). Some plants are used for many different purposes.

Diet . Their diet is based on rice, tubers (sweet potato, manioc, yam, taro), bananas maize, millet. Meat comes from monkeys and pigs caught around the fields, civets, squirrels, bats, birds, and they also eat shrimps, snails and many fish. They usually have 3 meals a day and fresh fruit snacks in between meals (Tagbanwa, Tau't Batu).

Cash revenues are obtained from collected products (rattan and resin). Agricultural products are also exchanged for dried sea fish with the people of Candawaga ; exchanges of padi, betel leaves and forest products for knives, salt, metal pots, blankets. They are entering a cash economy (Tau't Batu).

Problems : migrant populations have perennial monocropped fields which have a devastating effect on the environment ; mining and logging are destroying the forest lands (erosion, barrenness) which are little by little taken over and owned by the exploiting companies entailing drastic destabilisation of Tagbanwa systems.

[44] REVEL, 1992; PERALTA, 1983; WARNER, 1981.