DOI Artikel:
Tvengsberg, Per Martin: Rye and swidden cultivation: tillage without tools
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49004#0147
RYE AND SWIDDEN CULTIVATION
TILLAGE WITHOUT TOOLS
By
Per Martin Tuengsberg
The history of mankind cannot be fully un-
derstood without reference to environmental
factors - landscape, soil, flora, fauna and cli-
mate. These are the sources of nourishment,
and they condition the customs of the people.
Nature is in turn influenced by man in his
efforts to increase food production. An im-
portant element in such activity is swidden
cultivation, using fire as a surface clearing and
fertilizing mechanism. It has an ethno-eco-
logical and technological development as well
as environmental (biotic, edaphic, climatic)
dimensions.
The swidden cultivation cycle can be in-
vestigated by studying farming practices over
an extended period of continuous cultural
and environmental, ecological, change (Con-
klin 1961, 29). Working out the range of lo-
cally significant variations along these dimen-
sions may lead to more systematic questions
about the interrelations between different
ecological components of a given system.
Swidden cultivation is here defined as the cul-
tivation of human food plants in the ashes of
burnt forest land. Thus fire clearance hus-
bandry for grass production is not primary
swidden cultivation according to this paper,
although grass was a secondary output from
swidden cultivation. This kind of tillage al-
most without the use of mechanical tools is
assumed to have been originally the most
common cultivation method (Clark 1945,
57-71; Steensberg 1955, 65). The wandering
of tribes in abundant forest land was the usual
survival system. Axes for felling trees and
sickles for harvesting are the only tools re-
quired, and the whole process in swidden cul-
tivation can be accomplished without using
other tools. All other implements needed
were made of suitable fresh pieces of wood
from the right kind of tree, like fire rakes of
birch and a harrow made of a spruce top.
The swidden cultivators penetrated the vir-
gin forests, clearing small patches and taking
one or a few crops before passing on to fresh
ground in large forests. The temperate forests
were so dense and capable of regeneration
that their exploitation was repeated several
times through history.
But in the long run this cultivation changed
the appearance of.the land. It changed the
type of forest or created extensive regions of
cultivated land and meadows. And as man ex-
panded north and west in Europe, the forests
had but small power of recuperation in the
marginal zones, and they reverted to open
heath and even to desert on the very poorest
land (Clark 1952, 91-107). Man has always
been attacking the forest, and so swidden cul-
tivation has destroyed huge areas of primeval
forest. This consumption of forest acceler-
ated, assisted by the pasturing of animals and
later by greedy Europeans. As the East Slav
tribes spread into the plains of European
Russia, from the 6th century onward, the
open steppe-lands were denied them by the
succession of nomadic, pastoralist people
from the Scythians through to the Tatars. In-
TILLAGE WITHOUT TOOLS
By
Per Martin Tuengsberg
The history of mankind cannot be fully un-
derstood without reference to environmental
factors - landscape, soil, flora, fauna and cli-
mate. These are the sources of nourishment,
and they condition the customs of the people.
Nature is in turn influenced by man in his
efforts to increase food production. An im-
portant element in such activity is swidden
cultivation, using fire as a surface clearing and
fertilizing mechanism. It has an ethno-eco-
logical and technological development as well
as environmental (biotic, edaphic, climatic)
dimensions.
The swidden cultivation cycle can be in-
vestigated by studying farming practices over
an extended period of continuous cultural
and environmental, ecological, change (Con-
klin 1961, 29). Working out the range of lo-
cally significant variations along these dimen-
sions may lead to more systematic questions
about the interrelations between different
ecological components of a given system.
Swidden cultivation is here defined as the cul-
tivation of human food plants in the ashes of
burnt forest land. Thus fire clearance hus-
bandry for grass production is not primary
swidden cultivation according to this paper,
although grass was a secondary output from
swidden cultivation. This kind of tillage al-
most without the use of mechanical tools is
assumed to have been originally the most
common cultivation method (Clark 1945,
57-71; Steensberg 1955, 65). The wandering
of tribes in abundant forest land was the usual
survival system. Axes for felling trees and
sickles for harvesting are the only tools re-
quired, and the whole process in swidden cul-
tivation can be accomplished without using
other tools. All other implements needed
were made of suitable fresh pieces of wood
from the right kind of tree, like fire rakes of
birch and a harrow made of a spruce top.
The swidden cultivators penetrated the vir-
gin forests, clearing small patches and taking
one or a few crops before passing on to fresh
ground in large forests. The temperate forests
were so dense and capable of regeneration
that their exploitation was repeated several
times through history.
But in the long run this cultivation changed
the appearance of.the land. It changed the
type of forest or created extensive regions of
cultivated land and meadows. And as man ex-
panded north and west in Europe, the forests
had but small power of recuperation in the
marginal zones, and they reverted to open
heath and even to desert on the very poorest
land (Clark 1952, 91-107). Man has always
been attacking the forest, and so swidden cul-
tivation has destroyed huge areas of primeval
forest. This consumption of forest acceler-
ated, assisted by the pasturing of animals and
later by greedy Europeans. As the East Slav
tribes spread into the plains of European
Russia, from the 6th century onward, the
open steppe-lands were denied them by the
succession of nomadic, pastoralist people
from the Scythians through to the Tatars. In-