Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Harris' interpretation explains why Maring males are motivated to increase their pig herd
to the maximum in the face of increasing complaints from their women folk - but this
mechanism simply serves the interests of one clan against those of another. It would appear
to be counterproductive for the Maring people as a whole. It is true that the public feasts
ensure that the pig meat gets spread around the entire population, and the taboos associated
with the
kaiko
ensure that the bulk of the meat goes to those who need it most: women and
young children. But neither Harris, nor Rapaport provide a clear explanation why saving
all the pigs up for ten years and then killing them should be a better strategy for the pop-
ulation as a whole than eating them as and when they reach maturity. After all, it is very
wasteful keeping all those pigs alive in an agricultural economy which has rather limited
food surpluses.
Yet, paradoxically it is precisely that wastefulness which makes the
kaiko
system an ef-
fective ecological strategy. The bulging pig population acts as a cushion between the hu-
man population and the limits of the land's carrying capacity, and it is the nutritional and
ergonomic inefficiency of the pigs, once there are too many of them to keep alive on sur-
plus food, which makes it so.
The point which Rapaport is at pains to emphasise (and provides numerous tables to sup-
port) is that
kaiko
is not called because the clan has reached the limits of its land's carrying
capacity. Pressure from the women to start sacrificing the pigs occurs when the amount of
work and distances travelled which they occasion becomes insupportable; and when the
pigs begin to cause 'international incidents' by breaking into other people's gardens - not
when the yields from agriculture begin to decline. The clan runs out of the energy and for-
bearance necessary to maintain a growing population of pigs, before it runs out of space to
create healthy new gardens. It is the inefficiency of maintaining the pigs which prevents the
carrying capacity being exceeded. If the produce of those distant gardens were fed directly
to humans it would be worth continuing to till them - more children could be fed so there
would be more people to help with the labour. But there comes a point where feeding the
produce of the gardens into pigs who are converting it into human nourishment at a very
inefficient rate becomes an insufferable waste of time.
So what would happen if all the clans got together and signed an agreement that the pigs
shouldn't be allowed to multiply unchecked, but should be eaten on a regular basis to keep
their number low and stable, and their production efficient? In this case, the humans would
multiply (as they do) though more slowly than the pigs did in the
kaiko
cycle, because hu-
mans breed slower. More gardens would be needed to sustain them, but there would be no
labour problem because every new mouth to be fed would nourish a new pair of hands able
to clear and cultivate more gardens, rather than a parasitic pig. Nor would there be so many
'incidents' because humans have greater moral qualms against breaking down fences than
pigs do.