FLEDGING AGRICULTURALISTS? RETHINKING THE ADOPTION OF CULTIVATION BY THE BAKA HUNTER-GATHERERS

Abstract

The Baka hunter-gatherers currently cultivate agricultural crops. However, they do not seem to esteem planned, continuous, year-round produce, to which the neighboring cultivators attach great importance. The Baka do not expect to always obtain foodstuff from their own fields. Rather, than interpret this resource usage as an immature stage before the adoption of full agriculture, the adoption of banana cultivation by the Baka can be recognized as a diversification of resource usage within the "semi-domestication" gradation. The author argues that "resource use" comprises of human-to-nature relationship and human-to-human relationship. What differentiates the resource use between the Baka and the cultivators is the human-to-human relationships that surround the resource, such as the right to use the resource, the labor input for the resource, the distribution and the consumption of the resource among the people. The author hypothesizes that the Baka community lacks a rigid logic linking labor input and ownership of its fruits. Conversely, when most Baka begin to feel that the causal relationship between labor and ownership is natural and reasonable, their community is recognized as being on the definitive step to becoming an agriculturalist community.