Page 171 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

56 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The Sacred Digging Stick

Religious rituals to help insure a good crop have yam, the vegetable foodstuff of primary significance,
always been an important element of planting and har- this digging stick has become as it were the prototype
vesting in farming communities around the world.The of all instruments of cultivation, the material symbol
following example is from the Tikopia of the South of agriculture. Like all other objects in this particular
Pacific. context it is regarded as the property, even the embod-
iment, of the Atua i Kafika, and therefore must be
The next morning everyone of the yam group had to
handled with extreme care, and only by persons
be awake long before dawn, for this was the day of
authorised by the Ariki and at the appropriate time.
planting. I was told “the yam is planted in the night”
No woman, for instance, would dare to touch it, nor
—a statement too near truth for my comfort.The rea-
is it probably ever seen by them. It is kept normally
son given was that “the yam should be hidden in the
at the far end of the Kafika temple, and the custom is
woods” before people stirred in the villages, so that
to hang a few kava leaves over it in token of its unique
the paths might not be contaminated by ordinary
value and importance. As the implement decays it is
affairs. It was said that this was the command and
replaced by a fresh one, but as its use is ritual, not
practice of the Atua i Kafika, though no express utter-
practical, it lasts for many years without attention.The
ance to this effect was known.
stick employed in 1928–9 was very frail, so much so
On each occasion I came over from my house in
that the Ariki, in handing it over to the man who was
Faea soon after four a.m. When the people of the
appointed to carry it, gave the caution “That one has
household had been roused from sleep one man was
become aged; go carefully lest you stumble in the
sent off first with the koso tapu, the sacred digging
path.” The bearer, out of deference to his sacred bur-
stick, a piece of wood some seven feet long, pointed
den, had a clean white strip of bark-cloth wound as
at both ends, one of which was ornamented by some
an extra cincture round his waist and a bundle of
roughly cut notches.
scented leaves stuck in the back of his girdle.The sig-
This implement is one of the most intensely sacred
nificance of these in ritual matters has already been
articles in the island.Through its association with the
Soviet Union have been dissolved, and the newly emer- 5000 BCE. But it was far different from what the grain is
gent nations have tended toward agrarian reforms that now and far less productive and useful than the first
favor peasant/household management.At the same time, domesticated Old World grains. Although clearly show-
the green revolution and related developments in ing the hallmark of domestication—that the husk sur-
agribusiness have made available to peasant/household rounded the entire ear and not the individual seeds—the
production far more productive varieties of plants and ears were less than an inch long. Evidence of purposeful
animals, producing a “neo-technic” form of peasant agri- cultivation appeared about 1,500 years later in the same
culture integrating household management with large- area, by which time maize was accompanied by beans,
scale organizations for economic and technical support squash, chili, gourds, and amaranth. By 1500 BCE the
that was formerly unavailable. Tehuacan maize was notably improved in both yield and
nutritional quality, but even before then it had spread to
New World other areas. Maize found in Bat Cave on the Colorado
In the New World one cereal crop stands out as far more Plateau has been dated to about 2100 BCE. Small com-
important than all others: maize. The earliest known munities practicing irrigated agriculture appeared in the
domesticated maize was found in a dry cave in the American Southwest by 300 BCE. Larger villages, or
Tehuacan Valley of central Mexico and dates to about pueblos, with extensive canal systems and terraced fields