Page 172 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

agricultural societies 57

explained.The sanctity of the koso required also that
its bearer should precede the rest of the working party
and go alone. Soon after he had disappeared in the turn supported by local consensus among councils of
darkness another man was dispatched with the clan representatives. A village ceremonial hierarchy,
fakaora, a basket containing food from the oven of staffed on the basis of clan prerogatives, controlled the
the day before to provide the offerings in the cultiva- annual cycle of activities, which included key agricultural
tion, and following him went a youth with the little dates.
kit of seed yams. All these articles were tapu, hence The largest urban populations in the Mexican area
their bearers had to proceed apart from the crowd so were in the sites of original domestication, beginning
that they were not contaminated. . . . with the Olmec civilization (1200 to about 400 BCE) and
As the sky was brightening before the dawn the continuing through Teotihuacán, the Valley of Oaxaca,
party reached the mara, to which they had been pre- theToltecs, the Chichemics, and the Aztecs. Although we
ceded by the bearer of the koso tapu and his comrades. know little about the Olmec organization, from Teoti-
Immediately the work began.They all sharpened the huacán on it seems clear that in these states the relation
ordinary digging sticks which they brought with them, between urban elite and the peasantry in the villages was
or hastily cut fresh ones from shrubs on the border of not that between a populace and their specialized lead-
the clearing.The bearer of the sacred implement stood ers and defenders but rather between conquerors and
alone and silent at the far end of the field; he had held conquered, seemingly reflecting a takeover by a tribal
communication with no one since leaving the house group who converted themselves into a militaristic ruling
in Uta.The Ariki put on his ritual necklet of coconut class. The elites imposed heavy levies of produce, labor,
frond, and the black pani stripe was drawn down his and eventually sacrificial victims and concentrated on
forehead. building enormous ceremonial centers representative of
Source: Firth, R. (1940). The work of the Gods in Tikopia. (pp. 123–124). London: The an ideology intended to perpetuate their rule. They
London School of Economics and Political Science.
engaged in large-scale manufacture and apparently long-
distance trade. They did little, however, for those they
subjugated. There was, for example, no really large irri-
gation system in the region, such as could not have been
appear about 500 CE, including those of the Anasazi, built by the local communities alone. There was also
whose descendants appear to include the modern Hopi nothing that could be construed as state support for pri-
and the Hohokam whose canals can still be seen in the vate commerce, such as harbor facilities, inns, or even
city of Phoenix. In eastern North America domestication coinage. In this area the populations of the principal cer-
of local plants (marsh elder, sunflower, chenopods, and emonial centers rose and fell with the power of the group
cucurbits) began about 1500 BCE. Maize appeared about that built them, rather than persisting through a succes-
600 CE, but since rainfall there is generally adequate with- sion of rulers. Teotihuacán, for example, had an esti-
out irrigation it did not dramatically influence the size of mated population of 200,000 in 500 CE but was
population concentrations. abandoned forever around 750 CE, after a fire.The pop-
Generally, everywhere north of the Valley of Mexico ulation of the villages, by contrast, seems to have built up
agriculture was based on peasant/household produc- fairly steadily.
tion. On the basis of known historic patterns together The pattern in the northern Andes and the adjacent
with archaeological evidence, it can be stated that the key Pacific coast was similar. Beginning around 1200 BCE
organizational units were household, clan, and village. local communities practicing irrigated agriculture devel-
Land ownership rested mainly with clans. Households oped in river valleys in the mountains and on the
farmed on the basis of clan rights. Clan rights were in coastal plains.Through local conflicts these built up into