The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

L
98 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
China, to prepare the land for the padi seed byleading
buffaloes to and fro across it while it lies
covered with water. The Kalabits lead the water
into their fields from the streams descending from
the hills.
With these exceptions the preparation of the
land is everywhere very crude, consisting in
the felling of the timber and undergrowth, and in
burning it as completely as possible, so that its
ashes enrich the soil. After a single crop has
been grown and gathered on land so cleared, the
weeds grow up very thickly, and there is, of course,
in the following year no possibility of repeating the
dressing of wood ashes in the same way. Hence
it is the universal practice to allow the land to lie
fallow for at least two years, after a single crop has
been raised, while crops are raised from other lands.
During the fallow period the jungle grows up so
rapidly and thickly that by the third year the weeds
have almost died out, choked by the larger growths.
The same land is then prepared again by felling the
young jungle and burning it as before, and a crop
is again raised from it. When a piece of land has
been prepared and cropped in this way some three
or four times, at intervals of two, three, or four
years, the crop obtainable from it is so inferior
in quantity that the people usually undertake
the severe labour of felling and burning a patch
of virgin forest, rather than continue to make
use of the old areas. In this way a large village
uses up in the course of some twelve or fifteen
years all the land suitable for cultivation within a
convenient distance, i,e. within a radius of some
three miles. When this state of affairs results, the
village is moved to a new site, chosen chiefly with
an eye to the abundance of land suitable for the
cultivation of the padi crop. After ten or more
years the villagers will return, and the house or