Table of Contents
The swidden cycle in Palokhi usually commences in late January, or early February, with the selection of various possible sites for swiddening. There is, of course, no clear-cut line of demarcation between agricultural cycles in terms of agricultural activities because even as they are bringing in their harvests from their swiddens and wet-rice fields, the Palokhi Karen are already considering where they will swidden next. In most cases, they do in fact have a general idea of where they intend to swidden next because they have considered the possibilities in the course of the previous year. The Palokhi Karen do not have a carefully worked out rotational fallow system for swiddens such as the Lua’, for instance, have and their swiddening practices in this respect show rather more similarities with those of the Karen which have also been described by Kunstadter (1978: 81–2). Nor do the Palokhi Karen cultivate swiddens in contiguous blocks of land as do the Pwo Karen studied by Hinton (1975:106ff.).
The selection of swidden sites is very much a matter of individual household choice which is not unduly constrained by the need to make accommodations with other households, or with neighbouring communities. The reason for this is that they are virtually the sole occupants of the middle part of the Huai Thung Choa valley and, therefore, do not face competition for the forest resources of the valley with their Northern Thai neighbours who live downstream and who are engaged primarily in wet-rice agriculture. Neither do they face any competition from their closest Karen neighbours from the village of Pong Thong who are small in number and whose swiddening needs are sufficiently met by the forests of the smaller Pong Thong stream valley.
The evaluation of forest areas is guided by several factors, the most important of which is the state of vegetative regrowth of the forest. The Palokhi Karen have two terms which distinguish between two types of forest cover although this distinction is, in fact, not very clear. The first term, pgha, refers to the forest in general but it may also refer to old, or very old, secondary forest. The second term, chghi, refers to swiddens which have been left fallow for a period ranging from as short as one year to 20 or 30 years, or even more. The distinction, therefore, is ambiguous since long established chghi could be described as pgha. In my observation the term chghi is more consistently applied to secondary forest of which the Palokhi Karen have positive knowledge of previous cultivation obtained either at first hand or through an observation of the nature of the state of secondary regrowth, while the term pgha is used to refer to areas where the evidence of previous cultivation is all but absent, that is, forest which has reached, what Spencer calls (1977:39), a “fairly stable equilibrium of ecological succession”.
The ambiguity in the application of these terms, nevertheless, requires some explanation and I think it is probably to be found in ecological changes in Northern Thailand and an older usage of the term made no longer relevant as a result of these changes.[2]It is likely that these two terms originally referred to primary forest and secondary, or previously cultivated, forest and that the distinction has been lost with the elimination of primary forests in the region. The difference between these two terms, as they are used in Palokhi, is thus nominal and does not feature in the way that the Palokhi Karen decide upon swidden sites. Indeed, when they talk of clearing the forest for a swidden, they almost always talk in terms of clearing chghi.
In actual practice, however, chghi which are used for swiddening are forests that have regenerated for over thirty years at least because households in Palokhi have yet to return to swiddens that they previously cultivated in the history of their settlement in the Huai Thung Choa valley. This is very unusual indeed for any Karen community so far described in contemporary accounts, and the reason has to do with the still very favourable ecological conditions in the valley. The Palokhi Karen also take into account other considerations in deciding where to cut their swiddens but these considerations are not given equal weight by all households. Some households say, for instance, that good swiddening areas are those which have dark or black soil (as opposed to red soil) and that the soil should not taste sour or salty. Another criterion which some households say they use is the presence of litter or humus on the ground. Still others claim that the presence of a certain small-stemmed, thick-walled species of bamboo called wa su, or “black bamboo” (Bambusa tulda), is a good indicator of suitable locations for swiddening. Considerations of slope are not very important, but areas with very steep slopes are avoided because their higher degree of erodibility results in loss of seed and crops along with the soil during the rainy season. Other physiographic characteristics such as a general even-ness of terrain and the absence of large rocks as well as the presence of a small gully or drainage line are regarded as desirable because work is made easier in such terrain, while the presence of a drainage line ensures access to water that is required for drinking and cooking in the course of working in the swidden throughout the year.
On the basis of these various considerations, a few sites are chosen by each swiddening household. The reason why more than one site is usually selected is because the final choice of a site is determined by divination which is an essential part of the process of site selection (see Chapter VI). This, then, saves the household the inconvenience of seeking out alternative sites again if divination indicates that a site is unsuitable for swiddening.
Once swidden locations have been finally decided upon, the process of clearing may begin. This is done in the cool dry, and then hot dry months of February and March, sometimes extending into early April. The clearing of swiddens involves two main tasks — slashing away the bush, undergrowth and small trees, and felling large trees. Slashing is done by both men and women, while the chopping down of trees is a task that is performed only by men. The work is done by households on a co-operative labour exchange basis. As with other agricultural tasks of this nature, the work teams are formed on an ad hoc basis with households soliciting assistance a few days in advance. Work teams, in Palokhi, therefore are not fixed in composition or numbers throughout the year or, for that matter, throughout any particular phase in the agricultural cycle. The teams are usually largest in the early stages of any particular phase which requires co-operation, after which their numbers dwindle as the work gets done and household members turn to other tasks.
Slashing is done with bush knives (xae’) which are either made by the blacksmith in the village, or purchased at the large Northern Thai settlement of Ban Pa Pae. The entire site is slashed first, after which the trees are felled with axes (kha’) which are bought in local stores. In Palokhi, as with other Karen swiddening communities elsewhere, swiddens are cleared below ridge tops which means that there is always a tree line above swiddens (see, for example, Grandstaff [1980:6], Uhlig [1978:39], but cf. Kunstadter [1978:83]). The Palokhi Karen say that by not clearing the vegetation in these places, the regeneration of the swidden when it is left fallow is facilitated by seed falling downslope from the vegetation on the ridge tops. Trees are chopped down at about waist height, or slightly above. If the trees are exceptionally large, however, simple scaffoldings are erected to enable the axemen to chop the tree higher up its length where the girth of the tree is smaller. The scaffolding consists of two sturdy saplings bound together to form a cross which is then leant against the tree allowing the axemen to stand on the lower arms of the crossed saplings from where they can then chop down the tree. As with many other swiddeners, the Palokhi Karen make attempts to bring down several trees at a time by partially cutting them and then bringing them down by felling a tree against the line of partially cut trees. In Palokhi, almost all trees are chopped down in swiddens, regardless of their size and species. This practice differs from that reported for other Karen communities and the reason for it is that the Palokhi Karen do not feel a need to preserve some trees in swiddens, as there are still areas with plentiful forests available to them and hence the lack of incentive to assist in the process of forest regeneration.[3]
When swiddens have been cleared, they are left to dry for a few weeks before they are burnt. In Palokhi, the swiddens which were cleared in 1980 were left to dry for about four weeks in the hot dry season before they were burnt.
[1] The agricultural practices of the Karen, described by various researchers, show broad similarities although variations do exist. These variations are, however, relatively minor. Kunstadter’s account (1978) of Karen swidden and wet-rice agricultural practices is the most detailed and comprehensive available and much of what he has to say about the Laykawkey Karen, in Mae Sariang, is equally applicable to the Palokhi Karen. In this appendix on swidden agriculture in Palokhi, I therefore present a brief account of the various swiddening activities in Palokhi sufficient to show what takes place in the agricultural cycle and to indicate points of similarity and difference, where relevant, between what takes place in Palokhi and that in other Karen communities as found in existing descriptions on Karen agricultural practices.
[2] The Karen are widely reported to be secondary forest swiddeners and they have probably been so for a very long time (but see Grandstaff [1976:152]). Whatever the reasons for the shift from primary to secondary forest swiddening (which Grandstaff examines in considerable detail), the cultivation of secondary forests has meant that the Karen now occupy those parts of the highlands of Northern Thailand characterised by the presence of Dry Dipterocarp and Mixed Deciduous Forests. Karen terminology, however, does not make distinctions of this sort. The distinction — which may be inferred from the way that pgha and chghi are used — is one between forest that has been previously cultivated and forest that has not. Given the major ecological changes that have taken place in Northern Thailand, I think it is not unreasonable to make the further inference that this distinction is indeed an old one which had real meaning before such changes took place. The oral tradition of the Karen (which appears to possess a fair degree of continuity over time and space) suggests that chghi is more important in their perception of their environment than pgha as far as swiddening is concerned. In many of the prayers said in rites that are performed in association with swidden cultivation, chghi is invariably paired with hy’ (“cultivated field” or swidden).
[3] In the village of Dong Luang (Mae Sariang), the Pwo Karen leave some trees standing in swiddens to assist in the regeneration of forest in fallow swiddens, as well as to retard soil losses because the roots of the trees hold the soil together (Hinton 1975: 84). The trees are, however, pollarded to prevent them from shading the rice crop. In Mae Tho, the Sgaw Karen do not fell trees which have a diameter of more than 15 centimetres at waist height but they are pollarded as in Dong Luang (Nakano 1978: 419). Though the Palokhi Karen are aware of the importance of having a tree line above their swiddens to seed fallow swiddens (and, thus, facilitate the process of regeneration), the fact that they do not leave standing trees in their swiddens is, nevertheless, a good indication that they feel no need to make additional efforts to propagate natural processes because of the ample forests around them.