Quick summary of cultural ecology of the Kofyar homeland

Air photo of Kofyar farmsteads in Merniang. The scale is 1 km.

Land pressure was generally high in the Kofyar homeland, but there were differences between hill and hill-foot (plains) communities. In 1945 the density on the Doemak plains was estimated at ... 463/km² (Findlay 1945). This is consistent with my estimate of 488/km² for the population of Merniang in 1957. Population density in the hills was estimated at 96/km² in 1945. Using Netting's censuses from 1961-62 and 1:40,000 aerial photos from 1963, I calculated population densities ranging from 37/km² to 100/km² in hill communities, taking into account outlying agricultural areas (Stone et al. 1984). Yet much of the hill landscape was in steep slopes and covered with thin soils, so that land pressure was higher than simple density figures suggest...

In both the hills and plains, cultivation was highly intensive. In most villages, the infield surrounding each compound was put in intercropped sorghum, early millet, and cowpeas each year; villages at the highest elevations relied more on maize and late millet. The infields were fertilized annually with compost from stall-fed goats (which was hoed into waffle gardens to control infiltration and check erosion) and were carefully weeded. Seedlings were often cultivated in nurseries and transplanted by hand. A wide roster of secondary crops -- including maize, groundnuts (peanuts), bambara nuts, cocoyam, sweet potato, dwarf millet, sesame, and various cucurbits -- was grown on terraces and outfields. The Kofyar also cultivated palm and canarium trees for their oil, which was both consumed and sold in local markets.

Although the infield was responsible for the lion's share of agricultural produce, the Kofyar also cultivated three categories of outfields. Plots cultivated on village perimeters or interstices were called mar lang, and plots that were more distant (but usually within a half- hour's walk) were called mar goon. Outfield plots were cultivated extensively, usually with swidden methods and fallowing, but light fertilizers such as ash were sometimes applied. The last category of outfield was migrant farms (still usually within a day's walk) called mar wang, discussed in chapter 5.

Many hillsides were terraced. Most terrace plots were outfields, but some compounds were situated on slopes so steep that the infield (mar koepang or futung) was entirely on terraces. Cultivation tactics on such infrastructure can involve low labor investment and fallowing, which are hallmarks of extensive farming. Yet in most cases where agricultural infrastructure has been built, the cultivation regime is indeed intensive in that labor is being substituted for land (see chapter 3). Labor inputs on terrace plots were relatively low; they were only lightly fertilized, and fallowing was responsible for restoring fertility. Yet the time cost to build and maintain the terraces was quite high. In fact, when new lands opened up to the Kofyar, it was the terrace plots that most farmers abandoned, and on the steeper hills the unmaintained terraces began to disintegrate quickly.

The great majority of agricultural labor was mobilized within the household for work on the infield. Netting characterizes the labor demands of this agricultural regime as "small-scale but continuous" (Netting 1965) and manageable by the relatively small labor pool of the homeland household. Indeed, additional workers in the household offered little marginal utility because production was limited more by land than by labor. The characteristically small Kofyar household is therefore well adapted to the labor demands of production, and the swollen households that were kept from fissioning by land shortages in plains villages were disadvantaged (Stone et al. 1984).