7
The Sociology and Economics of Vegetable Production, 1946–1972

Introduction

The postwar agrarian transition reformulated social relations in Buguias. In the old days, commoners acquired livestock from their wealthy confreres by entering a pastol contract. When these same commoners switched to vegetable growing after the war, their capital requirements ballooned. Now they needed cash both to purchase agricultural inputs and increasingly to buy subsistence goods imported from the lowlands. To meet this demand, new forms of credit emerged to take their place alongside the old.

Labor recruitment was also transformed in the poastwar period. Previously, most commoners had relied largely on family labor, augmented with reciprocal labor exchange (ogbo) for the occasional heavy task. The elite, for their part, could also entice workers through the payment of meat (dangas). After the war, the bases of both ogbo and dangas eroded. Commoners now found themselves needing additional hands regularly, but no longer could they readily promise their own labor in return. For related reasons, the elite found their meat offerings inadequate to attract as many workers as they required. Both parties now had to pay cash wages.

Class and gender relations in Buguias responded to the new economy's pressures with subtle and overt adjustments. The preexisting class structure, although temporarily upset, soon restabilized more or less as before, with one critical difference: for the first time, a handful of regional vegetable merchants and farmers transcended the local economy and established themselves as provincial elites. Relations between the sexes changed even more dramatically. In the new economy, women and men suddenly carried the same tools and toiled at the same jobs. Moreover, a small set of women traders emerged as wealthy entrepreneurs, an unprecedented development.

Restructured Social Relations

Class Stratification

The postwar economic transformation initially acted to level class positions in Buguias, but the old system of stratification was soon reestablished, albeit in modified form. In the early years, vegetable growing presented an economic opportunity for the common people unmatched in earlier days. The local baknangs continued to seek laborers in the traditional dangas fashion, but as the going wage increased, their attempts were increasingly frustrated. In response, real wages paid for agricultural and pastoral work doubled in a few years. But despite the higher potential wages, most commoners now wished to act independently of the elite, and the very term baknang began to carry pejorative connotations in some quarters.

Yet Buguias remained a stratified society. Immediately following the war, many wealthy families coasted on paybacks for loans they had extended before the conflict began; others exhumed the cash reserves they had buried before the final devastation. More importantly, a handful of families retained ownership of most terraces, and if they were slow to plant them to cabbage, they were quick to lease them to willing experimentalists. By the second postwar decade, the elite had discovered the profitability of farming their own extensive and well-watered lands for themselves. Meanwhile, the Buguias baknangs continued to lend money, usually at 5 percent interest per month, allowing them to reap an additional harvest from the vegetable boom. Berto and Apisa Cubangay even managed to perform a second pedit at the stratospheric level of "25" in the late 1940s. But after Berto's death in 1951, there were no longer any true baknangs in Buguias. But the vegetable economy continued to present opportunities for accumulation, and by the late 1960s a new group of wealthy people, primarily from nonbaknang lineages, had arisen.

This scenario was played out only in Buguias proper. The traditional Lo-o elites maintained and even augmented their positions by leasing their extensive terraces to Chinese entrepreneurs and by establishing businesses in Abatan. In contrast, the new communities of the Mountain Trail, having no traditional elite class, experienced de novo stratification. There the most successful farmers

rapidly amassed money and land, soon joining the Chinese planters in the local "aristocracy." In some areas the first migrants were able to assume the position of "lead family," but continued success depended on access to capital, usually through family connections in the valley communities.

Living Standards

By the 1960s, the lot of the average person in Buguias had improved markedly from prewar standards. People recall this melioration primarily in terms of diet. With the rise of market gardening, lowland rice became a staple food, while sweet potatoes were demoted to a supplementary position. Now the common farmer could also purchase dried fish, an occasional tin of meat or seafood, distilled liquor, and kerosene for cooking and lighting. Clothing and housing standards also improved; most couples replaced their thatch roofs with galvanized iron sheets, which, although unappealing to the (Western) eye, are locally regarded as far superior to thatch.

But the populace did not share equally in this new bounty. Some had inadequate lands to support their often sizable families in the new style. The poorest fifth of the population could not afford boiled rice as their mainstay; instead they subsisted on a watery rice gruel supplemented with sweet potatoes. But as before, the poor received community subsidies; they ate high-quality food at communal feasts, they could gather fruit on the waysides, and now they could glean the remains of harvested vegetable fields.

Many of the wealthier couples continued to live in much the same style as their poorer contemporaries. As before the war, they devoted the bulk of their riches to religious ceremonies. But the very rich—those who traded vegetables on a large scale—rose to a new level of consumption. Several couples built large, modern houses in both Buguias and Trinidad, filling them with a variety of consumer goods.

Despite the common academic notion of "subsistence affluence" (Sahlins 1972) giving way to "commercial deprivation" in the global periphery, the rise in living standards that accompanied agricultural commercialization in Buguias is paralleled in many other peripheral societies. While many scholars still hold to a view that

William Clarke (1988) has felicitously labeled "edenism" (a recurrent myth, once popularized by Rousseau and later spread with the countercultural impulse of the 1960s), it is now clear that many subsistence economies were anything but prosperous. As Dennett and Connell (1988: 281) say of one group of New Guinea highlanders, "They have no wish to retreat to the 'subsistence affluence' and nobility that have sometimes been thrust upon their ancestors." Whatever the costs of commercialization have been, the Buguias people unanimously voice the same sentiments.

Gender Relations

More permanent than changes in class structure was the postwar transformation of gender relations. Before the war, most agricultural tasks were strictly segregated by sex. Although husbands and wives occasionally worked together, women usually toiled in the dry fields while men tended livestock and conducted trade. Moreover, each gender previously possessed its own distinctive tool kit, although there was little stigma attached to, and sometimes even genuine admiration for, individuals competent in using the implements of the other sex. But the tasks of vegetable gardening were never divided by sex. True, most men continue to avoid tedious tasks, such as weeding, in preference for more strenuous chores, but such choices have devolved into family matters, no longer arbitrated by cultural expectations.

Vegetable trading allowed for a different restructuring of gender roles by opening a new window on the larger world. One of the central jobs of vegetable trading, namely vehicle driving and maintenance, remained firmly in the male domain. But this is a special assignment that few men ever hold. Of much greater consequence was the opening of trade itself to women. Before the war, women had conducted local barter, but none engaged in professional longdistance commerce. Yet by the 1960s, women came to dominate the much-enlarged retail sector in Buguias, while several female traders reached the highest level of prominence in the profitable vegetable business. Although these merchants have generally worked with their husbands, in several notable cases it is no secret that the genius lies on the distaff side.

Before the war, women had worked extremely long hours, while

men had enjoyed relative leisure. This too changed in the reconstruction; vegetable culture demanded continual applications of labor, much of which could only be drawn from men. In the vegetable economy, most Buguias residents agree, men toil in the fields just as hard as women do. But women still work longer hours, since they are also responsible for more domestic tasks. Moreover, fathers no longer supply the childcare they once did; children now are likely to be taken into the fields, or entrusted to an older sibling, cousin, or grandparent.

One could argue that the rise of female-run businesses reflects not so much a change in gender relations as a reconfiguration of economic spheres that elevated the traditional female activities to a higher level. Women had always bartered vegetables; now the vegetable trade was the community's economic pivot. Yet other indicators suggest a more fundamental transformation. For the first time, for instance, a few women entered the animal trade—just before the entire endeavor vanished. More significantly, women could now aspire to political office. Although this has yet to occur in Buguias, in 1986 the barangay, or village, leader of Suyoc, as of several other Benguet villages, was a woman.

Beyond a doubt, the men of Buguias still control the community, continuing to dominate the tong tongan and other political forums. Women are also still socially constrained; Bridget Hamada-Pawid (personal communication) argues that in all of the Cordillera, only among the Ifugao do women drink, gamble, and socialize freely with their male peers. Nor can women in Buguias hold the high offices of religious authority, those of manbunung and mankotom. But overall, the position of women is undoubtedly higher than it had been in the prewar period.

Capital and Labor

In the early postwar years, virtually all Buguias residents made tax declarations on their vegetable fields. Land availability was no problem; in fact, arable land was more abundant than before, now that light soils could be cultivated. Nor did the average farmer suffer labor constraints. Family workers sufficed for most tasks, and in the few bottleneck periods, such as time of harvest, neighbors would usually assist. Since growers now planted on different sched-

ules, no longer were there periods of concentrated work throughout Buguias. But if land and labor were reasonably abundant, capital was scarce. And in the new economy, capital had become vital.

Sources of Capital

Throughout the postwar period, most young couples have been strained to purchase the seeds, fertilizers, and biocides needed for a successful farming venture. Many turn to their wealthier neighbors and relatives, or to vegetable traders, to acquire a stake. In the usual arrangement, called "supply," the backer purchases all inputs and the borrower provides all labor with net profits divided equally. A typical supply contract covers only a single crop cycle; the financing of the next planting depends on the success of the first. A single highly profitable harvest can often cover the expenses of the subsequent crop, provided the increase is not set aside for a feast. A low price at harvest, however, can force the laboring couple to negotiate a new supply agreement, and perhaps even to borrow extra money to purchase necessities before the next crop is due.

Caught between price fluctuations and religious obligations, most farmers have fallen deeply into debt. If desperate, they can "mortgage" their land in a salda arrangement. As Davis (1973:60) explains, salda differs from the Western mortgage in that the borrower theoretically loses claim to the land until he or she repays the principal. In actuality, the original holder usually retains control in exchange for a share, often one-fifth, of the harvest. After a stipulated period elapses, the borrowing couple can retain ownership only if they pay off the interest and the principal. If they default, as was not uncommon during the early vegetable-growing years, the land passes permanently to the creditor. Again, the original owners may still cultivate it, but now as outright sharecroppers. A "bankrupt" couple wishing to avoid sharecropping can declare and clear new lands, but this is an expensive, labor-consuming ordeal—and increasingly so as the more accessible lands have been progressively claimed.

As virgin land grew scarce in the 1960s and 1970s, the practice of salda declined; few farmers now wished to risk their properties. Still, during emergencies (often religious), this could be a poor

couple's sole recourse. On a ritual occasion, a parcel might be mortgaged, not for money but for sacrificial livestock.

Most vegetable dealers have long doubled as agricultural input suppliers, advancing fertilizers and biocides to cash-short farmers in exchange for a guaranteed sale of the prospective crop at a discount. Such deals are often extended, since a poor market at harvest time can quickly send the farmer deeper into debt. Dealers find this consistent with their own interests as well; it ensures them a steady supply of vegetables, and they can always recoup some of their losses through the discounts they receive. The farmers also benefit from the perennial refinancing that does not jeopardize their lands. Davis (1973:208, 209) finds this system mutualistic, as it provides both parties with a measure of security in a capricious business, while Russell (1987) counters that it allows the trader to control the relationship to his or her own benefit. Vigorous disputes do arise when a farmer, encumbered with years of outstanding debt, suddenly dies. In this eventuality, the vegetable dealer might try to collect from the heirs, who in turn may argue that these matters should have been settled years earlier and that the dealer deserves a loss for letting the debt persist indefinitely. Such arguments can only be settled on an individual basis in tong tongan deliberations.

Two additional sources of capital emerged in the late 1960s. The first, local credit cooperatives, played a relatively minor role. The second, a government-backed program of bank loans, proved almost revolutionary. The land boom it precipitated, as well as the subsequent vegetable bust, will be discussed in chapter 8.

Sharecropping

Even though most farmers in Buguias own land, many have inadequate holdings. Land-hungry couples usually look to sharecrop subsidiary plots owned by neighbors and relatives. As a general rule, poorer families sharecrop the fields of wealthier villagers, but household demographics as well as temporary turns of luck also influence tenancy arrangements. Young couples with many children often take on the fields of others, only to graduate from sharecropping later in life. If their children leave Buguias, such a couple might even find themselves with a surfeit of cropland. On a shorter time scale, two households can experience widely divergent for-

tunes depending on their cropping strategies; a couple might let out some of its land to sharecroppers in one year, only to lose some of its own fields (through salda) the next and be forced itself into sharecropping.

Unlike other villages in the region, Buguias Central has not had a single family that has been able to accumulate such expansive tracts of land as to necessitate the extensive use of sharecropper labor. Those couples who garnered great wealth preferred investments other than Buguias land. In Buguias, tenancy and labor arrangements most often link farmers who, despite disparities of wealth, are essentially of the same social class, and often closely related as well.

The population of Buguias mounted rapidly during the postwar period. As the inner village became increasingly crowded, many young couples chose to clear new lands on the higher slopes east of town. Relying at first on a "supply" sponsor, the fates of these gardeners depended on their luck at market, their farming strategies, and their ceremonial expenditures. But farming in any remote area presents heavy demands, since even after the plots are cleared, both supplies and vegetables have to be ported to and from the road. Many young adults therefore have preferred to relocate on the Mountain Trail where they can work as sharecroppers for large-scale growers. Most hope to return eventually and acquire land in Buguias, a reasonable expectation only if they harvest a jackpot crop.

Wage and Cooperative Labor

Even farmers cultivating modest plots often hire wage labor at harvest time. Growers rush their harvests, especially if prices are high and the crops perishable. Most farmers turn to neighbors and relatives with a loose expectation of eventual reciprocation. Wage agreements actually came to be preferred over work exchanges since the implied finality leaves both parties free from future commitments that could conflict with their own schedules. Of course, poorer couples disproportionally rely on wage work, especially after opportunities diminished in the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, wages in Buguias have remained much higher than those along the Mountain Trail, in part because no outside workers (Ilocanos and North-

ern Kankana-eys) lodge here. In 1986, when a full day's labor earned 15 to 20 pesos in Natubleng, workers in Buguias could earn as much as 35 pesos.

One specialized task has been particularly well rewarded with cash, namely the portage of vegetables from field to road. This job requires great strength and stamina, and is usually undertaken by adolescent boys and young men. Growers pay by weight and distance, with some variation for competitive bidding. Those strong enough to carry a number of sacks in quick succession receive ample rewards, and the best can reportedly earn 75 pesos in less than a full day.

Traditional labor exchange, ogbo, has rarely been applied to vegetable harvesting. Davis (1973:58) argues that hired labor is more efficient, a reasonable position considering the complex individual schedules that would have to be meshed as different growers reach hurried decisions on harvesting dates. Voss (1980) sees informal reciprocity in wage-labor agreements and argues that it is a modified form of labor exchange. This view is reasonable when applied to the few remote villages east of Buguias that have formed a semicooperative system of wage-labor exchange to bypass what would be excessive levies for vegetable portage.

Pure labor exchange does persist in select situations. Ogbo is still applied, for example, to the non-urgent but laborious task of new field preparation. Cooperative work parties are also organized along village or hamlet lines for road and trail maintenance, and for the construction of new traditional-style houses. And finally, irrigation system maintenance is performed jointly by all water recipients. Dangas, the prewar system of meat and beer "wages," also survives in attenuated form. Today farmers occasionally hire young men to clear brush or perform other heavy tasks in exchange for meat (often a cow's head) and—equally essential—San Miguel gin.

The clearing of new fields can be accomplished through one's own painstaking labor, through ogbo, or through dangas, but the more prosperous farmers usually hire outsiders on a contract basis. As in the old days, Kalanguya men predominate. Prosperous Buguias growers also commission contract workers to build new terraces, to saw boards, and to perform other skilled or tedious jobs. The worker's daily emolument depends on his rapidity of work, but it often reaches nearly twice the average daily wage. Conten-

tion not uncommonly erupts, however, as contract laborers are tempted to rush through their tasks, leading many employers to complain about the quality of the finished work.

Labor and Credit Elsewhere in Buguias Municipality

Along the Mountain Trail, in Lo-o, and in Bad-ayan, very different linkages between labor and capital have developed. In these areas, a small number of large-scale farmers, many of whom also sell inputs and deal in vegetables, came to dominate their communities. Such growers have managed to raise considerable capital on their own, and many acquired finesse in tapping governmental and other exterior sources. Large-scale farmers have always secured bank loans more readily than have small-scale growers (Russell 1983:96), and the Chinese among them have enjoyed ample financing through their far-flung ethnic networks.

Along the Mountain Trail, in Lo-o, and in Bad-ayan, poor Ilocanos and migrant Igorots (from beyond the vegetable frontier), anxious for even exiguous wages, have provided inexpensive labor. Farmers in these areas accordingly devote only a small percentage of their outlays to their workers; C. DeRaedt estimates that labor accounts for only 15 percent of the average Sayangan farmer's production costs (1983:11), while an FAO report concurs that labor is the least costly "input" for the large agricultural holdings along the Mountain Trail (1984:21).

The Vegetable Trade

The Early Vegetable Traders

As discussed earlier, one Buguias entrepreneur, Pokol, traded vegetables before the war. Pokol died in the conflict, but after liberation several young men of moderate circumstances emulated his career. Purchasing produce both at Kilometer 73 and from small farmers along the Mountain Trail, they transported it at first on buses or in rented truck space to Baguio where they could sell it to Chinese agents.

The most successful of the early postwar vegetable traders, Hil-

ary Camas, soon hired several "commissioners," underlings who would haggle deals with individual farmers. This position served as a stepping-stone for a new set of dealers. One of them, Ernesto Simion, first transported vegetables on the tops of lumber trucks headed to Baguio from the sawmill at Mount Data. Soon, Simion was leasing trucks to haul larger loads. As his business grew his attention shifted to Trinidad, where he contracted to build housing units and warehouses for vegetables. In Buguias, Simion employed subordinates to handle the vegetable trade; several eventually graduated to the position of independent dealer.

Bisna and Stafin Olsim

One of Simion's protégés, Bisna Olsim, eventually surpassed all other vegetable traders of Buguias. Mrs. Olsim was born to a poor couple and was fatherless from an early age. In 1956 she married into a relatively well-off family, but her husband, Stafin Olsim, sojourned through the early years of their marriage as a gold miner in Mindanao. After learning the vegetable trade from Simion and others, Bisna established her own "buy and sell" business. She received some help from family members, who, by her own account, pitied her for being without a father or, temporarily, a husband. Stafin's uncle lent her a truck at favorable rates, and other relatives provided vegetables to her on consignment.

By the time her husband returned, Bisna had saved a respectable sum and had purchased, on credit, a large truck. This proved to be a timely investment; as the FACOMAs collapsed, new opportunities arose for local transporters. Between 1965 and 1970 the Olsims' ascent was meteoric. Soon they needed better market access, which they attained by purchasing property and building a house and storage facility in Trinidad. Twice a week they would now make the six- to eight-hour drive to Buguias to buy vegetables, returning to Trinidad the following day.

By the mid-1970s the Olsims began to ease out of the vegetable trade and to experiment with new lines of business. Several endeavors were not successful. For a number of years they owned and managed a bus company, but the high cost of repairs and the formidable competition from Dangwa Tranco proved discouraging. Similarly, a supply store in Buguias could not compete against the

independent traders and the large supply stores of Bad-ayan and Abatan. But the Olsims' other dealings have more than compensated for these losses. Several land investments in Trinidad proved quite remunerative, and by the 1980s a road contracting business brought excellent returns. They are now fully established as the one truly wealthy family of Buguias—an identity they cultivate despite spending most of their time in the provincial capital.

The other Buguias vegetable traders were less fortunate. Although several attained prosperity, few have approached, and none has maintained, true baknang status. Several suffered business calamities, commonly the loss of a truck or two over a Mountain Trail precipice. Another followed the Olsims in running a bus company, but two disastrous crashes in the 1980s brought financial ruin. Several found misadventure in gambling, usually in the Baguio casino.

Ritual practice has been a two-edged sword in the rise and fall of prominent Buguias families. In one story, often repeated by Buguias Christians, a certain trader's decline appears to have been accelerated by ritual; after each setback he conducted elaborate propitiatory rites, which further consumed his dwindling resources. Those who practice the traditional religion, however, counter by pointing to other instances where a family's imminent downfall was averted, they say, precisely by staging the proper ceremonies.

The Practice of Vegetable Trading

Vegetable trading in Benguet has taken on many forms, confounding generalizations. Individuals holding a small business operate differently from those with larger concerns, while those who continue to farm face different economic circumstances from those who do nothing but trade. Russell (1983:91) suggests a clear-cut taxonomy of Benguet produce traders: the full-time trader is an agent, the farmer-trader is a dealer, the trader who does not own a vehicle is a buy-and-sell, and persons who rent vehicles to traders are transporters. In Buguias, however, these distinctions are not clearly developed. Until recently, most persons working in vegetable commerce were full-time traders. Because conditions changed markedly after the crisis of the mid-1970s, when smaller vehicles became available, the following discussion focuses on the practices

of the full-time vegetable agents as they existed in the heyday of the 1960s.

To prosper in the vegetable business, a trader must keenly forecast price trends and competently manage credits and debts. The ambitious trader must also master the exacting practice of pakyao , or the advance purchase of unharvested crops. If prices are high, or if the trader anticipates a sharp rise, he or she may wish to secure a large future supply. Growers are often amenable, as they may be anxious to obtain cash as early as possible, declining to speculate on the possibility of a future price upswing. To profit on such a deal, the trader must accurately assess the future yield of a given field. And even if the prediction of the harvest volume should prove accurate, the trader could still be crushed if the market were to fall in the interim.

Other hazards can also sink the unwary trader. The vegetable business can be very competitive (despite the fact that farmers are often beholden to specific traders), and it offers thin profit margins. Furthermore, growers do not always repay their debts. Vegetable trading is a social endeavor, and successful agents must maintain good relations with employees, buyers, and sellers (see Anderson 1969). They must also maintain their vehicles against the grinding wear of the rough mountain roads. Fortitude is equally vital; when prices are high, dealers and their crews must work feverishly, often forgoing sleep for several days.

The advance purchase system, and vegetable trading in general, can generate enmity between farmers and dealers. An unscrupulous grower, for example, might resell a standing crop for which he or she has already received payment. A dealer, in contrast, may take advantage of a consignment sale by remitting to the farmer less money than promised, justifying the action through reference to a lowered price or to spoilage. Davis (1973) argues that such potential discord reinforces the tendency for dealer-farmer connections to develop along kinship lines. In Buguias, the deeply embedded genealogical and "co-villager" relationships extending throughout the community have to a great extent safeguarded against these corrupting tendencies.

Since the 1960s and early 1970s, large-scale vegetable traders from Buguias have sent produce to their own storehouses in Trinidad, from which they can sell directly to the Chinese (and, increas-

ingly, Tagalog) merchants who control the Baguio-Manila trade. Smaller traders have usually sold directly in the wholesale section ("New Market") of the Baguio market. The largely Igorot wholesalers of the New Market, numbering some 350 to 400 (Russell 1987:142, 143), offer competitive bids on incoming produce. After cleaning and sorting the produce, they sell it to Chinese or Tagalog traders, who then ship large truckloads to their marketing agents in Divisoria, the vegetable emporium of Manila.

A few of the large agribusiness concerns in the greater Buguias region presently ship vegetables directly to Manila. This requires both a dependable supply of vegetables and a fleet of large trucks. But even those who transport their own vegetables to the capital still have to deal through Chinese middlemen. One wealthy Badayan family, for example, sells produce to their Manila partner for a price somewhere between the Baguio and the Manila wholesale figures. Many large-scale farmer-traders do not find these marginally superior prices worth the effort, and thus continue to deal in Baguio. Several powerful traders, including the Olsims, have attempted to eliminate another rung of intermediaries by acquiring a wholesale stall in the Divisoria market, but so far all such attempts have failed. Most highland observers attribute their ill success to the machinations of Chinese "cartels."

Agribusiness Reconsidered

The most successful indigenous entrepreneurs in Buguias municipality have been those who have integrated farming, trading, and input sales. A prime example is the Maliones family of Bad-ayan. Mrs. Maliones began her career shortly after the war by cultivating a few experimental cabbage patches on soils that local residents had regarded as sterile and worthless, and by selling fertilizer out of a tiny shack. Since then her fields and her sales have expanded continuously. By the 1970s she owned several large trucks suitable for hauling produce directly to Manila, had purchased additional lands on the Mountain Trail, was developing commercial property in Trinidad, and managed one of the best-stocked input and hardware stores in Benguet.

Successful business people like Mrs. Maliones have in many respects been able to thrive precisely because of earlier successes in

gardening. Big farmers with integrated concerns enjoy economies of scale, just as they are buffered from economic and natural disasters. Indeed, one study (Lizarondo et al. 1979) has shown a direct relationship between the size of a farm and the profit per unit area that the grower can realize. This advantage is amplified when one also considers the other aspects of vegetable agribusiness pursued by most large-scale farmers.

Yet in Buguias proper, no large agricultural combine has emerged. While the Olsims' businesses have grown, they have not invested in Buguias agriculture. This is partly because they have seen few opportunities in a district characterized by small owner-occupied farms; yet their very decision to invest elsewhere has contributed to the divergent social and economic evolution of the village. Some locals regret the absence of big growers in Buguias, feeling that this has redounded to the economic marginalization of their once-central place. But while the Olsims have located most of their endeavors in other areas, they nonetheless continue to play prominent roles in the political and ritual life of their natal community. And considering the environmental and social problems that have increasingly impinged upon the Buguias landscape in the past two decades, the Olsims' decision to invest their profits elsewhere may well prove to have been prescient.