2
Food, Fuel, and Fiber:
Human Environmental Relations in Prewar Buguias

Introduction

A view of Buguias from the air in the 1920s would have revealed a complex landscape of interwoven plant communities. On the highest reaches of the eastern slope, outliers of the dense, oakdominated cloud forest (or kalasan ) protruded below the misty ridgeline of the Cordillera. Downslope, the oaks gave way to single-species pine stands, forming a true forest on the higher and steeper slopes and thinning out at lower elevations. Near the upper hamlets of the village, pines crowned a savannah community of short grasses, yielding on steeper sites to cane-grass swards. Still farther downslope, the pines dropped out altogether, leaving only pasture grasses on the lowest slopes.

Within this broad zonal pattern, variations of soil, relief, and long-standing agricultural practice created a vegetational mosaic. The shady northern faces of steep side canyons supported diverse hardwood thickets, while on their sunny southern exposures grew a jumble of brush, pine, and coarse grasses. Scattered throughout the landscape, but particularly in the lower reaches, were sharply bounded cultivated plots. Most contained tangles of sweet-potato vines, a select few were flooded and planted to rice, and small plots surrounding the village's several score dwellings supported diverse assemblages of herbs and fruit-bearing trees.

This landscape was a cultural artifact, continually reshaped through the labor of the Buguias people as they wrested their livelihood from the land. In provisioning themselves, the Buguias people transformed their homeland, altering both its physical substrate and its biotic communities. Through cultivating and pasturing they worked their greatest ecological transformations. But the residents

of Buguias also gleaned a harvest of wild edible plants and animals, as well as vital nonfood plant products (including fibers, woods, and medicines). All microhabitats of Buguias thus contributed to human livelihood, and all were remolded in turn by human activities.

But if the Buguias people transformed their landscape, the human impact varied widely in extent and duration. Sites found suitable for terracing were entirely remade; others, such as ravines, were only casually tapped for wild produce. The territory of Buguias was thus loosely divided into separate geographical zones, each subjected to different kinds of human pressures.

The fundamental division enclosed the cultivated from the "wild." Both cropped and non-cropped lands were further subdivided according to the plant associations they supported. Agricultural plots were of three distinct named types: dry fields (devoted largely to sweet potatoes), flooded rice terraces, and door-yard gardens. Less exact divisions marked the uncultivated lands, as many species (the insular pine, for example), could grow in virtually any area; yet even here, distinct plant associations emerged in part through human interference. These various plant communities, both wild and cultivated, might aptly be called subsistence sectors (what Wadell [1972] refers to as "agricultural subsystems"), highlighting at once their role in provisioning the human community and their spatial boundedness.

The areal configuration of subsistence sectors was never static. In the long view, fields and pastures expanded steadily. New dry fields could be carved from woodland, meadow, or canebrake; hillsides were slowly terraced; and new pastures sprouted from the charred soils of former woodlands. In specific instances, the direction of change could be reversed. A rice field might yield to cane or brush, for example, if its supply of water suddenly diminished.

The following chapter reconstructs Buguias subsistence as it existed in the 1920s and 1930s, the earliest period accessible through living memory. Deeper historical background is examined through archival sources where possible. The first section details each of the three major agricultural sectors: dry fields, door-yard gardens, and rice terraces. The next two sections outline the products of uncultivated lands. Here subsistence was less rigidly constrained by sector; domestic animals, for example, could often wander through

vast uncultivated areas. These discussions are thus organized along product rather than sectoral lines, first considering domestic stock, and then moving to undomesticated plants and animals. The fourth section examines first human agency in the formation and maintenance of distinct communities of uncultivated plants, and then turns to the processes of agricultural intensification at work in the prewar era.

Agricultural Fields

Dry Fields: Uma and Puwal

The core of livelihood in prewar Buguias was a distinctive form of dry-field cultivation called uma , derived from swidden practices. Like its slash-and-burn antecedents, uma agriculture entailed cutting and burning woody vegetation prior to planting, and in earlier periods all Buguias dry fields had probably exhibited the common features of long-fallow swidden horticulture. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the interval between cropping cycles had been shortened sufficiently that most dry fields in central Buguias were cultivated for much longer periods than they were fallowed. In the puwal variant, slashing and burning no longer preceded planting. Both umas and puwals were intensively cultivated plots, adapted in many respects to a savannah rather than to a woodland environment.

Sweet potatoes, the staple of both people and domestic hogs, dominated the dry fields. Tubers were consumed in such quantity as to completely color the memory of prewar subsistence; this was the time, the Buguias people say, "when we ate only sweet potatoes." The common people typically dined on boiled sweet-potato tubers seasoned with sweet-potato vinegar, garnished with sweet-potato leaves, and perhaps completed with a dessert of sweet-potato syrup. In seasons of tuber scarcity, dried sweet-potato chips, either reconstituted in soup or pounded and cooked with millet, sufficed. Subsidiary dry-field crops, including several kinds of beans, peanuts, sesame seeds, maize, panicum millet, sorghum, and Job's tears, provided seasonal supplements, but were never abundant in most households. Among the poor, mealtimes were indeed a matter of "tugi angey " (or "sweet potatoes only").

Buguias dry fields could thrive only on select sites. Slopes had to be gentle for soil fertility maintenance. Clay-rich soils were always favored, for lighter earth would not retain adequate moisture for dry-season (December through April) growth. The natural terraces above the Agno River formed ideal sites, but many had long been appropriated for rice terraces. The gentle and irregular eastern slope of the village afforded the most numerous suitable locations. Here the favored sites were U-shaped hillside indentations formed by slope failure. The flattish deposit of deep soil at the slump foot could support sweet potatoes throughout the year, while the adjacent scarps produced superior tubers in the soggy wet season. In areas of suitable soil and slope, however, uma fields could form a continuous band of cultivation.

In the heart of every Buguias dry field lay the sweet-potato patch, monocropped for fear that other plants would stymie the all-important staple. The generally heavier-feeding subsidiary crops were relegated to the field edges, or occasionally to central strips. Typically surrounding the nucleus were rings of sorghum, panicum millet, maize, and various pulses. Annuals, such as maize, sorghum, and millet (often interplanted with kidney beans) were favored for central strips, since they would not interfere with the long-term sweet potato rotational schedule. In the wettest months (July through September), larger field segments normally planted to sweet potatoes might be devoted to millet or peanuts. (Some growers, fearing rat predation, would distance their millet crop from brushy surrounding growth by planting it in the center of the field.) Seed of the perennial baltong bean (Vigna sinensis ) were sown among stumps or rock outcrops where they would not interfere with sweet-potato cultivation, while brushy kudis beans (Cajanus cajanus ) often occupied drier slopes on field margins.

Buguias women cultivated approximately a dozen varieties of sweet potatoes. Some women intercropped multiple cultivars; others preferred segregation. Generally, those with large fields (.5 hectares or more) cultivated monovarietal patches, which allowed easier management since each cultivar matured at a different rate. The specific varieties planted, whether in mixed or segregated patches, depended in part on the partialities of household members, as each variety had a distinct taste and texture.

Buguias women planted sweet potatoes thrice annually, and harvested each planting up to three times before the vines reached exhaustion at the end of one year. The first planting, in April or May, either anticipated or coincided with the first rains. By October this planting's initial tubers, though fibrous and of poor quality, were ready for harvest. February marked a second harvest interval, and the final one occurred in May. The dry-season tubers were of higher quality, but as the vines aged, quality declined. A second planting in September or early October produced a superior initial crop; the young vines flourished with the copious rains and the tubers could mature as the soil dried. This planting's harvests occurred in January, again in May, and finally in August. December, marking the start of the dry season, brought the final and least productive planting; success then was possible only in the most moisture-retentive fields. Yet this crop too could produce through the entire year; only in the poorest fields was year-round cultivation impossible. Here harvests would be completed early in the dry season, the remaining foliage burned, and the uma fallowed until the arrival of the rains.

The multiple plantings of differentially maturing sweet-potato varieties coupled with (partial) seasonal rotation with other crops and complicated by the differing physical attributes of each field, required a fine-tuned seasonal labor schedule. Uma work was also highly skilled; even the harvest was demanding, since individual tubers had to be removed at their most palatable stage without damaging the vines. Only carefully tended plants could produce through an entire year. From December to March, the prime harvest, Buguias women sliced and sun-dried the surplus, which would form the mainstay in the lean season following the early rains.

The typical uma was cropped for five to ten years, at which point declining yields forced a two- to three-year fallow. This long cropping period was possible only through continual labor. Weeding was the most arduous task; Buguias women would dig several feet into the ground to remove the tenacious roots of ga-on (Imperata cylindrica ) in particular. Weed foliage obtained both within and from the edges of the uma was buried in the field along with the old, uprooted vines, thus helping to replenish the soil.

Intensive dry-field cultivation required gentle slopes and deep soil, but new fields were sometimes relegated to substandard sites. Steeper plots could be upgraded by leveling; stone-walled semi-terraces minimized erosion while maximizing dry-season moisture retention. Unlike rice terraces, such dry terraces needed some slope, since a flat field would waterlog in the rainy season, resulting in tuber rot. These semiterraces were comparatively easy to construct; often little more than a few carefully placed boulders sufficed.

The nutrients added to the uma from field-margin weeds, downward-moving soil (notable in slump-foot cultivation), and legume root nodules were insufficient to offset harvest losses. Over time, tuber size diminished while insects and pathogens multiplied. Exhausted fields were then left to natural succession. Typical invaders included the ubiquitous bracken fern, several exotic composites (Tithonia maxima and Eupatorium adenophorum ), and the cane grass Miscanthus sinensis. After a few years these fallowed umas were cut, burned, and replanted. Abandoned fields on drier sites or in pasture areas were, in contrast, invaded by sod-forming grasses (especially Themeda triandra and Imperata cylindrica ), after which they were characteristically opened to cattle. These tenacious fire-adapted grasses precluded further recourse to the techniques of uma. Rather, if the site were to be recultivated the sod had to be overturned, a practice known as puwal cultivation.

In making a puwal, the cultivator would invert sections of sod with iron-tipped poles. If turned to a depth of some 30 centimeters at the end of the dry season, the grasses would be killed and the soil both aerated and enriched by decaying leaves, roots, and manure. Newly made puwal fields could be quite fertile, encouraging the conversion of prime pastures, even those never previously cultivated. After soil preparation, the puwal was cultivated much like the uma.

Recultivation of the fallowed dry fields was relatively easy; the mandatory fences were already in place (although, if wooden, they would need repair), and, at least with umas, the light successional vegetation could easily be cleared. Newly married couples, however, often had to create new fields. These could be either uma or puwal, depending on the site chosen. Any pine standing on the

site would be salvaged for wood, but other woody plants would be burned in situ for soil enrichment.

Door-Yard Gardens

Haphazard plantings around the houselot constituted the second subsistence sector, the door-yard garden (ba-eng ). Some gardens produced large quantities of vegetables, fruits, and even cash crops, but most were small affairs. Yet the garden did hold two advantages over the uma: manure-enriched soils and easy access.

Tobacco and potatoes, considered too demanding for dry-field cultivation, often grew alongside the nutrient-rich pigpens. Hog manure was also periodically distributed through the rest of the garden.^[1] It could be used to fertilize sweet potatoes only if thoroughly composted (Purseglove 1968, v. 1:85), a difficulty that, combined with the burden of hauling, precluded manure use in the dry fields. But even fresh dung benefited most door-yard crops. Several varieties of taro grown for the piggery were especially favored in the garden because of their shade tolerance and vigorous response to casual manure application.

Condiments (Capsicum peppers, onions, ginger, garlic, and sugar cane), and vegetables (lima and other beans, squash), were grown in the door-yard garden mainly for convenience. As new vegetables, such as bitter-gourd, eggplant, and sayote (chayote), appeared during the American period, gardens became more diverse. Sayote quickly emerged as the standby vegetable of all social classes; this perennial produces ample quantities of edible leaves, stems, and fruits, and its large tubers can serve as a famine reserve. Only the larger gardens were dominated by fruit trees (such as mangoes and avocados), since frequent household relocation constrained arboriculture. Poorer households thus rarely grew more than a few banana stalks.

The most valuable door-yard crop was coffee. Introduced in the late Spanish period, coffee cultivation spread rapidly among the elite, who found the beans a valuable trade item as well as a beverage source. Having planted sizable orchards of arabica trees, wealthy individuals soon lost their inclination to relocate their homes periodically. As coffee drinking and trading spread, poorer

couples too planted smaller orchards. But in the final years of the Spanish period, blight struck, damaging especially those orchards located on clay soils. Coffee production henceforth would be concentrated in the gardens of a few wealthy households situated on rich loam.

Pond Fields: Taro and Rice

The irrigated or pond-field terrace, an artificial wetland seasonally planted to rice and, occasionally, to taro, formed the third agricultural sector of prewar Buguias. Among many Cordilleran groups (including the Ifugao, the Bontoc, the southern Kalinga, the Northern Kankana-ey, and the Ibaloi of Kabayan and Nagey), pond fields were a significant, if not dominant, element of the agricultural landscape. In the Buguias region, however, rice was a subsidiary crop, albeit vital as the source of rice beer. Buguias residents seldom ate unfermented rice, and on the rare occasions when they did, they usually mixed it with millet or dried sweet potatoes.

The first pond-field terraces in Buguias may have been designed for taro.^[2] This most versatile of crops grew unirrigated in dry fields and door-yard gardens, but it produced larger, if poorer tasting, tubers when cultivated in water. In prewar Buguias, taro grew in several aqueous niches: along irrigation canals, in natural seeps, around small ponds, on the edges of rice terraces, and in small terraces of its own. A vastly greater expanse of pond-field land, however, was devoted solely to rice.

Rice beer in prewar Buguias was a necessary ritual intoxicant. Virtually all couples occasionally brewed beer, but only the wealthy owned pond fields; poorer individuals purchased rice or worked in the paddies of wealthier relatives. Even couples possessing extensive terraces (up to several hectares) fermented the bulk of their harvests. The sweet and yeasty beer dregs, however, made a treat especially beloved of small children.

Buguias's pond-field system gradually expanded through the late Spanish and early American periods. Natural river terraces, reasonably level and low enough in the valley to be dependably watered, formed ideal building sites. Some lower terraces could be irrigated directly from the Agno River, but the necessary diversion works would be demolished annually in typhoon floods. More man-

ageable water sources were the non-entrenched, perennial side streams and the natural seeps. But by the American period, continued pond-field expansion necessitated the excavation of canals—some several kilometers long—to tap the larger eastern tributary streams.

Labor in the rice fields was arduous. Leveling and churning the muck had originally been done entirely by hand, although by the later American period some individuals had harnessed water buffalo for the task. Seedbeds, started in November or December, were ready for transplanting by January, although fields watered from the community's several hot springs could be planted a month or more later. By April, the enlarging grains required the constant vigilance of old men and children to ward off birds and other pests. In July, hastened by the impending typhoon season, the fields were reaped. After harvest they remained flooded, thus receiving nutrients from typhoon-eroded sediments. The only other fertility supplements consisted of Tithonia leaves and water-buffalo manure, the latter deposited casually when the animals worked the fields or wallowed in them during the off-season.

Compared to other Cordilleran peoples, the Buguias villagers planted few varieties of rice. Each of the two major types, glutinous diket and nonsticky, red kintoman , boasted no more than three or four distinct strains. The growing conditions of each variety were considered roughly equivalent, although one slowly maturing cultivar had to be transplanted by December. Glutinous and non-sticky grains were usually mixed for eating and for the making of beer. The Buguias people knew of many different varieties planted by other Cordilleran peoples, and some of these they recognized as superior. But although they not uncommonly planted experimental fields, few new varieties proved successful. Especially desired was a lowland strain that would produce a crop in the cloudy wet season, but no planting ever proved successful.

Buguias residents continually enlarged their pond-field system through the American period. Wealthy traders and livestock breeders initiated most new construction, which they usually contracted out to the expert terrace engineers from Ifugao and Bontoc subprovinces. (The latter workers were acclaimed for their ability to lever large river boulders into terrace walls, while the former were noted for their skilled masonry with smaller stones.) Most

Buguias people thought that terraces built by local residents lacked the durability of those constructed by outside workers.

Animal Husbandry

Domestic animals provided the people of prewar Buguias with ample meat, but little else. Leather strips served as ropes and whole hides as sleeping mats, but even cattle skins were often patiently chewed and swallowed. A few individuals plowed with water buffalo, and the elite sometimes rode horses, but animal power was inconsequential overall. Meat was vital, however, and people labored to fashion a landscape that could yield abundant supplies. Houselot animals, such as hogs, foraged in uncultivated areas but depended primarily on agricultural produce. Cattle, horses, and buffalo, however, subsisted solely on the fodder of the human-created and maintained savannah.

Houselot Animals: Hogs and Chickens

Hogs, raised by all families, foraged daily in the open pasturelands. At night they returned through fenced runways to their pens, situated below each house. In the grasslands and pine savannahs they rooted for worms and grubs, fungus, and wild tubers. Those in the higher reaches of Buguias could roam as far as the kalasan, or cloud forest, well-stocked with acorns, fungus, and especially earthworms. On returning each evening they were fed boiled sweet potatoes and sweet-potato peels, pounded rice hulls and bran, kitchen garbage, and human waste. Both under- and oversized tubers were relegated to the swine; in most households, well over half of the crop went to the piggery. Hogs flourished in the rainy season, but during the annual drought the earth hardened and wild foods grew scarce, and the weakened animals suffered frequently from skin diseases.

In the American period a few individuals began raising lowland hogs, valued chiefly for their ability to gain weight on the raw sweet potatoes that the so-called native hog could scarcely digest. These animals were not ritually acceptable, however, precluding them from replacing the indigenous stock. Kikuyu grass, purportedly brought to Buguias by a teacher, was also introduced in this

period. The thick stolons of this aggressive exotic, which flourished in moist microhabitats, provided a fine year-round hog feed.

Other houselot animals occupied niches similar to that of swine. The average family owned some twenty chickens, while the wealthy might possess as many as two hundred. Chickens returned each night to roost in predator-secure pens or in trees, and foraged daily in the nearby pastures. All households kept dogs, primarily for their meat, feeding them bones, scraps, and, of course, sweet potatoes. And finally, a few individuals raised pigeons, ducks, and even geese.

Pasture Animals: Cattle, Water Buffalo, and Horses

Unlike hogs and chickens, pasture animals were the responsibility of men. The average man in prewar Buguias devoted most of his labor to pasturing horses, water buffalo, and especially cattle. Water buffalo, the only ritually sanctioned pasture animal, were prestigious but not numerous. They reproduced poorly in the cool environment, and surviving calves, completely helpless for three days, often succumbed to disease or were trampled by bulls. Horses were valued primarily for their meat, although a few wealthy men kept riding mounts. But horses did not thrive as well as cattle on the Buguias grazing regime, and were thus relatively rare. Goats were raised in even smaller numbers.

Cattle, horses, and buffalo remained at pasture day and night. They subsisted largely on the native forage, supplemented occasionally with old sweet-potato vines. The few corrals generally held stock only prior to transporting or butchering. During typhoons, men herded their animals into protected areas, sometimes putting them in crude shelters built on the leeward side of hills. Otherwise livestock wandered untended, although conscientious graziers checked daily to ensure that none had wandered away or "fallen off the mountain."

Cattle were provided salt every few days, although several small herds in eastern Buguias obtained salt directly from local springs. Men could assemble their stock by blowing a water-buffalo horn, each instrument having a distinct sound that the animals could distinguish. Buguias cowboys assisted with births and watched after

the young, especially the buffalo calves. Breeding received casual attention, although healthy bulls with propitiously placed cowlicks were favored as studs. Branding occurred only at the insistence of the American authorities.^[3] Men easily recognized their own animals, and disputes arose only over calves delivered unattended in distant pastures.

Pasture Management

The so-called native cow of Benguet is a small, slowly maturing animal, optimally butchered at four years of age. Like the native hog, it is a fussy eater; several forbs unpalatable to the natives are readily eaten by introduced zebu crosses and so-called mestizo hybrids. But the Buguias pastoralists carefully managed their pastures to provide the grasses on which their stock thrived.

Themeda triandra (red oat grass), usually in association with Andropogon annulatus and Imperata cylindrica , dominated the savannah landscape of prewar Buguias (see Penafiel 1979). On the higher slopes and ridges scattered pines crowned the pastures, but only the more remote upper canyons supported trees thick enough to shade out the grass. Western range managers consider Themeda a mediocre if not poor feed, but to the Buguias pastoralists it was ideal.^[4]Themeda responds well to fire (Crowder and Chheda 1982: 297), their primary range-management tool, and withstands reasonably heavy and continual grazing.

Buguias pastures grew lush in the wet season, but produced a watery low-protein forage. As protein increased in the early dry season, cattle fattened. December thus marked the optimum time for butchering and selling. Forage quality again diminished as pastures desiccated in February and March; fires might then be lit to stimulate new growth. In the late dry season many small springs would lapse, depriving cattle of several pasture zones. By March stock sometimes had to be hand-fed with cane-grass leaves, brought in from inaccessible ravines and slopes.

The savannah landscape of prewar Buguias was an anthropogenic environment, created and maintained by human intervention. Only continual labor could prevent reversion to woody growth. As burning allowed easy management, many pastures were annually torched, and even the more remote pine woods were occasionally

singed. But fire alone would not eliminate all undesired plants; in intensively managed pastures the Buguias people dug weeds by hand. Weed infestations intensified after the invasion, circa 1916, of the Mexican composite Eupatorium adenophorum.^[5]Eupatorium , thriving in all microhabitats from dry, rocky slopes to boggy seeps, soon ranked as the foremost pest. Each plant had to be uprooted and burned, a task performed in prime pastures once or twice every year.

Grazing pressure itself helped maintain the savannah. In areas too steep for cattle but still occasionally burned, the cane grass Miscanthus sinensis dominated. Miscanthus decreases quickly if continually grazed, as its highly placed growth nodes are easily destroyed (Numata 1974:135). Cane swards could still survive, however, in remote and seldom-grazed pastures.

Although most pastures were held in common, few were overgrazed. Buguias men knew well the carrying capacities of their prime pastures, and if these were exceeded community pressure fell on the offending individual. Some persons believed in naturally—or supernaturally—enforced stocking limits. One story recounted how the ancestors had established the limit of a certain pasture at ten animals; after a greedy man added two more, the correct ratio was restored when the new animals simply "fell off the mountain." Carrying capacity estimations in prime pastures were made for roughly discrete areas, separated by natural barriers (steep slopes and ravines) and sometimes by fences. Distant grazing lands were more loosely monitored. Cattle could not even reach certain remote grasslands unless trails were first cut across intervening slopes. This was risky, as well as labor-consuming, since animals periodically slipped from even the best-graded passages. But stock could sometimes range far from central Buguias, finding greener fields perhaps, but also adding to the cowboys' burdens.

An elaborate fence network marked off cultivated areas from the open pastures. Cattle, hogs, and water buffalo continually threatened and occasionally devastated umas, pond fields, and dooryard gardens. Even chickens could destroy rice-seed beds. Old men remember that making fences and maintaining them were their most arduous tasks. The kind of fence chosen for a given field depended on the materials at hand, the desired level of permanence, and the specific animal threat. Durable stone walls were fa-

vored for larger home gardens, more intensively cultivated umas, and rice terraces. For most dry fields, pine fences, sometimes reinforced with hardwood brush, sufficed. Owing to wet-season rot, such fences demanded constant repair. Where wood was not easily accessible, Buguias men usually built sod walls with facing ditches. On the steepest slopes, living fences of agave functioned well with little maintenance. Complex fence networks of pine, stone, and bamboo protected houselot gardens, especially vulnerable to residential swine.

The Harvest of Uncultivated Lands

Uncultivated plants and wild animals also helped support the people of prewar Buguias. Gathered plants and hunted animals, while never forming staples, provided incidental protein and vitamins as well as welcome culinary variation. The production of fuel, fiber, and building materials from uncultivated lands, however, was absolutely essential.

Hunting, Fishing, and Insect Gathering

The hunting of deer and wild hogs, the only large game, demanded skill, patience, and sometimes daring. Although neither creature inhabited central Buguias, deer roamed the more remote pine forests and savannahs, and wild hogs populated the higher oak woodlands. A few expert spear-wielding hunters followed trained dogs in pursuit of game, but most men preferred sedentary techniques. Some excavated pitfall traps alongside animal trails, rendering them deadly with sharpened sticks. The easiest method of deer capture was to burn an area of brush and then hide nearby until the animals arrived to lick the mineral-rich ash. Few men were versed in the more elaborate hunting techniques, but those who were could provide ample meat for their families and their neighbors.

Smaller mammals, such as civets and rats, were both abundant and troublesome. Civets raided houselot gardens, eating even coffee berries and occasionally killing chickens, while rats feasted on most crops. Hunting these animals thus protected other food

sources and provided meat as well. Snares were usually employed, but young men enjoyed small-game hunting at night using dogs as trackers and pine torches for illumination.

Birds, ranging from large waders to tiny perchers, provided special delicacies. Buguias villagers caught migratory birds in season and residents the year round. Specialized snares were employed for different species at different times of the year; passive nooses sufficed in favorite roosts, while bent-stick spring traps snagged the warier species. The most plump and plentiful of the avian prey were the quail of the pasturelands, the snipes of the rice fields, and the wild chickens of the higher forests.

Most persons enjoyed fishing. The plentiful sculpins were sometimes netted by women, but were more often trapped by young men who would divert a river channel, thereby exposing all manner of life in the desiccated bed. Men and boys captured meaty eels with nets, hooks, and in river diversions. In rice fields and irrigation ditches, mud fish provided children with easy prey. Amphibians were plentiful in select seasons: tadpoles crowded the riverbed in March and April, and adult frogs could be captured at night, having first been blinded by torch light, in November and December.

Favored invertebrates spiced the seasonal fare as well. Fatty termites were funneled into water pots as they emerged for nuptial flights following the first rains. In the early years of this century an even greater bonanza occasionally appeared in the form of locust swarms. Buguias residents followed the insects for many miles, sometimes returning with several bushels to be dried and consumed at leisure. Lowland locust eradication programs sponsored by the U.S. were little appreciated in Buguias. More regular if less abundant invertebrate morsels included the mole crickets of the rice fields, the three varieties of rice-field snails, and the various river-dwelling water bugs. A few old men specialized in honey gathering, discerning hive locations by patiently observing the flights of bees. Honey itself was a delicacy, but wax was even more appreciated as a fiber coating.

The pursuit of wild creatures, other than deer and hogs, was—and still is—primarily an activity of young, unmarried men. Buguias bachelors still spend hours diverting streams for a meager catch of tadpoles, sculpins, and water bugs. This is not "optimal

foraging" so much as simple entertainment. In the prewar period, poorer villagers found intensification of sweet-potato patches much more rewarding than hunting or fishing. But wild meat—some of it, such as tadpole flesh, very strong of taste—did provide welcome variation to an otherwise bland diet.

Wild Plant Foods

Prewar Buguias was endowed with several wild fruits and vegetables. Brambleberries and huckleberries were abundant in pastures and woodland clearings, and wild guavas grew thick in several dry grasslands. Children gathered most fruit, consuming the bulk forthwith but usually bringing some home for their families. The foremost wild vegetable was Solanum nigrum , a weed of abandoned dry fields. Buguias residents collected wild tomatoes and Capsicum peppers (both exotics), as well as watercress. They regarded mushrooms highly and sought them diligently, gathering over twenty different varieties, some in sufficient quantity for drying. But perhaps the most essential wild "food" plant was the cosmopolitan weed Bidens pilosa , which formed the base of bubud , the yeast cake used in making rice beer.

Only in famines were wild foods essential. A delay of the southwest monsoon could bring food shortages, and real hunger would ensue if drought persisted, as it once did, until July. A prolonged typhoon could also spoil the sweet-potato crop, thus depleting the essential food stock. Even a rat infestation could cause a food deficiency. During times of severe want, the Buguias people consumed the tubers of a drought-adapted pasture legume and the pithy centers of Miscanthus canes. In the harsh famine at the end of World War II, some individuals retreated to the oak forest to gather acorns. The standby food of hard times, however, was taro. Wild taro, common in higher elevation seeps, was edible if leached, and several varieties of cultivated taro survived well through the worst storms and droughts.

Non-Food Products

The most significant use of wild plants was for nonfood products. Several wild legumes and the semiwild (and exotic) agave yielded

fibers for rope and thread. In the early American period, poorer residents pounded the bark of several different trees into fabrics suitable for loincloths and skirts. Bark clothing disappeared only in the 1930s, when it was universally replaced by cotton cloth. Wild grasses served as thatch, and a variety of vines fastened house rafters and fences. Connected bamboo lengths formed water conduits, and individual sections functioned as canteens. Artisans carved hardwood, obtained from small groves in stream depressions, into bowls, handles, and durable tools. And finally, the versatile Miscanthus cane served in all manner of light construction.

But pine wood overshadowed all other hinterland products. Straight-bole trees, found on favored northern exposures, provided lumber. Hand-split pine planks sufficed for house construction in the early period, but by the 1920s boards sawn by itinerant Northern Kankana-ey workers were commonplace. Most fences (planks and posts) were pine, and hollowed pine logs formed conduits over stream crossings in the larger irrigation systems. Pine wood also fueled the hearths and heated the homes of prewar Buguias. The villagers usually derived their firewood from the more gnarled trees of the rocky slopes and southern exposures. Smoldering fires gave warmth when temperatures dipped to near freezing in December and January and helped counter the wet season's damp. Finally, metalworks were fueled by charcoal, derived largely from pine branches and bark.

The most valuable pine product was perhaps saleng , the resinous heartwood of old or prematurely injured trees. Saleng provided illumination: torches for outside activities, and slender "candles" for the home. The Buguias people also treasured such wood for its resistance to rot; only saleng posts could support a house for more than a few rainy seasons, or serve at all in fencing.

The inhabitants of prewar Buguias did not consider wood procuring to be an especially onerous chore. Pines were still plentiful and large, and a variety of labor-saving techniques were employed. Men and older boys usually secured a year's supply of fuel in the dry season; left to desiccate in the field the wood would lose roughly half of its weight before being carried. On steep slopes logs were shunted down gravel shoots to more accessible sites, if necessary affixed to boulders for extra weight. Trees closer to settlements

were more casually, and gradually, harvested by boys who would climb them to lop off branches for fuel.

Vegetational Change and Agricultural Intensification

Since human subsistence in prewar Buguias relied on wild as well as cultivated lands, one may question just how "natural" the uncultivated lands of Buguias were. And since people continually intervened in natural processes, we must also ask whether the re-configurations they wrought were truly sustainable. The steady growth of human numbers in particular suggests that we must be cautious in proclaiming the prewar subsistence system as ultimately ecologically benign.

Vegetational Change: the Kowal Thesis

Norman Kowal (1966) argues that prior to the advent of swidden cultivation and associated burning, the Cordillera was entirely wooded. Lowland "rainforest" grew below 1,200 meters, the zone between 1,200 and 1,600 meters supported a "submontane" forest of mixed hardwoods (containing pine only on rocky outcroppings and slide scars), and above 1,600 meters grew the true oak-dominated montane forest, called the kalasan in Buguias. Following human disturbance, this series was replaced by one containing Imperata grassland in the lowest reaches, Themeda grassland from approximately 1,000 to 1,400 meters, pine savannah (botanically identical with the Themeda grasslands except for the addition of scattered pines) between 1,200 and 2,000 meters (the original hardwoods surviving in stream depressions), and montane oak forest above 2,000 meters. Jacobs (1972) argues that on the very highest level, the summit of Mount Pulog, fires caused by humans (associated with camp sites rather than swiddens) allowed a grassland dominated by dwarf bamboo to replace the oak association.

Oral environmental histories gathered in several Benguet municipalities support Kowal's thesis. Throughout the province, even in now treeless areas, settlement stories tell of wandering hunters building their homes in "jungle" areas. Without further empirical

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Figure 1.
The Buguias Environment: A Cross Section through the Southern Cordillera. Vegetation zones modified from Kowal (1966).

work (palynological analysis, for example), any discussion of vegetational change under human pressure must remain tentative. The following pages thus outline the more likely pathways of anthropogenic vegetation change in prewar Buguias.

Vegetational Change in Buguias

In present-day Buguias, montane hardwoods occupy only the northern exposures of steep side canyons. According to Kowal's model, hardwoods would have dominated the prefire landscape of Buguias, with pine restricted to dry and rocky sites. Such pockets of seasonal aridity are widespread in this area, however, and many steep southern exposures may never have supported montane forests. Although Buguias lies only sixteen degrees north of the equator, slope aspect is significant since drought occurs when the sun is well within the southern hemisphere. Furthermore, fire, which universally favors pine, can be sparked by the lightning that sometimes accompanies the year's first storms. Thus the vegetation of Buguias in earlier times was probably a mosaic of pine savannah and montane forest.

The early agriculturalists probably chose sites in the fertile montane forests for their first swiddens. With long initial fallow, forest vegetation would have been able to regenerate, but with intensification, Miscanthus cane would have spread. Indeed, in both the Ifugao culture region and in the Bot-oan area immediately east of Buguias, Miscanthus swards dominate swidden fallows (see Lizardo 1955). But with the introduction of cattle in the later Spanish period, Miscanthus would have declined while pasture grasses increased. As the fire- and grazing-adapted savannah spread, the montane forest would have retreated to ravines inaccessible to flame. In the more intensively grazed areas of the lower valley, pine would have declined, as yearly burning inhibited its regeneration. In the highest reaches—those above 2,000 meters—perennial saturation would have protected the oak forest, but even here fire could burn a few meters into the woodland each year, allowing a progressive march of grassland vegetation (Jacobs 1972). But for the most part, the higher oak forest would have remained little modified by human activity, except for the few areas cut for uma

fields and the selected ridgetops annually cleared for the nocturnal hunting of migratory birds.

The anthropogenic savannah was vital for prewar Buguias subsistence; it afforded graze for the herds and pine wood for fuel, construction, and illumination. But pine regeneration may have been inadequate to sustain this regime in the long run. Pine seedlings require some five to ten fire-free years to become established, and many pastures were burned annually. Most lower-elevation Ibaloi districts had already been deforested well before the turn of the century (Semper 1862 [1975]), owing perhaps to lowered pine vitality in warmer climes (Lizardo 1955) but probably also to the longer history of Ibaloi pastoralism. Certain Kankana-ey areas, especially those, like Mankayan, that supported an indigenous mining and smelting industry, were also deforested long ago (Marche 1887 [1970]). Whether prewar subsistence patterns would have truly allowed a sustainable pine harvest is an open question.

The people of prewar Buguias derived their sustenance from a landscape that was in part their own creation. All peoples transform nature, but here the alterations were especially marked. The vegetation, geomorphology, and even the hydrology of Buguias reflected a history of human activity. Slopes were flattened and streams diverted for pond fields, and even dry fields were sometimes terraced. The original woodland was largely replaced by a savannah grassland, which was then populated by exogenous animals. Of course, the Buguias people did not make their landscape any way they pleased, but rather grappled with their given environment, pushing its vegetation into latent successional pathways and molding its contours with materials at hand.

Deforestation, however, was not the only threat to prewar subsistence. Population began to grow rapidly in the American period, forcing the Buguias people to intensify production and to reorient their management of uncultivated lands.

Agricultural Intensification

Uma cultivation in prewar Buguias deviated most markedly from "classical swidden" in its short fallow and in its labor intensiveness.^[6] Following Ester Boserup's (1965) powerful theory of agricul-

tural intensification, one would expect precisely such developments if Buguias agriculture were responding to population pressure. With more persons deriving sustenance from the same area, fallow periods would have been progressively shortened as labor inputs were progressively increased. Demographic history, however, is difficult to establish; during the pre-American period the population of Buguias no doubt fluctuated wildly in response to epidemics, military incursions, and migrations. But during the years of American power, population did mount steadily. American and Philippine census data, although of dubious quality, reflect such growth, the recorded population of the Buguias municipal district rising from 1,612 in 1901, to 5,894 in 1948—the latter figure tabulated after the wartime devastation.^[7]

But in many respects, the degree of intensivity exhibited in prewar Buguias agriculture is better explained by ecological than by demographic factors. Since rice would not mature if grown during the wet season, irrigated terraces were necessary for this crop. Once constructed, pond fields do not require a rejuvenating fallow. The motivation for building them, however, rested as much in the ideational as in the material sphere; rice was grown more for the prestigious intoxicant that it provided than for the calories it might afford. Dry fields, however, were allowed only a short fallow, not for lack of land but rather because of the environmental requirements of the staple crop.^[8] Sweet-potato vines would produce the whole year only on sites endowed with deep moisture-retentive soils. True, the Buguias people could have grown all of their tubers in the wet season, storing enough to last the year. But storage would have demanded its own heavy labor burdens, just as it would have resulted in a less appetizing diet. Moreover, the existence of a separate pastoral sector militated against frequent field relocation; for pastureland to be recultivated, the sod had to be manually turned, an extremely laborious undertaking.

Continued population expansion under the prewar regime would have brought systematic agricultural changes. More careful management could have increased the rice yield, and the pond fields themselves could have been drained and planted to sweet potatoes in the off-season. Dry fields could have been intensified by eliminating their vestigial fallow. But increasing the sweet-potato harvest significantly would have required manuring, a labor-

demanding task that also would have stinted the fertile and easily managed door-yard gardens.

A less revolutionary method of increasing production would have been simply to expand the more productive sectors. Additional pastureland could have been converted to dry fields and terraces, while distant woodlands and brushlands could have been cleared for cattle grazing. But since land was finite, constrained ultimately by intervillage boundaries, increased production in this manner would have brought intersectoral spatial competition. Prime dry fields might have been transformed to pond fields, thus forcing new uma construction in previously marginal sites. Pasturelands, cane breaks, brushlands, and forests, however, would have gradually but steadily diminished. Indeed, much evidence suggests that these were precisely the kinds of changes that were occurring in the American period.

If the diet of the Buguias people had continued to be based largely on local subsistence, and had the population continued to grow, labor burdens would have increased, while dietary quality would have diminished. A shrinking pastoral sector would have supported fewer cattle, which would have been divided among more persons. Meanwhile, ever-increasing applications of labor would have been required to convert ever more marginal areas into arable fields or to intensify the output of existing plots.

Beyond this, the potential evolutionary pathways of the intensifying subsistence system are unknowable. As elsewhere, in prewar Buguias a range of potential choices existed, and any developments would have depended on human decisions and innovations. We need only to look at two neighboring peoples, the central Ifugao and the Bontoc, both of whom had much higher population densities in the prewar period than did the Buguias people. The Bontocs had integrated their expansive pond-field system with their dry fields; off-season terraces were drained, ridged, and planted to sweet potatoes (Jenks 1905). Much work was expended, especially since terraces were also manured, but the resulting fields were productive: in 1948, 1,000 hectares of cultivated land in the Buguias regions (reportedly) supported some 9,267 persons, while in Bontoc the figure was 20,966 (Republic of the Philippines 1954, Part 1:53—such figures are, of course, of suspect reliability). In Ifugao, the even more expansive pond fields were seasonally fallowed as in

Buguias, while nonterraced areas were either devoted to brush-fallow swidden or to intensively managed woodlot orchards (see Conklin 1980). Both of these intensified systems were probably sustainable, but neither allowed the meat consumption that was possible in Buguias.

The argument presented above is not merely an exercise in hypothetical reasoning; its purpose is rather cautionary. The latter part of this work will turn to the commercial agriculture that replaced the dry-field/pond-field/pastureland complex following World War II. I will argue that the new agricultural system represents an ecological debacle, marked by eroded hillslopes, denuded canyons, poisoned watersheds, and exterminated wildlife. But we should not allow the desolation of the modern regime to lead us into regarding the prewar period as an ecological idyll. Certainly subsistence agriculture was relatively sustainable, but with increasing population density, environmental degradation would have resulted nonetheless. Cultural ecologists have shown in many instances the utility of viewing "pre-modern" societies as adapted to their environments, but prewar Buguias shows powerfully that they should also be seen, in the tradition of cultural geography, as remaking their very landscapes—and not necessarily in a positive manner (see the essays in Thomas [1956], and, more recently, Blaikie and Brookfield [1987]).

In continually refashioning their landscape, the people of Buguias were both constrained and enabled by their natural environment. But their environmental-management decisions were also made within a limiting social milieu—within a preexisting (although constantly changing) system of power relations and social ideology. As human society changed, so too changed the relationship between people and nature.