Swidden

Kamiali Village is a community of swidden horticulturists and fishers lying 80 kilometers in a south-southeasterly direction along the coast from the City of Lae, Papua New Guinea.

These facts reinforced the view that the Maya drew their basic sustenance from corn, most of it grown on slash-and-burn plots known as swiddens.

‘Swidden’ has entered anthropological jargon, denoting not only a practice widespread in non-state societies, but also a problem.

The reason, Scott says, is that swiddening provides a freedom that fixed agriculture does not.