Seasonal Factors in Subsistence, Nutrition, and Child Growth in a Central Brazilian Indian Community
1983; Elsevier BV; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/b978-0-12-321250-4.50016-6
Autores Tópico(s)Indigenous Health and Education
ResumoPublisher Summary This chapter discusses the subsistence practices, diet, and the growth of young children in a community of recently sedentarized Xavante Indians of Central Brazil to ascertain some of the effects of transition from foraging to food production. For hunters and gatherers, all subsistence labor is essentially harvest labor. With dependence on agriculture, a new factor enters into the scheduling of time and labor. Agriculture requires that people spend time in planting and caring for crops that they will not eat for several months. There is little in the Xavante experience to support the hypothesis that the transition from subsistence based on wild food to agriculture would produce an increased and more reliable food supply. Fluctuation in food supplies increase rather than to stabilize as this group attempts to reconcile the conflicting demands on labor for the collection of wild foods and the production of cultivated foods. Populations whose primary dependence is on root crops, such as manioc, that can be stored in the ground and harvested year-round but are low in protein would be less subject to seasonal shortage of calories but would be under more pressure to continue to hunt and fish to obtain animal protein.
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