Rice farmers in the Rio Nunez region : a social history of agricultural technology and identity in coastal Guinea, ca. 2000 bce to 1880 ce / Edda L. Fields.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Fields-Black, Edda L.

Contributor:

Feierman, Steven, 1940- advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--History.

History--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--History.

History--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

2 volumes (xvi, 413 pages) ; 29 cm

Production:

2001.

Summary:

Weaving together language evidence, oral narratives, and European travelers' accounts, this dissertation reconstructs the earliest social and agricultural history of the Rio Nunez region. With original language data for Nalu, MbuluNuc, Mboteni, and Sitem, under-studied and little-documented languages, it establishes a language classification and settlement chronology for the Coastal and Mel subgroups. An analysis of reconstructed cultural vocabulary words related to agriculture reveals that coastal dwellers developed irrigated rice-farming systems as a small part of much larger processes of adaptation to coastal micro-niches. Between c.3000 to 2000 BCE, proto-Coastal-speakers developed planting techniques and adapted to the coastal mangrove region. From c.2000 BCE to 1 CE, pre-Nalu-, pre-MbuluNuc-, and pre-Mboteni-speakers cut down trees, cleared land, and drained swampy soils. With the subsequent migration of pre-Sitem-speakers into the Rio Nunez c.1 to 1000 CE, coastal inhabitants innovated and adapted irrigated rice-farming techniques and material culture to microenvironments along the coast and borrowed rice-farming techniques from their Susu-speaking neighbors.

The study uses oral narratives and European sources to trace the role of rice in the formation of coastal identities and domestic economies. An analysis of oral narratives shows that coastal elders' memories of their ancestors growing rice in the interior and while migrating to the coast reflect their adaptation to unpredictable coastal environments. And, their association of the wooden metal-tipped shovel with the coast reflects their construction of a coastal identity that unifies these disparate speech communities. An analysis of travelers' accounts reveals from descriptions of coastal inhabitants hunting, fishing, and farming for subsistence and for trade in the 15 th and 16th centuries to descriptions of them producing surplus rice for sale between the 17th and 19th centuries. The study concludes that rice took center stage in coastal economies and in coastal identities as a result of coastal commercial and colonial expansion.

Notes:

Supervisor: Steven Feierman.

Thesis (Ph.D. in History) -- University of Pennsylvania, 2001.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 3031662.

OCLC:

244971523