The role of fire in swidden cultivation: a timor case study

摘要

Swidden agriculture is a subsistence way of life in which fire features significantly. This paper focuses on swidden cultivation in east and west Timor, particularly among the Meto, Tetun and Bunak ethnic communities. The author describes the types of food crop grown, traditions of land allocation and the ways in which each type of land--sacred or ‘forbidden’space,dwelling space and cultivation space--are used in a communal sense. Cultivation space is the only land allocated for swidden farming, and the means of using fire on this land and its part in the cropping cycle are described.