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Title the Mikea Hunter-Gatherers of Southwest Madagascar

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Title the Mikea Hunter-Gatherers of Southwest Madagascar View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Kyoto University Research Information Repository The Mikea Hunter-Gatherers of Southwest Madagascar: Title Ecology and Socioeconomics Author(s) STILES, Daniel Citation African Study Monographs (1998), 19(3): 127-148 Issue Date 1998-11 URL http://dx.doi.org/10.14989/68175 Right Type Departmental Bulletin Paper Textversion publisher Kyoto University 19-3/2 03.3.28 4:34 PM ページ127 African Study Monographs, 19(3): 127-148, November 1998 127 THE MIKEA HUNTER-GATHERERS OF SOUTHWEST MADA- GASCAR: ECOLOGY AND SOCIOECONOMICS(1) Daniel STILES United Nations Environment Program ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of the habitat, natural resources, history, and socioeconomy of a small group of foragers called the Mikea who live in a semiarid forest environment of southwestern Madagascar. The flora and fauna of this forest are made up largely of rare, endemic species to Madagascar and the fragile environment is at risk of destruction by the process of desertification, particularly slash-and-burn agriculture and over- grazing by livestock. It is hypothesized that the Mikea persist as hunter-gatherers as an eco- logical and socioeconomic adaptation employing resource partitioning and mutualistic specialization with neighboring agropastoralists. Suggestions are proposed how to mitigate the detrimental affects of slash-and-burn cultivation. Key Words: Mikea; Madagascar; Hunting-gathering; Natural resources; Socioeconomy. INTRODUCTION The Mikea are a little known group of between 1000 and 2000 people who live in the semiarid Mikea Forest of southwestern Madagascar (Fig. 1). The Mikea area includes the Conservation Priority Level 2 Lake Ihotry/Morombe Ecological Complex and the Level 3 Mangoky riverine protected area, as defined by the Malagasy government. Knowledge about the populace inhabiting this ecologically important but fragile area, particularly in respect to utilization of the natural resources, is critical to formulating a proficient conservation management plan. Until recently, many researchers believed that the Mikea were a fantasy (Lombard, 1973), and today the Malagasy general public still does. This paper will review contextual evidence for their origins, history, economy, culture and why they persist as hunter-gatherers, building on previous descriptions of the Mikea way of life (Dina & Hoerner, 1976; Stiles, 1991, 1995). ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES The Mikea live on the eastern edge and in open pockets of a dry forest between Morombe and the Mangoky River in the north and the town of Manambo in the south, an area of about 2000 km2. The Route National 9 runs north-south to the east of Mikea country through a relatively well-watered (800 mm mean annual rainfall) and fertile valley occupied mainly by the agro-pastoral Masikoro people. This road, though of poor condition, is the main communication with the outside world. The 19-3/2 03.3.28 4:34 PM ページ128 128 D. STILES Fig. 1. The semiarid Mikea Forest of southwestern Madagascar. main Mikea occupation area receives less than 600 mm of rainfall a year, declining to 400 mm near the coast, where the fishing Vezo people live. The rainy season is from mid-December through March, followed by a transitional period up to July when the cool, dry season begins, running through September. October to the begin- ning of the rains is a hot, humid season (Table 1). The soil is mainly sand, covered by a surprisingly dense and rich tropophilic woodland in the east grading into a xerophytic spiny forest nearer the coast. Localized small basins contain richer soils and wetland reeds and grasses. The Mangoky river on the northern boundary of Mikea country is the only permanent fresh water source, though several seasonal streams and ponds are located in the Namonty area. Lake Ihotry is a perennial saline lake. Over 60% of the plant families 19-3/2 03.3.28 4:34 PM ページ129 The MIKEA Hunter-Gatherers of Southwest Madagascar 129 Table 1. The Mikea annual cycle. Month Season Climate Subsistence Settlement October Faosa Hot, humid Collecting tubers, November pig hunting, Kizo burning filds December Planting, hunting January Litsake Rain tenrec, honey, Tana February dried tubers, maize (Vohitse) March harvest April Limberano / Maize, tubers, Tana May Fararano Transition tenrec (Tongalibaty) June July Clear fields, August Asotry Cool, dry hunt lemur, birds, Kizo September dry and stockpile tubers in the area are endemic to Madagascar, as are 90% of the species (Hoerner, 1986). The climate is one that has many similarities with that found in the Sahel of Africa, but the vegetation is much richer, due no doubt to less population pressure from humans. Appendix 1 provides a list of what I have been able to gather concerning the indigenous and botanical plant names and their uses by the Mikea, Masikoro and/or Vezo. Animals consist of a number of species of lemur, small hedgehog-like creatures generically termed tenrec, viverrid carnivores (similar to civets), the African bush pig, bats, snakes and other reptiles, and turtles. Most of these animals are found nowhere else but Madagascar. There are a great number of birds, many species endemic, along with the African Guinea fowl. Appendix 2 presents a list of fauna and its uses. As recognition of this important area of biodiversity the northern part of the forest, including the saline Lake Ihotry, has been designated a protected eco- logical complex by the government. The area is under threat from the spread of a type of degraded secondary bush, called hatsake-moka,(2) which is due to slash-and- burn agriculture. The sandy soil and lack of perennial streams results in most of Mikea country being totally devoid of water during the latter half of the dry season, from about July to late November. During and immediately after the rains, December-April, Mikea find water in pools (vovo) and in tree hollows. The poor soils and lack of water offer the Mikea some protection from invasion by neighbors, though cattle grazing by Masikoro and Antandroy is increasing in the area, putting more pressure on the frag- ile ecosystem. ORIGINS AND HISTORY The Mikea are considered by the other people of the area, and by most historians, as tompontany, original inhabitants of the land preceding all the others. This does not win them respect, however, as their agricultural neighbors look down on them because they live in the forest and live off of the land. This is not considered civi- 19-3/2 03.3.28 4:34 PM ページ130 130 D. STILES lized behavior, and the attitude is common to forager-farmer relations in many parts of the world. But where did the Mikea come from and how long have they been there? I. Archaeology The earliest evidence of human occupation of Madagascar comes from Mikea country. Humanly worked hippopotamus bones from Ambolisatra and Lamboharana, on or near the coast, have been dated to approximately 2000 years ago (MacPhee & Burney, 1991). The hippo bone was worked by iron tools, indicat- ing an Iron Age initial occupation, and explains the dearth of stone tools in Madagascar. The earliest dated occupation sites are located in the north of the coun- try at Lakaton’i Anja (4th and 8th centuries AD) and at Nosy Mangabe (8th century AD). The pottery at these sites is undiagnostic of cultural origins (Dewar & Wright, 1993). The site of Sarodrano 3 in the southwest on the coast was dated by C-14 on charcoal to the 5th century AD, but destruction of the site by a cyclone before it could be properly excavated renders the date inconclusive of human occupation (Battistini & Vérin, 1971). Sarodrano 1, dated to the 15th century, suggests that the Vezo were practicing their current marine exploitation way of life by this time. From the 10th century on, Madagascar along with the Comoros Islands nearby, became integrated into the Indian Ocean trading network involving Swahili, Arabs, Persians, and Indians (Vérin, 1986). Evidence of the earliest human arrival by 2000 B.P. is bolstered by a dramatic decrease in tree pollens and increase in tiny pieces of charcoal in old soil sediments, indicating fires and deforestation, at exactly the same time, that suggests clearing for agriculture (Burney, 1993). A few centuries later several species of large animals on the island became extinct, such as the dwarf hippo (Hippopotamus lemerlei), the elephant bird (Aepyornis), giant turtle (Testudo grandidieri), and several species of giant lemurs (Battistini & Vérin, 1967; Dewar, 1984). It is thought that a combina- tion of human hunting, habitat destruction, and climate drying led to their demise (Dewar, 1984; Burney, 1993). It is possible that the ancestors of the Mikea were involved in all of this. II. Ethnographic and Linguistic Evidence Today everyone on Madagascar, including the Mikea, speak a Malayo-Polynesian language most closely related to a language cluster spoken in southern Borneo called Southeastern Barito (Dahl, 1951), though there is extensive influence on the vocabulary and phonetics of Malagasy from Bantu (Dahl, 1953), indicating an early and long-lasting contact between the Asian and African populations. All glot- tochronological studies conclude that Malagasy split from its related Southeast Asian languages between the 4th and 7th centuries AD (Dahl, 1951, 1991; Vérin, et al., 1969; Adelaar, 1991), and the Indonesian migration to Madagascar probably did not begin until the 7th or 8th century (Adelaar, 1991; Dahl, 1991). Al-Idrisi con- firmed that by the 12th century Indonesians were well established in Madagascar and on the Mozambique coast (Chittick & Rotberg, 1975). Because of the relatively 19-3/2 03.3.28 4:34 PM ページ131 The MIKEA Hunter-Gatherers of Southwest Madagascar 131 late arrival of Indonesians I think it reasonable to hypothesize that the people who landed in southwestern Madagascar 2000 years ago were Bantu Africans.
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