Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
DOI 10.1007/s10745-007-9120-y
Indigenous Shifting Cultivation and the New Amazonia:
A Piaroa Example of Economic Articulation
Germn N. Freire
Published online: 13 August 2007
# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract This article argues against the idea that indige-
nous cultural change and knowledge loss are inevitably
bonded to one another, with particular reference to agro-
productive transformations. This view has not only ignored
the potential of these productive systemswell docu-
mented in recent decadesbut has often threatened them
by promoting development policies based on mistaken
premises. It is suggested here that some indigenous
peoples productive responses to market integration may
in fact offer alternatives to the paradoxes of development in
seemingly fragile tropical environments. This article
reports, in particular, on the strategies developed by the
Piaroa, from southern Venezuela. Contemporary large and
permanent Piaroa communities, which resulted from their
involvement in aspects of national society, have been able to
sustain the forests on which they depend while satisfying
their food and market necessities. This has been possible due
to a series of market strategies based on their agroforestal
tradition, which have emphasised the commercialization of
secondary forest products. The article proposes that these
strategies have been underestimated due to the market
conditions in which Piaroa farmers are immersed, and from
which they have learnt the very principles of capitalism.
Oil dependent and saturated with corruption, the Venezuelan
market hampers their full economic integration, contributing
to the idea that their agroforestry system can only produce at
subsistence levels.
Key words Shifting cultivation . Market integration .
Economic change . Piaroa . Venezuela . Amazonia
G. N. Freire (*)
Ministerio de Salud,
Caracas, Venezuela
e-mail: gfreire@cultures.org.uk
Introduction
Cultural change in lowland South America has often being
portrayed as diminishing the capability of indigenous
peoples to cope with their current social and environmental
needs. This view a priori ignores the potential of indigenous
productive systems, and at times prompts development
policies based on erroneous premises that, at best, constrain
the generation of local alternatives. Less attention has been
paid to the indigenous peoples responses to, and views of,
phenomena such as market production and environmental
degradation. The idea that lowland indigenous productive
systems are only suited to small and dispersed populations
although highly contested over the past couple of decades
is at the heart of this bias.
This idea was stimulated by todays small and dispersed
indigenous populations in the area. Archaeological data
have shown, however, that Amazonias present population
is only a small proportion of the pre-Columbian one. Many
aspects of their current settlement and social patterns are in
fact the result of the dramatic population decline that
followed post-1492 contact (Denevan 1992; Denevan et al.
1984; Heckenberger et al. 2003; Lathrap 1970; McEwan et
al. 2001; Uhl et al. 1990; Zent 1992). Most authors assert
nowadays that prior to European arrival Amazonian
population was at least ten times larger than today. Soil
analyses have shown that vast portions of the Amazon
basin were subject to human management prior to 1492.1
Black earth, terra preta, a nutrient-rich soil type attributed to
1
William Bale (1989) estimated in the 1980s that at least 14% of
Brazils forests were anthropogenic, and pointed out that these were
precisely the forests that Native Amazonians occupy at present. These
forests, more interestingly, did not show reduction of natural biodiversity
as a result of human intervention. Brown and Lugo (1990:40) re-estimated
later that about 40% of the tropical forests in South America were
anthropogenic, and most of the remaining had had some modification in
the past. Denevan has gone further, asserting that there are no virgin
tropical forests [in America], nor were there in 1492. (1992:375).
682
intensive and long-term accumulation of organic waste, due
to human refuse and intense agriculture, is found widely
scattered throughout the lowlands (Hamlin and Salik 2003;
Heckenberger et al. 1999, 2003; McEwan et al. 2001;
Petersen et al. 2001; Smith 1980; Uhl et al. 1990). Moreover,
several archaeological studies have presented evidence of
large, sedentary social formations that occupied and managed
extensive portions of the tropical lowland over a long period
of time (Heckenberger et al. 2003; Fernndez and Gassn
1993; Lathrap 1970; Oliver 2001; Spencer and Redmond
1992; Roosevelt 1980, 1991; Smith 1980; Tarble 1993). It is,
thus, increasingly clear that modern anthropological work
[in the area] has been based on peoples whose representa-
tiveness of the prior social landscape is questionable
(Nugent 1998: 41).
There is also growing evidence for the capacity of
lowland productive systemsespecially agroforestryto
sustain populations much larger and more permanent than
present ones (Atran 1993, Atran et al. 2002; Bale 1993;
Carneiro 1961; Carter 1969; Coomes and Burt 1997;
Coomes et al. 2000; Denevan 1992; Posey and Bale
1989; Rival 2006; Roosevelt 1991; Sanchez and Benites
1987; Sanchez et al. 1997; Smith 1980). Continuity
between past and present agroforestal practices in areas
with high pre-Columbian population densities has been
demonstrated in several parts of the tropical lowlands, both
in South and Central America (Atran 1993; Heckenberger
et al. 2003). Long-term research conducted among con-
temporary Amazonians has shown, moreover, that current
tropical forest cultivators can produce surpluses through
shifting cultivation with a minimal amount of labour
expended, but they generally lack the necessary economic
and political stimuli to do so (Posey 1985:176).
Despite mounting archaeological and ethnobiological data
supporting these views, to date few studies have attempted to
describe the impact of market production and demographic
concentration on indigenous agroforestry and, more impor-
tantly, on its ability to adapt to an increasingly globalised
environment (cf. Hamlin and Salik 2003; Godoy et al. 2005;
Vadez et al. 2004). The received wisdom, although
weakened, still suggests that population growth, sedentarism,
and participation in aspects of national society endanger the
fragile equilibrium that ought to exist between indigenous
peoples and the forested lowlands for shifting cultivation to
be economically and environmentally sustainable (cf.
Meggers 2001). As recent archaeological and ethnobiolog-
ical data show, these productive systems have gone through
changes in population densities, mobility and economic
articulations several times over the past five centuries. Their
study should then be freed from the stigma of the counterfeit
paradise thesis, famously synthesized by Meggers (1971).
This article intends to show that, while it is true that the
transition from subsistence economy to market production
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
largely depends on the context of the process, indigenous
agricultural transformations might offer clues to the
challenges of development in seemingly fragile environ-
ments. These matters are discussed with particular reference
to the Piaroa, shifting cultivators of the Orinoco, who have
experienced rapid cultural change over the past forty years.
This article is based on fieldwork carried out in the middle
Orinoco, especially in the Cataniapo basin, since 1996,
which included about a year of permanent residence (1999
2000) and several visits before and after. My fieldwork
among the Piaroa has integrated standard ethnographic
surveys with remote sensing, which in this article is used to
apprise land use changes over a 30-year period2 (Aerial
Photographs from 1970 and Landsat TM images from 1989
and 1998).
The Piaroa
Despite having been contacted by Jesuit missionaries more
than 300 years ago, the Piaroa remained relatively isolated
from western influence until well into the XX century.
Escaping the violence of the colonial period, they sought
shelter in the secluded forested mountains of the Middle
Orinoco (between the Cuao, Marieta and Autana basins; see
Fig. 1), where they lived in small, scattered, and highly
mobile communities until recently, keeping their relations
with non-Piaroa to a minimum (Mansutti 1990; Zent 1992).
In the centuries that followed their first contact, they moved
back and forth between the mountains and the varzea zone
depending on the violence of their indigenous and non-
indigenous neighbours (Mansutti 1990). Their aversion to
non-Piaroa, and especially to westerners, made them
famous in the ethnographic literature as an elusive and
fearful people (Chaffanjon 1986 [1889]; Monod 1970;
Overing 1975; Wilbert 1958). This attitude also helped
them to outlive many of their neighbours, who owing to
their proximity to European colonists were more exposed to
epidemic diseases they brought with them.
2
Information for ground-truthing was mainly collected between 1999
and 2000, and included folk classifications of vegetal composition,
landscape categories, plot-histories, and family histories of samples
from all the productive units in San Pedro de Cataniapo (about 22
households divided into four labour sharing factions) and a sample
of 20 households (out of 46), belonging to different factions, from
Gaviln and its surroundings (Merey, Sardi, la Primavera and Fundo
Prez-Prez). The data included here also comes from censuses of the
two communities (2000); observations and participation in several
hunting and foraging expeditions; and cartographic reconstruction of
the territory with community leaders (see Freire 2003). I also recorded
information of products sold and bought in the market (prices, units,
etc) in the upper Cataniapo (19992000) and in Betaa de Topocho
(1997). Most data, however, come from observations made through
participant observation and involvement in many aspects of commu-
nity life in these and other communities.
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
Things started to change rapidly by the middle of the XX
century, due to a series of epidemic outbreaks that forced
much of their population to seek assistance outside their
isolated heartland (Baumgartner 1954; Velez-Boza and
Baumgartner 1962; Wilbert 1958). These pandemics coin-
cided with a period of peaceful relations with the Creole
population, which had stimulated the colonization of their
surrounding lowlands and an increase in their exchanges
with other peoples, including the Creole. At the same time,
the proselytising work of evangelical missionaries, who had
started operating in Piaroa territory in the 1940s, prompted
a radical change of attitude toward outsiders by interfering
with their medicoreligiouspolitical system (Zent 1993).
Later, oil-backed government investment in the state,
especially from the 1970s onwards, accelerated the Piaroas
process of mass migration toward sources of western
servicesmainly biomedicineand goods on the periph-
ery of their traditional territory. These migrations involved
more than 90% of their population in the short period of 40
years (currently estimated at about 14,500 people), leaving
their heartland scarcely populated (see Fig. 1).
Nevertheless, the Piaroas rapprochement to national
society was conditioned by their strong attachment to forest
environments, which were, and still are, central to their
social identity. Besides Piaroa, a term of unknown origin,
they call themselves /dearua/ or /wothha/, terms that
describe them as owners or lords (-rua) of the forest territories. These old secondary forests are believed to be
(dea), in the first case, and knowledgeable people, in the
second, implying that they hold the knowledge to control
its elements (Anduze 1974; Zent 1992). Their mythology
also explains much of their distinctiveness as a knowl-
edgeable people by means of their close relationship with
the forest. They actually look down on many of their
savannah neighbours (such as the Hiwi and the Creole)
because of their poor skills in dealing with forest environ-
ments. The forest is also an essential part of their social
memory. Piaroa people can easily identify secondary
forests, their owners, and the history of their communities
through its composition (material or symbolic), even if they
do not normally show interest in human genealogies. For
the Piaroa human health and well-being are, in fact, largely
dependent on the recognition of the close relationship
between a portion of the forest and the spirits of the
ancestors who lived in it. People who fail to identify this
relationship suffer from many misfortunes, including poor
harvests, bad luck in hunting, and a variety of illnesses,
some of which make them feel ill at ease in their
communities and drive them to walk like mad through
the forest; e.g., dea ituna, suripa china (Freire and Zent
2007).
In traditional Piaroa communities, moreover, settlement
and land use patterns were directly related to one another
(Overing 1975; Zent 1992). Gardens were cleared in the
683
surroundings of the community, but as the settlement got
older and its surroundings exhausted, new gardens were
opened farther from the community centre. Huts were then
built in more distant gardens and these were used as
seasonal houses, mostly due to the intensive labour
demands of cassava processing. A single settlement would
then have various houses at any one time and, eventually,
as the distance between the new gardens and the village
grew, one of these seasonal residences was chosen as the
permanent house (isode) and the social life of the village
reorganized around it. This dispersed and multisite land use
pattern was part and parcel of their defensive strategies,
allowing them to abandon an area at the first sign of
outsiders without severely affecting their productive capa-
bilities. This was essential owing to their renowned
rejection of physical violence (Mansutti 2003).
Nevertheless, the Piaroa rarely abandoned a field as an
extractive zone. Secondary harvest, hunting, and the
collection of wild and feral species continued until the
secondary forest was cleared again for cultivation. This
cycle was and still is at the heart of the Piaroas
understanding of land rights. Contemporary Piaroa families
who have migrated to the vicinity of Creole towns continue
to engage in lengthy hunting and gathering expeditions to
their old secondary forests, their tabotihamina resaba
(fallows of the ancestors) to reassert their rights over these
the best lands for agriculture. Since the woody vegetation is
softer to cut there than primary forest, gardening in ones
tabotihamina resaba is also a labor-saving strategy.
Stanford Zent estimated the entire cycle, from clearing to
fallowing and re-clearing, as about 20 years in the Upper
Cuaoone of the few areas consistent with pre-1970
descriptions of Piaroa society (Zent 1992).
It is not surprising, then, that in their approach to
national society the Piaroa sought ways to balance their
need for access to western services and goods on the one
hand, and their need to remain within the forests that
support many of their social and economic dynamics on the
other. Their responses to these opposing forces have been
heterogeneous and creative, and suggest that some views of
sociocultural change should be revised (cf. Henrich 1997).
What follows will exemplify this process through the recent
history of the Cataniapo basin, a tributary of the Middle
Orinoco. This is one of the fastest growing areas in their
territory, located about 30 km from the state capital, Puerto
Ayacucho.
Cataniapo
Cataniapo has been a historic borderland between the
Creole and Piaroa worlds for more than a 150 years
684 Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696

Fig. 1 Location of Piaroa com-

munities in the Middle Orinoco.
Based on Zent (2007) and
Censo Indgena de Venezuela
1992 (OCEI 1993). Taken from
Freire 2003:354.

(Mansutti 1990). The middle Orinoco was colonized by the
late XVIII and early XIX centuries, when permanent
missions were established along the riverbanks (cf. Dreyfus
19831984: 51). This was the point at which metal tools
entered the regional system of exchange, imposing for the
first time a vertical organization of exchange between
communities according to their access to limited sources,
and not just to the status of the trader. Creole goods reached
Piaroa territory through communities located around the
Missions, on the rim of their heartland. These exchanges
led to intermittent interactions with the missionaries and
eventually with Creole colonisers. Cataniapo communities
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
were at the forefront of this system of interconnections
because of their proximity to the Atures rapids, which block
the Orinoco River and require land transportation for about
50 km. Cataniapo communities served then as a hub of
exchange with the Piaroa hinterland, with Creole goods
passing in one direction and Piaroa and natural products in
the other.
Cataniapo started to change in 1962, when the regional
government of Amazonas opened a road to facilitate the
expansion of the agricultural frontier into what was
believed to be uninhabited forestland. The road stretched
30 km from Puerto Ayacucho into the Cataniapo basin.
Eighteen families from other parts of the country, mostly
Creole farmers from the northern savannahs, were brought
to the middle basin, where they built homes and logged
about 150 ha of forest for cultivation. The new community
was called Gaviln, an experimental palm oil producing
settlement, and the government built a primary school, an
infirmary, and provided the farmers with loans and shoots
to grow African palm (Elaeis guineensis). Technical
support and help for processing and commercialising the
palm oil never arrived, though, and unable to cope with the
forest the Creole families soon abandoned the area. When
this occurred several small Piaroa communities started
colonising the projects lands.
The projects massive clearing had in fact been opened
on Piaroa fallow lands and not, as government agents
believed, on primary forest. The Piaroa had abandoned the
area some 20 years earlier due to an outbreak of malaria,
during which time they referred to it as kwoso, area of
illness. With the arrival of the Creole, and especially with
the arrival of a Creole nurse, the Piaroa felt encouraged to
return to their lands. As the Creole farmers left the area they
began to regain control over the territory.
At first, Gaviln was occupied by several small
traditional communities, known as isod (pl.) that totalled
fewer than 40 people. However, it soon became a centre of
attraction for Piaroa from remoter regions in the hinterland
Fig. 2 Approximate boundaries
of the Cataniapo basin, in
southern Venezuela. The image
shows the ecological transition
from savannah/gallery forest on
the bank of the Orinoco River,
left, to the closed semi-
deciduous forests that cover
most of the Cataniapo basin,
right. Landsat TM, 1998
(path 4, row 56), false-colour
composite of infrared bands,
assigned to red (5), green (4),
and blue (3) to provide the
appearance of natural
vegetation.
685
due to its easy access to Creole markets and medical care.
In 1979, the National Agrarian Institute granted the
community a provisional land title in which Gaviln was
recognised as an indigenous community for the first time.
Two years later, the government built western-style houses
(cement walls and corrugated iron roofs) and relocated the
families 70 m to the roadside, which would facilitate their
integration to national life. At this time, Gaviln was
already one of the largest and fastest growing communities
in Piaroa territory. In 1986 it was inhabited by some 150
people (Zent 1986, unpublished census), and only fourteen
years later, at the time of my fieldwork, it had about 210
people which together with some 59 people living in
several smaller satellite settlements (Sardi, Merey, La
Primavera, and Prez-Prez) made of it one of the largest
Piaroa communities in the territory (see Figs. 2 and 3).
Gaviln was not an isolated case. During the last 20
years, Cataniapo kept attracting other indigenous and
Creole farmers due to its proximity to Puerto Ayacucho,
which is the main centre of government investment in the
state (Puerto Ayacucho alone concentrates about 74% of the
states health budget, for example; Toro 1997). Hence,
Gaviln is currently located on the frontier between this
colonisation front and the Piaroa hinterland, and it now
shares the upper basin with two other large Piaroa
communitiesSan Pedro and San Pablowith 118 and
182 people respectively, both at 2 to 5 h by boat from
Gaviln (depending on the season). The road connecting
Gaviln with the states capital is now paved, and the trip to
the city takes about 30 min by car. There is daily public
transport to the city market, where most people go
regularly, and on an average Friday and Saturday morning,
days of the indigenous street-market in Puerto Ayacucho,
about one fifth of the upper basin population goes to the
city. Cataniapo is, in fact, one of the most important sources
of local food products for Puerto Ayacucho, now home to
more than 50,000 people, and all Piaroa communities along
the river are well-versed in market transactions.
686
Fig. 3 Gaviln and its satellite communities in the middle Cataniapo
area (centre of Fig. 2).
Paradoxically, the booming population growth generated
by the governments investment in Cataniapo was per-
ceived by the same authorities as a problem for develop-
ment. Once sedentarised, indigenous people were
categorised as rural poor and therefore believed to be in
need of externally planned development. This view was
shared, and probably fuelled, by most anthropologists at
that time (cf. Boglar and Caballero 1982; Overing and
Kaplan 1988). Hence, government programmes such as the
construction of corrugated-iron houses, schools and infir-
maries, were generally accompanied by agricultural devel-
opment programmes. The technology attached to these
programmes did not change much, in principle, from the
kind of programmes that led to the foundation of Gaviln in
the first place. Most of these programmes emphasised the
need to modernise their productive system, adapting it
to the new market conditions of the region. Although
mostly unsuccessful, these programmes have shaped many
of the agricultural dynamics of the region, so the following
section will summarise some of their principles, and the
way these have connected to local indigenous communities.
Development and the Failure of Modern Farming
Modern farming in the Venezuelan context generally
means monocropped, input-based, and labour intensive
agriculture. It has been persistently proposed in Amazonas
as a solution to indigenous peoples integration to national
life, and Cataniapo has been no exception. A paramount
programme in this sense was the conuco mejorado,
improved smallholding, developed by the government in
the 1970s and applied throughout the country with little
regard to economic, cultural or environmental specificities
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
(Freire 2005). The programme, which was a local euphe-
mism for modern farming, consisted of the introduction of
foreign elements oriented to speed up and optimise
yields in the areas where smallholdings and subsistence
agriculture were predominant. It included the incorporation
of tractors and high-yielding species aimed at creating
monocultures, and relied on fertilisers to fight the poor soil
conditions created by intensive agriculture. Although it was
not developed for the state of Amazonas (preeminently
indigenous in composition), its implementation in the state
has been recurrent, under different names and with subtle
technological modifications.
Most of the technology associated with these kinds of
programmes has proved if not destructive at least nonviable
for Amazonian environments (Bunker 1985; Hecht 1992).
This type of agriculture is not feasible without government
subsidies because of the costs of fertilising Amazonian soils
and the dramatic yield declines after a few years of
production (cf. Sanchez et al. 1982). These processes,
more importantly, have long-term impacts that threaten the
possibility of a sustainable existence for future generations
(Clark and Uhl 1984). Uhl (1983) estimated that in the
forests of San Carlos de Ro Negro, to the south of Piaroa
territory, for example, an area cleared with tractor would
require up to 1,000 years to recover its high forest cover.
Regarding profits, already in the 1980s the Venezuelan
Ministry of Environment reported that, after more than a
decade of modern farming in the state, modern farms did
not account for more than 0.2% of the vegetables produced
(Perera 1987: 110). In more than 30 years, in fact, modern
farming programmes have not produced a single successful
result to support their implementation. Yet they still
represent the paradigm of government and nongovernment
agricultural extensions in the region.
Modern farming has been tried several times in
Cataniapo, generally accompanied by animal raising, and
Piaroa farmers have taken part in these programmes in
order to establish relations with government agents that
improve their political opportunities within the community.
This is because leadership is now dependent on the leaders
ability to demonstrate good relations with the Creole world,
from where they obtain western goods, services, and
salaries that are now an essential part of their lives (Freire
2004). These programmes are generally accompanied by
salaried jobs and infrastructure that reinforce the leaders
role as providers of wealth (Overing 1975), so local
communities welcome them regardless of their opinions of
western agricultural technology. Additionally, Piaroa farm-
ers are naturally curious about new species and manage-
ment techniques, so they are always ready to experiment.
In the communities where modern farming programmes
were being implemented at the time of my fieldwork, new
species and technologies were invariably under observation
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
in their traditional areas of experimentation, their house
garden (isode patha), or in small gardens opened in the
vicinity of their houses. New crops were excluded from or
incorporated into their productive systems only after a long
trial period. Very few crops, however, have made their way
to their gardens in the ten years I have been visiting
Cataniapo. Coffee (Coffea arabiga), for instance, is a plant
that most communities have been planning to grow for
commercial purposes ever since I first visited the area in
1996. All Piaroa I have talked to during my visits to the
region claim that the plant grows well in their soils and
assure me they could make profits from its commercialisa-
tion. I do not know, however, of a single person who has
yet introduced it to their gardening areas, although some
have claimed to be testing it for more than ten years.
Animals raised experimentally, for their part, are usually
slaughtered or abandoned early on and their meat either sold
or consumed by the family group, much to the frustration of
development agents. Although most Piaroa are keen on pets
they are not usually inclined to raise animals for consump-
tion. Hunting, fishing, and gathering are seen as more
acceptable and enjoyable ways of providing meat to the
family. A similar attitude towards cattle raising has been
reported in other parts of the tropical lowlands (cf. Rudel et
al. 2002). Besides, all research on food consumption and
health carried out in the area confirms that game and wild/
feral products are abundant in Piaroa territory, even around
peripheral communities (Hidalgo 1997a, b, 1998, 2002;
Melnyk 1995; Freire 2002).
In addition, the Piaroa seem reluctant to market imported
crops, of which they have scant knowledge, and while
development plans emphasise the incorporation of external
elements, they are more inclined to privilege strategies
rooted in their agroforestal tradition. Piaroa families invari-
ably prefer to rely on fallow and forest products, and they
have enlarged and manipulated the composition of the fallow
lands surrounding their communities for that purpose. As
will be shown in the next section, the people of Gaviln have
managed and transformed the massive clearing produced by
the government more than four decades ago into a secondary
forest that is now used, among other things, for sustained
market production. Piaroa resource management has in fact
produced extensive landscape transformations in most of the
upper Cataniapo basin, which are generally overlooked in
development programmes due to the gap separating the two
agricultural models.
Shifting Cultivation
Current Piaroa productive strategies are obviously con-
strained by their new settlement and social patterns. These
include living in larger, more permanent communities, with
687
a growing number of people, and in places where forested
land gets increasingly scarce. Unlike other peoples, how-
ever, this process has not taken them far from their
traditional lands, and the encounter with national society
has not been characterised by the dramatic clash of interests
that we have seen elsewhere (cf. Bunker 1985; Schmink
and Wood 1992; Smith 1982). The Piaroa have hence been
relatively free to move between innovation and tradition in
their adaptation to a new social and environmental context.
The Piaroa describe the cultivation cycle as a series of
interrelated phases that follow and sometimes overlap one
another, something common to other South American
peoples (cf Denevan and Padoch 1987; Posey and Bale
1989; De Jong 1996). Their main distinction is between
labour intensive phases, known as patha, and a series of
phases described with the generic term resaba. The latter
start when labour demanding cultigens, such as cassava and
maize, are substituted with slow growing ones, such as
palms and trees, which demand little attention and produce
for much longer periods. As shown in Table I, these two
generic terms are divisible into several smaller categories,
which describe the phases of evolution of the garden, its
predominant species, its owner, and so forth.
The selection of gardening areas in peripheral commu-
nities is partly determined by the distance from the village
centre, on the one hand, and the recognition of ancestral
bonds with the land, on the other. Since the village is now
sedentary and most of the produce is still carried by foot,
the expansion of the cultivated area is limited by a persons
walking capability. New gardens are opened in lands
adjoining old gardens, so they tend to keep their productive
units within the same valley or along the same microbasin.
These valleys generally correspond to the land of what was
their isode of origin; i.e. their traditional community before
joining the cluster of family factions that now form large
communities such as Gaviln. The incorporation of new
members into a community by means of marriage or political
alliances also implies their incorporation into this territorial
and labour distribution system, so they will work in a family
or factions lands (Freire 2003). Family rights over these
territories, as over their ancestral lands, are asserted through
continuous use. Figure 4 shows typical land distribution
between factions in a large, longevous community, where
factional lands are allocated along small creeks and adjacent
to one another. Land distribution corresponds to family
groupings within the community itself, because every
Piaroas desire to work and live with their closest relatives
(cf. Overing 1975) is also manifested in their allocation
within the community (Fig. 4). Houses and land rights are
therefore exchanged when the political affiliations change,
so the social arrangements of a community at any one time
are manifested in the layout of the community and its
surrounding gardens (Freire 2004).
688
Table I Main Cultivation Stages
Piaroa English
Isaka homena/isaka sakwa Slashed forest
Dawye hoipia Felled but unburned field
Isaka kwoa Burned field, period of cultivation
Yamu patha/patha aleata Garden with maize (yamu)
Ire patha Garden with cassava (ire)
Resaba sakwa/resaba hareaba Fallows early stage, bushy/low vegetation;
recently abandoned cassava field
Pahare resaba/nai resaba / etc. Fallow with peach palm (pahare)/fallow
with Amazon grape (nai)/name varies
according to predominant species
Tabo(saba) resaba Old secondary forest
Tabotihamina resaba Old garden of the ancestors
Dea Primary forest and old secondary forest
While new gardens are opened farther and farther away,
the land closer to the community is managed as fallow, until
it is cleared again for gardening. Gardens and fallow lands
are then concentrically arranged around their longevous
villages. Thus, shifting cultivation takes place, ideally, in
circles representing different stages of development that
expand from centre to periphery, and start again when the
secondary vegetation of the first gardens is ready for
gardening once more.
Clearings are opened by groups of men, although gender
roles have been relaxed in many instances. In the event of
labour shortages, for example, labour demands are satisfied
either by men or women with few exceptions, such as
hunting and magic singing, which have remained mens
activities in all cases. Thus, it is not infrequent to find men
processing cassava and women slashing and burning, or
even occupying leadership posts such as comisario (a post
for communitygovernment liaison traditionally reserved to
men). Men still do all the planting of crops used or handled
exclusively by them, such as tobacco (Nicotiniana taba-
cum), caapi (Baanisteriopsis caapi), and other drugs and
plants used for ritual purposes. Other crops are planted and
looked after by either husband or wife.3
3
Although for practical reasons Piaroa people and family might be
presented as rather monolithic categories in this article, age, gender,
and other demographic categories are highly variable in contemporary
communities. These patterns, which no doubt influence their market
and agroforestal strategies, are analysed elsewhere (Freire 2004).
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
Period Predominant vegetation
0 Woody, high vegetation.
04 months Drying veg.
45 months Burnt veg. Collection of certain barks.
511 months Maize (Zea mays)
13 (5) years Cassava (Manihot esculenta), several
minor crops.
34 years Leguminous plants, palms, fruit plants,
medicinal plants, and several drugs.
>4 years Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), Amazon
grape (Pourouma cecropaeifolia), wild
cacao (Theobroma grandiflorum), etc.
>6 years Mix of cultivated plants, feral and wild
(esp. palms and fruit trees)
>25 years Wild, feral and plants associated to
human intervention, e.g. Sclerolobium
guianense
>75 years Predominantly wild and feral vegetation
New clearings are opened in secondary forests that range
between 12 and 15 years old. These fallow periods are
slightly shorter than those found by Zent (1992) in the
upper Cuao (see above), but long enough to span the
productive life of most palms and fruit trees. The size of a
familys fields depends on the number of people working
them and on the number of dependants, but most gardens in
the upper Cataniapo had between 1 and 6 ha, very similar
to Zents description for more traditional Piaroa areas (Zent
1992: 189). A large, extended family will normally have
many small gardens simultaneously, rather than a large one.
Fields are commonly planted to a cerealcassava
palmae sequence, as in other parts of Amazonia, together
with around two dozen minor crops, such as cotton, papaya,
pepper, and pineapple. This sequence allows weed control
with a minimum effort due to the strategic intercropping of
fast growing cultigens, such as maize, which suppress
weeds very effectively from the start, with slow growing
ones, such as cassava and palms, which are not competitive
initially but have abundant root and leaf area to eventually
take over. Thus, lands are kept productive over longer
periods of time without harming the forests regenerative
capabilities (Staver 1989; Denevan et al. 1984; Denevan
and Padoch 1987).
Although the relative composition of the fields makes
them seem monocropped (or bicropped) due to the much
larger areas used for cassava and maize during the early
successions, their gardens constitute complex and diversity-
based farming systems (Zent 1992). From a non-exhaustive
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
Fig. 4 Distribution of lands and
factional division of San Pedro,
Upper Cataniapo, 2000.
Based on Freire 2003 and 2004.
listing, Piaroa farmers from Cataniapo identified 15 to 30
plant taxa in their gardens, plus numerous varieties.
Cassava, for instance, in spite of the dominance of some
five marketable varieties, was planted in a range of 15 to 25
varieties. But plant diversity is higher if all family lands are
included within the same productive unit in the analysis.
Piaroa farmers, in fact, refer to the composition of their
gardens in association with other gardens and fallow lands
of their family holdings, rather than in isolation. Crop
diversity is a source of pride and status for Piaroa farmers,
who constantly show off their plant knowledge and
management skills, so it should not be surprising that plant
diversity in Cataniapo has not diminished with market
integration. In more traditional areas, Zent identified
689
between 20 and 40 different cultigens per garden and
possibly over a hundred different varieties of species (Zent
1992: 197). Studies in other parts of lowland South
America have confirmed that market integration does not
necessarily reduce agricultural diversity (Godoy et al. 2005;
Vadez et al. 2004).
The shift to fallow occurs after three to five years, when
weeding becomes too demanding. Studies in other parts of
Amazonia have noted that this happens in spite of adequate
yields (Denevan et al. 1984; Nicholaides et al. 1984; Staver
1989). This is because even though cassava and a few other
garden crops constitute the majority of the diet, fallow and
forest products provide the greatest variety of food species
for Amazonian cultivators. In addition, the fallows consti-
690
Fig. 5 Aerial photograph showing land cover around Gaviln about
8 years after Creole clearing for African palm production, centre, and
traditional Piaroa communities around it, bottom and top (Servicio
Autnomo de Geografa y Cartografa Nacional, Venezuela, 1970,
1:5000).
tute nutrient storage for future cropping, and an important
environment for hunting and gathering wild and feral
species. In fact, 54 of the 65 plants Piaroa consumed
regularly in Cataniapo were present in these environments.
The most common uses of fallow plants were food (45%),
construction or manufacturing (15%), medicine (10%), and
food supply for game animals (8%); although the compo-
sition of fallow lands was very variable. In more traditional
communities the most important function was food supply
for game animals (Zent 1995: 79).
Therefore, fishing, hunting, and gathering of wild and
feral species in areas surrounding their gardens accompa-
nied shifting cultivation in all peripheral communities.
Most hunting and gathering in Cataniapo took place within
a 15 km radius and although there was an increase in the
area due to population growth, this was not proportional to
community size. In San Pedro, for instance, with 116
inhabitants and abundant forest in the vicinity, most hunting
trips occurred within an area of 7 to 11 km, while in
Gaviln and its surroundings, with 269 inhabitants, most
hunting and gathering took place within an area of 14 km
from the village. Longer distances were only covered for
the collection of species outside the community area, such
4
This, of course, does not take into account very old fallows, their
tabotihamina resaba, which might still be in use but are difficult to
assess with satellite and aerial imagery. The delimitation of these
forested areas requires a detailed and systematic examination of
floristic composition, such as that carried out by Zent (1992, 1995) in
other parts of Piaroa land, which has not been within the scope of my
research in Cataniapo so far.
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
as seje (Jessenia bataua) abundant in northern savannahs
about 2 h away by bus.
The proportion of gardens and fallows is relatively
similar throughout the entire basin, roughly corresponding
to 0.25 ha of garden per hectare of fallow, which coincides
with the Piaroas own description of their productive units.
Increases in the land used by a family or productive unit
tend to keep this proportion, unless important additions of
labour alter food needs and working capacity radically, such
as a marriage leading to an entire familys migration. In
these cases, more gardens are opened during the early years
until the needs and labour possibilities of the family are
satisfied, at which point the land use returns to a proportion
of about 0.25 gardens per fallow.4 Population growth is
therefore accompanied by a proportional enlargement of
both fallow and gardening areas, rather than by expanding
gardening areas alone, which characterises most colonist
models of land use in the area. In Gaviln, for instance,
while the population grew by an impressive 280% between
1986 and 2000 (Zent 1986, unpublished census; Freire
2002), its gardening areas had a much more modest
increase, passing from 0.18 ha per fallow to 0.26 in the
same period. Figures 5, 6, and 7 show the recovery and
reclearing of gardens and fallows in Gaviln over a 30 year
period. In other communities of the upper basin with more
moderate population dynamics, the proportion of gardens to
fallow has been more stable, due both to their traditional
management regime, which emphasises forest regeneration,
and to their market choices, which have focused on
marketing fallow crops. In this way they avoid the increase
Fig. 6 Land cover around Gaviln in 1989 (6) and 1998 (7). The
images illustrate the recovery of low-forest cover, points B and C, over
a 9-year period and the recolonization of mature fallow lands (low
forest) around the community, point A. Compare with Fig. 5, points A
and D, for evolution of Creole clearing over a 36-year period. Landsat
TM (path 4, row 56), 1989 and 1998, PCA, camp 1.
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696 691

in ecological stress that characterises colonial, monocrop-

ped farming.

The Market

The question of how this complex system of production

Fig. 7 Land cover around Gaviln in 1989 (6) and 1998 (7). The
images illustrate the recovery of low-forest cover, points B and C,
over a 9-year period and the recolonization of mature fallow lands
(low forest) around the community, point A. Compare with Fig. 5,
points A and D, for evolution of Creole clearing over a 36-year period.
Landsat TM (path 4, row 56), 1989 and 1998, PCA, camp 1.
Table II Most Common Products Sold in Puerto Ayacuchos Marketplace by Cataniapo Piaroa Farmers in 2000
connects to the market does not have an easy answer, as
many noneconomic factors mainly political determine
the Piaroas market decisions. Practically everybody in the
Cataniapo basin goes to the marketplace regularly, but the
great individual freedom that governs Piaroa social and
economic decisions makes it difficult to generalise about
their trading choices. The only clear pattern is probably the
flexibility of strategies that characterise both their agrofor-
estry system and their market decisions. This flexibility is
based on the diversity of fallow and forest species that
compose most of their food and market choices. Table II
shows a non-exhaustive list of the most important products
sold in Puerto Ayacuchos market in 2000, when more than
80% came from fallow and forest environments.
Cassava was without doubt the staple most frequently
sold in the marketplace, either as bread or flour. However, it

Common name Piaroa Scientific name Use Location

Banana Sec.
(various) Paruru Musa spp. Food Forest
Sec.
Big seje Bare puori Jessenia bataua Food For./Sav.
Birds Various Food, ornament Forest
Cassava Ire Manihot esculenta Food Garden
Chili pepper Rate Capsicum frutescens Food-spice Garden
Sec.
Cucurito Wacha Atalea maripa Food Forest
Game Various Food Forest
Mamure Kiyo wipo Heteropsis spruceana Fibre (fourniture) Forest
Sec.
Manaca Menea Euterpe precatoria Food Forest
Sec.
Papaya Mapaya Carica papaya Food For./Gar.
Sec.
Peach palm Pahare Bactris gasipaes Food Forest
Sec.
Peach tomato Nue Solanum sesilliflorum Food Forest
Sec.
Pineapple Kana Ananas comosus Food For./Gar.
Sec.
Small seje Pho puori Oenocarpus bacaba Food For./Sav.
Timber Various Construction, For./Sec.
products firewood, For
handicraft
Sec.
Wild cacao Harewa Theobroma grandiflorum Food Forest
Yam Huare Dioscorea spp. Food Garden
692
generated little or no income due to the excessive harvest
produced by most farming systems in the region (especially
Piaroa, Curripaco, Hiwi and Creole). Cassava was, further-
more, the most labour demanding crop of Piaroa gardens, due
to the complications of detoxifying and processing its roots, so
it was sold periodically but in small amounts, generally
corresponding to the family surplus. Cassava was often
marketed to cover the cost of trips to the city for political or
social purposes rather than for economic profit. Its commerci-
alisation, however, represented a permanent and secure, though
small, source of cash because it can produce continuous
harvests and it can be stored live (i.e., underground) for long
periods. It was also important in the Piaroa diet and was hence
the most prominent crop during the early years of their gardens,
essential for the transition of the field to secondary forest.
Fallow and forest products, on the other hand, had the best
market value in terms of both labour invested and economic
return, and they were without doubt one of the main sources of
cash in peripheral communities. The commercialization of
these products helped economise labour because during the
fallow phases there was virtually no weeding, and most fallow
crops needed little processing. Besides, most fallow crops
were harvested over short periods, depending on the species
flowering, which allowed families to get considerable amounts
of cash in just a few market transactions. Fallow and forest
products, moreover, gave Piaroa families a wider margin of
manoeuvre regarding price fluctuations, since they did not rely
on one staple only. Finally, fallow and forest products
accounted for most of diversity in their diet, so market
production focussed on this stage of their productive cycle
assured them, at the same time, relative food security (see also
Atran et al. 2002; Hamlin and Salik 2003). In fact, although
food products bought in the market are very common in
Cataniapo, these correspond mostly to luxury products
such as alcohol, soft drinks, and sweetsand in no way
supersede traditional foods (cf. Melnyk 1995). Freshness is
still predominant in their dietary choices. Although refriger-
ators had been installed in some communities with public
electricity, such as Gaviln, these were mainly stocked with
water, which was then distributed and used as a status marker.
Refrigerators have certainly had a very little impactif any
on their preference for immediate consumption and the role of
food distribution in the formation of social relations.
Regarding production, fallow plants can continue to yield
for several years and leave abundant biomass after harvest so
that agriculture can be sustained for much longer periods
than in monocropping systems without jeopardizing the
forests recovery. While cassava production lasts between 3
to 5 years, fallow production can last for 12 years or more,
usually until nonuseful species are predominant in the plot,
reducing the harvests profit. At this point, the plot generally
has abundant biomass to support new gardening. In fact,
studies in other parts of lowland South America have shown
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
that agroforestry and the extraction of non-timber forest
products may well be the most profitable/environmentally
viable market strategies for these environments (Current et
al. 1995; Hecht 1992; Mendelsohn and Balick 1995; Peters
et al. 1989; Posey 1992; Sanchez and Benites 1987;
Sanchez et al. 1982, 1997; Tapia 1997; Zent 2001).
The comparative advantage of a particular fallow or
forest product could make an entire community concentrate
its economic efforts on it. Extreme examples of fallow
specialisation were found outside the Cataniapo basin, on
the road connecting Puerto Ayacucho with the countrys
heartland, to the north, in communities located in transition
forests (on the savannahforest ecotone). One of these
communities is Betaa, where I carried out fieldwork in
1997. At that time, Betaa had focused its market trans-
actions on pineapple, which most people planted intensive-
ly in the large, young fallows surrounding the community.
Pineapple suppressed the aggressive weed growth of this
ecotone due to its expansive and strong leaves, while the
abundant vegetal residual of its harvest contributed to the
growth of woody vegetation in secondary successions,
constituting a good alternative to fight the quick advance of
the savannah in this ecosystem. Most pineapples were sold
on the side of the national road connecting Puerto
Ayacucho with the north of the country and, at the time
of my fieldwork, in a single harvest, from January to April,
Betaa families could make almost seven times the
minimum wage of Venezuelas urban areas (about US$
230 a month at that time). Communities from other regions,
like Gaviln, could not benefit from pineapple production
because the varieties of pineapple produced in the territory
were rich in sugar and therefore difficult to commercialise
due to their quick fermentation. Besides, pineapple is too
heavy and its unit price too low to compensate the costs of
transportation to the city market, so few communities were
in a position to sell it. In Betaa, however, the predomi-
nance of pineapple in the composition of the fallows was
such that in some cases it was difficult to know what was
more intensively cultivated, the garden or the early stages
of the fallow. In this way, the people of Betaa had turned the
fragility of their environment to their advantage, reinforcing
secondary growth while making considerable profits. Forest
resources, on the other hand, were collected in periodic visits
to their ancestral lands, about 15 km to the west. More
recently, the people of Betaa acquired a pulp processor and
started a pineapple juice micro-factory, which was promoted
in President Chvezs weekly TV show, Al Presidente!
Communities from the Cataniapo basin, for their part,
settled on more traditional Piaroa areas, showed much more
diversified market strategies, highly dependent on demand,
availability of resources, and limitations of transportation to
Puerto Ayacucho. San Pedro and San Pablo, at 2 to 5 h by
boat from the nearest road, had a tendency to market forest
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
resources more difficult to find in more accessible areas. In
general products that had better weight/value relation for river
transportation. Mamure (Heteropsis spruceana) and several
palm fibres used for handicrafts only found in the upper
basin were among the most valuable forest products at the
time of my fieldwork. Sporadically, this trade also included
valuable game, such as paca (Agouti paca), although most
hunting was reserved to satisfy the familys requirements.
It is difficult, however, to estimate the annual contribu-
tion of Piaroa agroforestry to the local market, because of
the great fluctuations that characterise their market partic-
ipation and the big influence of political factors on their
decisions. Community leaders can often obtain much more
from Creole politicians than by marketing agricultural
products. This is particularly egregious in electoral periods,
which in Venezuela have become increasingly frequent
during the last 10 years. In 1998, for example, the state
governor seeking reelection created a series of new salaried
positions in the indigenous communities, which in some
cases doubled the amount of cash received by indigenous
families via government wages. In an outburst of surreal-
ism, the governor created the Indigenous Police. It was a
short-lived post that most Piaroa policemen carried out
from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. without the faintest idea of what their
duties were. Their lives, of course, carried on as usual
except for the black uniforms because their patrolling area
often coincided with the lands of their extended family. In
past elections (2005), the politicians ability to create false
expectations among the indigenous population virtually
emptied the street-market of Puerto Ayacucho the month
preceding the polls because most family leaders were busy
making public relations appearances with political candi-
dates. They expected outboard motors, power plants, and
other donations in exchange for votes and political
support. Each donation, a common practice in Venezuelan
politics, could be worth months if not years of agricultural
work. The Piaroas preference for political lobbying over
agricultural marketing was understandable.
The local market, for its part, circumscribed by the
Venezuelan economy, oil-based and saturated with corrup-
tion, has never created market conditions in which both
Piaroa and the local Creole population find it profitable to
exploit agroforestry beyond local levels of consumption. In
2000, for example, 20 rolls of mamure (Heteropsis
spruceana, natural fibre used for furniture) were sold at
half the minimum wage. A Piaroa family from San Pedro
could easily market 20 rolls per week (most harvests were
actually bigger), and the main limitation was the distance
between the community and the sources of mamure14
20 km. Scarcity was never mentioned as a limiting factor,
and most heads of family traded it whenever they had a
clear goal in mind (such as buying a TV). Nevertheless,
because mamure and most forest valuables are invariably
693
traded with Creole trade-partners, harvests were con-
strained by their buying capacity. Trade partners, for their
part, were either state employees (teachers, nurses, politi-
cians, etc.) or middlemen trading for the local market, with
very little capital. This is not surprising considering that the
central government is the single most important employer
in the region, and the entire local economy relies on its
capacity of consumption. Piaroa families, moreover, refused
to sell forest valuables to strangers [an attitude rooted in
their traditional ideas of exchange (see Mansutti 1986)] so
the chances of expanding the trading network were slim.
Although apparently impractical in monetary terms
trade-partnerships like these have been proved highly
effective in imperfect market conditions, such as those of
Venezuelas Amazonia, because they minimise risk and
reduce the impact of market fluctuations (cf. Granovetter
1985; Plattner 1989). Through these associations Piaroa
farmers receive not only a return in cash but also the greater
security of a family-like relationship. Creole trade-partners,
for their part, use these associations to access to valuable
forest resources banned for Creole farmers, and to secure
political alliances and votes.
These variables make it difficult to foresee the long-term
impact of the Piaroas decisions with regard to market
involvement. Nonetheless, their preference for productive
strategies that reinforce food security and long-term
viability is remarkable. More importantly indigenous farms
like those described here are the only sustainable produc-
tive units in a state that in every other regard is totally
dependent on central government spending. They are also
the main source of local food for the more than fifty
thousand people living in Puerto Ayacucho. Interestingly
enough, while Venezuelan development plans classify their
lands as poor and unproductive, and therefore dependent on
externally planned development (CODESUR 1975; PRO-
DESUR 1996), Cataniapo Piaroa often describe themselves
as very fortunate people. More than forty years of
sedentarism, booming population growth, and market
production, have not changed their views of Cataniapo as
a privileged basin because of its unique combination of
natural resources, abundant secondary forests, good soils,
and proximity to national services and markets.
Conclusions
As other Guianese societies, during the last three decades the
Piaroa have reoriented their trade networks towards Creole
settlementsmostly in the varzea zoneafter more than 200
years of inland orientation (cf. Arvelo-Jimnez and Biord
1994; Butt-Colson 1973; Dreyfus 19831984; Thomas
1972). As most archaeological data suggest, the rearticulation
of their trade relations around areas with high population
694
densities and the settlement patterns associated with this
process are probably more similar to pre-1492 patterns than
they were 40 years ago, when the now classic ethnographies
that have shaped our ideas of Amazonian societies and their
productive systems were written. It is therefore necessary to
revise our misrepresentations about the origins and economic
viability of agroforestry in light of these new ideas, and relate
these to governmental policies and current discussions about
agroforestry and cultural change.
The Piaroa example shows, at the very least, that the impact
of cultural change is not uniform. More importantly, it shows
that indigenous peoples responses may represent alternatives
to the paradoxes of development in their traditional territories.
This article has stressed that these responses are rooted in their
agroforestal tradition, supporting observations made else-
where in the lowlands that indigenous societies with strong
agricultural backgrounds tend to maintain land use strategies
that minimise risks and food insecurity in their approach to the
market and national societyprovided external conditions
allow them to do so (cf. Atran et al. 2002; Rudel et al. 2002;
Hamlin and Salik 2003). In the Piaroa case, the relative
peace in which sociocultural change has taken place, added
to the fact that so far they have not lost control over their
lands in the process, or not in the dramatic ways described
for other parts of Amazonia, have helped them develop their
own strategies. Land rights are at the heart of the future
viability of their decisions, as other Latin American
examples have shown (cf. Gray 1994; Putsche 2000).
Nevertheless, there are a number of visible threats to the
Piaroas ability to respond to their future necessities and
preferences. III-conceived development planning imposes
development formulas on the indigenous population that, if
successful, become the only alternatives to problems
created by the same agricultural packages they promote.
Indigenous peoples, as we have seen, do not necessarily
adopt these programmes in response to their own needs and
perceptions. Nonetheless, once adopted these challenge
their ability to produce local responses to their increasingly
globalised environments all the same. Hence, this article
has stressed that if we agree that ecologically sustainable
and socially equitable development must emerge from
adaptation to local conditions, then we have to look at the
strategies developed by communities undergoing culture
change before ascribing to the mainstream idea that these
processes are always associated to knowledge loss.
Acknowledgements I thank Peter Rivire, Stanford Zent, Stephen
Nugent, Kay Tarble, Omar Tremont, Laura Martinez, Josep Gari, and
Elisabeth Ssenjovu for aid and advice generously given during the
realisation of this article or the thesis on which it is based (Freire
2002). The satellite images used in this article were generously
provided by the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment, and the research
was sponsored by the Fondo Nacional para el Avance de la Ciencia y la
Tecnologa (Venezuela), the Overseas Research Scheme (UK), and an
Oxford University Overseas Bursary (UK).
Hum Ecol (2007) 35:681696
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