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A subsistence society under pressure: the Bemba of northern Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Peter Stromgaard
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Extract

The research upon which this article is based was carried out over a period of four months in the Northern and Luapula Provinces of Zambia. Before that, I spent two years working in the area as an agricultural officer. One of the villages described in the article is situated on the western shore of Lake Bangweulu, the other 20 km south of Kasama, the major city of Northern Province, the homeland of the Bemba (Fig. 1). The area is almost exclusively devoted to chitemene shifting cultivation, an agricultural system where crops are grown in the ash from burning the collected, stacked branches that have been lopped and chopped from an pressure, vegetation is now chopped before it is fully regenerated, and the system seems to be starting to break down. A major task during my field stay was to describe the ecological (Stromgaard, 1984a) and economic (Stromgaard, 1984b) aspects of this change, but it soon became apparent that subsistence activity and social structure deeply influenced the village's economic activities.

Résumé

Une société de subsistance sous pression: les Bemba de la Zambie du nord

Dans la région Bemba de Zambie du nord le système de cultivation rotatoire ‘chitemene’ est en voie de désintégration dû à une pression de population croissante et à une diminution de ressources forestières. En réponse à ses problèmes, des changements sont en train de s'effectuer et dans les modèles de résidence et de parenté, et dans les modèles de subsistance. Dans les villages Bemba traditionnels, la famille étendue uxorilocale est l'association principale locale, avec le groupe de descendance matrilinéaire comme groupement secondaire. On commence à discerner maintenant une désintégration du modèle de famille uxorilocale. Ceci peut cependant alléger le conflit inhérent à une société traditionnelle où un système de production fondé sur la dépendance mutuelle et la distribution entre parents a souvent résulté en contraintes et inégalités.

Beaucoup d'activités supplémentaires à l'agriculture traditionnelle influencent le modèle de subsistance. Apparemment le ramassage, la chasse et la pêche étaient effectués selon un cycle annuel complémentaire à celui de l'agriculture. On considère dans cet article les stratégies en cours d'évolution élaborées en réponse aux pressions écologiques. Par exemple, les nouveaux jardins ‘chitemene’ ne sont ouverts que tous les deux ans: une adaptation à la diminution des ressources forestières. Egalement, de nouveaux systèmes agricoles utilisant du terreau sont adoptés comme alternative aux méthodes utilisant des cendres, qui durent être abandonées dû à la pression de population croissante.

Type
Rural Zambia revisited
Information
Africa , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 39 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1985

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