Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

190 Designing ecological Habitats
Karen villager
cultivating a hillside.
To most Western
observers, this hillside
would look ‘wild’ and
‘overgrown.’
they can already pick some vegetables in the field, and after rice
harvesting some vegetables still remain for one to two years for
both human and animal consumption.
Every year each family looks for a ‘land-field’ for their shifting
cultivation, which has to be a piece of land that was used six to
seven years ago so that fertility may have been restored. They
cannot just choose any spot of land they like, but have to ask the
Spirit of the Land first, to get permission. According to this ritual,
one family may not receive the signs to use the land while another
family may be allowed. The land use is rotated in this way.
Some families also have low-land plots for rice cultivation,
which entail differences in the cultivating process compared to
upland varieties. The main reason that families need low land to
grow rice is because the harvest from the shifting cultivation on the
hills may not be enough when the family gets bigger (meaning that
someone in the family got married and continues to live with their
parents). If they have to expand the field of their shifting cultivation
it will be too much work. The shifting cultivation process is much
more difficult and complicated than low-land rice cultivation.
In a culture of shifting cultivation, people must support each
other. The members of a single family are not enough to completely
work the land; they need help from their neighbors. From the
very beginning of the process, clearing the land, they need labor
support. Also during the process of burning the brush after clearing, each
family needs support from the whole village to make a fire break and secure
it. They also need some help with the planting, harvesting, and transporting
of the harvest. They take turns supporting each other at each step of the
process. Collaboratively working together in the hills has become the basis
of their culture. When they are in the fields working together, they have
traditions to enjoy each other and celebrate life. They play music, dance,
sing, and share poems. There is courtship among the young people. Because
their traditions and culture emerge from their shifting cultivation relationship
with the land, they say ‘the Karen soul is in the field’.
The people will build a small hut in the field at the entrance to their
land, where they can control the energy flow in and out. The hut is also
designed to store the harvest while waiting for transportation to the barn
in the village. Since their plantations are small, and for subsistence only,
not for retail, the people don’t need advanced technology, only a few hoes
and baskets. They also don’t need to build big storage sheds to keep their
tools and harvest. Some families build a hut on stilts to use the open space
underneath for their animals.
During every step of their cultivation, the people make rituals to
communicate with the spirits of Nature, especially the Spirit of Rice. These
rituals take place on the land and in the hut until the end of the harvest. The
rituals remind the people to remain aware, and to take care at every single
step of the production process.