Abstract
Rapid changes in recent years are built upon historical changes in local livelihoods. In order to understand the current state of livelihoods, it is necessary to elucidate the livelihoods that have been changing gradually as well as to explore the rapid changes in the past 10 years. In this paper, we take up a swidden village, Kachet village, in northern Laos as our focus and seek to place the villagers’ current livelihoods in their historical context by tracing the evolution of livelihoods in the past 30 years. While parts of swidden agriculture have changed technologically in Kachet village, its traditional methods are still fundamentally maintained today. Compared to technological change, material culture in the village has greatly changed in these 30 years. The changes in Kachet village can be divided into three stages: before 1975, from 1975 to 2000, and after 2000. In the first stage, the village was isolated from the market, and the people maintained a self-sufficient lifestyle. In the second stage, commercially valuable forest products became diversified as a result of Chinese immigration. In the third stage, cultivation of commercial crops became large-scale, and market-oriented economic reforms advanced greatly. Generally, market economy is promoting changes in the particular purposes of how land is used, such as for forestation and the introduction of commercial crops. Required is the implementation of measures for utilizing lands so that diverse livelihood activities can continue in the midst of advancing market-oriented reforms.
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Notes
- 1.
In Kachet village, cattle are pastured on swidden fallow land. In the past, when herbicides were used, a large number of livestock was killed. Because cattle are valuable assets, herbicides and insecticides are now no longer used.
- 2.
A legend exists concerning the origin of Kachet village’s name. “Chet” means “seven,” but the meaning of “Ka” is unclear. It can mean “fish” in the Khmu language, but this meaning is unrelated to the name of the village.
A long time ago, many wild animals came to drink at a pool of water in the village. One day a villager saw this and went out to hunt the animals. As he was moving toward the pool of water, he heard a voice telling him that his daughter suddenly had a terrible stomachache, and told him to go back to the village. He returned to find that his daughter was completely fine. The next day, the villager took another person with him and went to the pool. But again he heard a voice, this time telling him that his child had fallen from the stairs and is near death. He rushed home, only to find that nothing had happened to his child. The villager then went to the pool together with six other men. Again, as before, he heard a voice telling him to go back home. But he thought it was the voice of a ghost, and ignored it. When the men arrived at the pool of water, one of them took aim at a heet, an animal resembling a water buffalo, and fired his gun. All seven men fell dead at the same time. This is the origin of the meaning of “seven” in the name of Kachet village.
- 3.
Sandals are now main footwear. However, in the past most people went barefoot. If punctured tires were available, they were reportedly cut into strips and made into sandals. Villagers also wore clogs made of bamboo, but only for walking within the village when it is raining. They are no longer worn today.
- 4.
The borrowing rate for land is as follows: Relatives pay 100,000 kip for approximately 1 ha of swidden land, which allows 5 kg of unhulled rice to be planted; for non-relatives, the amount is 200,000–300,000 kip.
- 5.
For red dye, lac insects were used in the past.
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Hirota, I., Koyama, T., Ingxay, P. (2014). Mountainous Livelihood in Northern Laos: Historical Transition and Current Situation of a Swidden Village. In: Yokoyama, S., Okamoto, K., Takenaka, C., Hirota, I. (eds) Integrated Studies of Social and Natural Environmental Transition in Laos. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54956-7_3
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