Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

The Maori Agricultural Revolution: Tropical Crops and Temperate Land Gordon R. Lewthwaite*1 There is little doubt that the Maori agricultural revolution was one of the most remarkable achievements ofprehistoric time. In one decisive leap, without benefit of intervening land mass or opportunity for gradual adjustment, the Polynesians traversed almost 2,000 if not 3,000 miles of open sea to carry their crops from the heart of the tropics to temperate middle latitudes. True enough, the transition from the Cooks, the Societies, and the Marquesas may have been eased by the introduction of differentcrops atdifferenttimes—though that is a moot question—and success was far from complete. Coconut and breadfruit, banana and plantain, «i-apple and rose-apple, pandanus and hibiscus—all the rich fruits and fibers of the islands—were swept away by a brusque climatic veto, while the sole survivor of arboriculture, the paper-mulberry, existed only in stunted and virtually useless form. The Polynesian arrowroot and giant aroids were lost, too. But it was not so much the losses which were remarkable; it was the tenacious survival of several tropical crop plants in latitudes beyond the threshold of climatic tolerance and the success with which the Maori gardener adapted to a basically hostile environment . The real wonder is that he was able to carry on at all. In essence a cooler and more seasonal climate expunged tree culture but left the gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), which could dodge ß Dr. Lewthwaite is Professor of Geography at San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge, California 91324. This article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers at Washington, D. C, August 1968. Research was supported by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to study the historical geography of the Maori. Dr. Lewthwaite did field work in New Zealand and several other Pacific islands in 1964 and in 1967. 99 100ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS the New Zealand winter by virture of its seeds, and four more delicate tuber crops. The taro (Colocasia antiquorum), "king of roots" and basic staple of the islands, was drastically reduced in significance and yield, though if current experiments by Yen and others1 give any clue, it may have been hardy enough to weather the winter at least in a few sheltered spots. But more critical is the seemingfact that the basic crop-plant of Maoriland, the sweet potato or humara (Ipomoea batatas) and the still more delicate yam (Discorea sp.) and ti (Cordyline terminalis) were somehow introduced and cherished into productivity despite the fact that none of them, according to the experiments so far conducted, could have survived a single winter in the field. Part of the puzzle is the fact that the immigrantPolynesians were conditioned to horticultural methods that were fine for the tropics but fatal in New Zealand. Virtually all Polynesian agriculture, derived largely from the primitive southeast Asian culture hearth but also from South America in the case of the sweet potato, rested on the premise that continuous reproduction from vegetable stem cuttings was safe and sound. When the tuber was lifted, a bunch of stems was detached and thrust back into the soil and the cycle of life went on without climatic intermission. True enough, there were dry seasons and even erratic spells as in the Marquesas when the population shifted emphasis from breadfruit to taro or carried on with supplies of breadfruit paste retrieved from the storage pits, but this was nothing like the problem in New Zealand where humara, yam, and ti would simply vanish in the course of a year if tropical practices were followed and the plants left to face wind and weather. An apparently abrupt revolution in agricultural methods was essential. The question is, therefore, how on earth did the Maori succeed? Some believe that the introduction of tropical crops was assisted by a climate distinctly warmer and wetter than that which now prevails and make their appeal to the evidence of soil and vegetation. As Raeside read the evidence embedded in South Island soils,2 ancient 1 D. E. Yen, "The Adaptation of Kumara by the New Zealand Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 70 (1961), pp. 338-348...