The Ethnography, Ethnobotany and Dispersal of Palm Starch Extraction
Principal Investigator: Roy Ellen
Project dates: 2004-2007
Funding: ESRC, CSAC
Partners: Pattimura University, Ambon, Indonesia
The starch palms of island southeast Asia have co-evolved with human populations for thousands of years. While generally regarded as ‘famine food’, some (e.g. Metroxylon sagu), in some places, are so important that they have been described ascultural keystone species.
This project seeks to explore the extent to which sago-processing is based on an underlying and widespread cultural model, and to answer questions as to how and why such techniques originated and diversified. Using data gathered by the grant-holder through fieldwork in the Moluccas over a 30 year period, it will test the hypothesis that sago extraction is an intuitively and technically simple solution to food provision for those reluctant to adopt ‘proper’ agriculture, and investigate how sago palm management is a means of raising productivity.
Although sago has been in decline as a staple, it remains the resource of choice during periods of instability and imported food shortages. The collapse of the Indonesian economy in 1999, communal conflict, and subsequent population displacement on a massive scale, has emphasized yet again the food security role played by sago starch. The project will examine the reasons for its adaptability in such circumstances
Publications
Ellen, RF and K Latinis) 2012. Ceramic sago ovens and the history of regional trading patterns in eastern Indonesia and the Papuan coast. Indonesia and the Malay World 40 (116), 20-38.
Ellen, RF 2011. Sago as a buffer against subsistence stress and as a currency of inter-island trade networks in eastern Indonesia. pp. 47-60. In Why cultivate? Anthropological and archaeological approaches to foraging-farming transitions in Southeast Asia, G. Barker and M. Janowski (eds) Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs.
Ellen, RF 2008 Distribution and variation in sago extraction equipment: convergent and secondary technologies in island southeast Asia. Archaeology in Oceania 43: 62-74.
Ellen, R. 2004 Processing Metroxylon sagu (ARECACEAE) as a technological complex: a case study from south central Seram, Indonesia. Economic Botany 58 (4), 601-625.
Ellen, R. 2004 The distribution of Metroxylon sagu and the historical diffusion of a complex traditional technology. In History of food crop production and animal husbandry in Southeast Asia, D. Henley and P. Boomgaard (eds.) [Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 218] Leiden: KITLV Press, pp. 69-106.
Ellen, R. 2006. Local knowledge and management of sago palm (Metroxylon saguRottboell) diversity in South Central Seram, Maluku, eastern Indonesia. Journal of Ethnobiology. 26 (2), 83-123.