MILPA AGRICULTURE COOK. 309 
girdled the trees by building fires around them. According to 
Du Pratz the Indians of Louisiana cut away the charcoal with their 
stone axes to hasten the action of fire in burning through the tree 
trunks. The method of clearing land among the Tarahumare In- 
dians, a primitive tribe living in the mountains of northwestern 
Mexico, is described as follows : 
On a level place in the forest where the humus is rich and generally near 
some stream, the Indian will take away a strip of bark 2 to 3 feet broad from 
the trunks of all the pine trees over a tract of a few or perhaps 20 acres or 
more. Then, after two or three years, the pines are, of course, completely 
dried up. They are now cut down and during the driest season when there, 
perhaps, has not been any rain for 9 to 10 months, the whole mass of trunks 
and broken branches are set on fire and burned to ashes. Some of the trees 
that stand nearest to this giant fire are, of course, destroyed, but no forest 
fires arise." 
Though the cutting and burning of a tract of tangled tropical 
forest is hard work, even with steel tools, other forms of agricultural 
labor are avoided by the milpa system. If a " good burn " is se- 
cured the soil is left clean and in excellent condition. Plowing, 
hoeing, and weeding are unnecessary. Planting still is done in Cen- 
tral America with a charred stick. Some of the Indians of Guate- 
mala consider it unlucky even to walk through a corn field while the 
plants are growing. The ears are gathered as needed, and the stalks 
left standing in the field. 
In typical milpa agriculture no labor is given to the working of 
the soil, either before or after planting. The crop simply is planted 
and allowed to grow. In some regions the system is varied by pull- 
ing or hoeing out weeds. The land also may be cleared once or twice 
with hoes or cutlasses for planting a second or a third crop before 
the field is abandoned to the growth of "bush." In West Africa 
new forest clearings are planted with rice. This ripens in a few 
weeks and is followed by cassava, which grows through the next 
season. In the so-called " jum " cultivation of Assam, forest clear- 
ings are said to be planted for two years and then abandoned for 
eight or nine years, while the jungle grows again. Even European 
settlers in the Tropics usually follow the native method of clearing 
the land by cutting and burning, in spite of the fact that large 
amounts of valuable leaf litter and humus may be destroyed. (PI. 
1, fig. 1; pi. 2. fig. 2.) 
EFFECTS OF REPEATED CLEARING. 
The rapid renewal of the jungle in forest clearings gives a vivid 
impression of exuberance that many travelers and archeologists 
* See Hartmann, C. W., 1897, The Indians of Northwestern Mexico, Congres International 
des Americanistes, 10 : 118. 
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