Agriculture in the Matengo Highlands
Agriculture in the Matengo Highlands
复制标题
马滕戈高地的农业
DOI：
10.1080/03670074.1944.11664398
复制
发表时间：
1944
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Stenhouse
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. Stenhouse
从松热亚到尼亚萨湖，要经过Matengo地区，这是一个小高地，是利文斯通山脉的延续。这是一个令人愉快的土地冒泡的溪流，海拔在4,000和7,000英尺之间变化。山势陡峭，峡谷狭窄。没有树，只有小树。高山上幸存的雨林斑块。旅行者不能不注意到，即使是最陡峭的山坡也是耕种的。这些希尔赛德上的耕作非常引人注目，呈现出整齐的布局，直切的边缘，田野的表面是奇怪的坑坑洼洼。人们的印象越来越强烈，这不可能是本地种植的。但它是。这是Matengo坑系统的培养。实行这种特殊制度的部落是什么？系统是在什么情况下演化的？它的目标是什么？瓦马滕戈人是一个小部落，居住在松热亚地区的温戈尼高原和尼亚萨湖之间的高地上。有一段时间，他们占据了更广阔的土地，但袭击者Wangoni（祖鲁-斯威士兰血统）和奴隶袭击者的到来将他们驱赶到他们现在居住的山区。万戈尼人的不断袭击迫使”他们越来越深入山区，并将他们的定居点限制在可以防守的大型天然洞穴附近，或者最难以接近的山顶。
In travelling from Songea towards Lake Nyasa, one passes through the Matengo country, a small highland area which is a continuation of the Livingstone Mountains. It is a pleasant land of bubbling streams, varying in altitude between 4,000 and 7,000 feet. The hills are steep and the valleys narrow. There are no trees, except for small. patches of surviving rainforest on the higher mountains. The traveller cannot help noticing that even the steepest hill slopes are cultivated. These hillside cultivations are of very striking appearance, showing an orderly lay-out, with straight-cut edges, and the surface of the fields is curiously pitted. The impression gathers force that this cannot be native cultivation. But it is. It is the Matengo Pit System of cultivation. What is the tribe who practise this peculiar system? Under what circumstances did the system evolve? What are its objects?The Wamatengo are a small tribe inhabiting the highlands between the Ungoni Plateau and Lake Nyasa in the Songea District. At one time they occupied broader lands, but the arrival of the raiding Wangoni (of Zulu-Swazi origin) and the slave raiders drove them into the mountains where they now reside. Constant raiding by the Wangoni drove" them further and further into the hills, and restricted their settlements to the neighbourhood of large natural caves which could be defended, or to the most inaccessible mountain tops.