Scarcity and Seasonality: Sago (Metroxylon sagu) Production in Agusan del Sur

background:

DSS' 2009 research on sago;

MA thesis in anthropology

“Pwede ka mo-himu ug balay na lumbia tanan. Gikan sa iyahang atup, kaning dahon. Tapos iyang bungbung, kani iyang palwa. Tapos iyang salug, kaning iyang lawas. Mas lig-on na siya kaysa sa kawayan. Gikan sa atop, sa bungbung, sa salog; pwede pud ngadto na sa pagkaon, lumbia. Kung way sud-an, pwede pud ang abatod. Kumpleto ang lumbia!”

You can make a house entirely from lumbia. Using leaves for its roof, fronds for its walls, and then its bark for the floor. That’s more durable than bamboo. From the roof, to the walls, to the floor, and then to the food – all from lumbia. If you have no viand, you can eat the sago grubs. All in with lumbia!

– Alejandre (36), a Bisaya migrant of Campo 6, Nueva Era

Pigado (Scarcity) and Sigay (Seasonality):

Lumbia (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) in the Lifeworld of Two Rice-farming Communities in Bunawan, Agusan del Sur

Jessie G. Varquez, Jr.

University of the Philippines

pigado/krisis as scarcity

“There is one sort which deserves particular notice; called by the natives libby-trees. These grow wild in great groves of 5 or 6 miles long by the sides of the rivers. Of these trees sago is made, which the poor country people eat instead of bread 3 or 4 months in the year.”

– English explorer William Dampier’s description of sago in Mindanao (1686)

“Importante na kay panahon sa giyera, mao naman na ang kinaon. Matawag nato nga first and last na pagkaon sa tao. First kay maoy ma dali-dali na pagkaon, last kay kung wa nay pagkaunon mao namay last na duolan ang unaw.”

Sago is very important because during the War, that was what we ate. We can consider it as the first and last food for humans. First because it is a readily dependable food, and last because you resort to it when you have nothing else to eat.

– Tribal Leader of Purok 1, Mambalili

sigay/lunop as seasonality

• flood season is expected annually around November-February

Sago production and consumption is often associated with foragers who are not supposedly dependent on agricultural produce .

More often than not, their konsumo runs low months before the anticipated harvest season begins.

• unaw production is in tune with the socio-ecological rhythms of the place

This hard up period or lean season is often referred to as krisis or pigado. It is on this particular occasion that they usually resort to unaw as an alternative and emergency food source.

The communities in this study are commercial rice farmers. Consequently, they are well entangled into mainstream market economy and most of their farm produce is bought by various local and external buyers - transported and sold elsewhere.

As rice-farming communities, their social life and economic system are embedded in various rice farming-related activities.

They retain only a sufficient amount of rice for domestic consumption (konsumo) while waiting for the next harvest season.

“Should his camote crop fail he falls back upon the sago [lumbia] that abounds in the central Agúsan; or, when sago is not available, he seeks the wild fishtail palm [bahi] that affords him as pleasant and nutritious a food as any sago palm that ever grew.”

– American ethnographer John Garvan’s description on the

‘various kind of food’ among the Manobo of Mindanao (1929)

• another mode of engagement: gantong or sago towing

How do the contemporary communities in Agusan

engage with the sago palm?

How important is it?

When do they engage it?

Why do they still resort to the sago palm in the first place?

possible implications of scarcity/seasonality to other researches on lumbia

“Usually we harvest sago around March-April. Why? That’s the harvest season. So the people here, just like us who have almost depleted our staple rice, eye the kalumbiahan to obtain sago. Alongside with fishing.”

– Shurab Parao's, an Agusanon Manobo informant,

response when asked when do they harvest sago (2013)

• lumbia is a valued plant resource

other important aspects of human-lumbia relations

• kalumbiahan as an important ecotope

• tenure and management

• ethnobiology and ethnoecology

• complex tenurial status

• extraction tools

• non-food uses

• unaw's social life

traditional starch extraction methods

pounding (sakol)

Splitting (buakon)

felling (tumbada)

Selection (mamili)

pressing (hamo)

harvesting

sedimentation

(lugdang)

draining (limas)

Prefatory notes

Metroxylon sagu Rottb.

• soboliferous and hapaxanthic

• usually found in marshes and swampy environment

• locally called lumbia

• engaged primarily for its edible sago starch (unaw) but also notably in thatching as roofing materials, and on rare occasions as floors and walls

sago?

Map source: Applied Geodesy and Space Technology Research Laboratory, Department of Geodetic Engineering and TCAGP, UP Diliman, Quezon City

any edible starch obtained from plants (Tarver and Austin 2000)