Things have changed over time but in the old days the villagers had a huge pristine forest with all kinds of trees and fruits. These were small villages of about 100-300 people. They could never grow into large societies because of every time there was a fight between family members the outcast member would take his wives and children and move to a different area of the forest and start a new tribe. That is why there were so many tribes and so many similar but different languages. One common root language but many diverging languages from the break up of the original tribe.

Things are different now with commercialization and over population but at that time there were plenty of wild fruits. You did not have to grow them, they were just part of the natural environment. We could eat papaya or pineapple from the tree while working during the day at the farm, yet the villagers would not feel satisfy unless later at home they had their meal of rice, yam, plantain with bush meat or fish. He had eaten fruits but that was a snack he has not really eaten. That was the sentiment always. Did they know by observation that fruit was not satisfying enough? Sure they knew. Maybe they were wrong. Or may be it is still true that fruit is not enough. And here we are talking about tree ripen wild fruits. No chemical. That was not enough, they needed meat or fish. Veganism was not popular then.


Yet the process of growing rice or yams is very labor intense and the rewards were not always certain when the rain does not come. And they thought they needed to acquire new land every season to grow these crops. Of course there was plenty of it at that time. The rice land the year before was used to grow plantain, yams, and others but for rice they needed new land. The problem with growing rice is that you had to fight many battles. The rain for one thing but the birds, the wild animals. As children growing up that was one of our tasks, spend the day in the rice field to chase away birds trying to eat the rice. and when the rice is ready, the wives have to cut it by hand which is very time consuming. That calls for a large family... So when the catholic priests came into the scene and told the villagers in the process of evangelization to have only one wife, it was not well received by most. There were also many child deaths so a large family was an insurance.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2016 03:48PM by RawPracticalist.

Hi Raw P,
Wow, thanks for sharing and educating us.
It does seem like a sin to chop a fruit tree down to grow a seasonal crop.
Even though fruit has less calories than starch, it is, at the very minimum, an important medicine to clean and nourish the body. Therefore, chopping fruit trees down is not the answer whatsoever.
I am sure they could have used permaculture to get around that.
Amaranth is a "starchy" seed that has the potential to work well next to trees. The leaves are a medicine themselves and exposed to prolonged sun, they will shrivel too fast, so some shade while the plant is growing could prolong their life.
Do you know how raw foodists have eaten amaranth raw? They sprout it, dry it and powder it. I have done that to the white amaranth and it is very good. It seems rather difficult to eat fresh and raw. But in any case, it rivals rice for calories and is good for bone health.
THe black amaranth is great for growing microgreens.
I have never grown quinoa but it also might work well in permaculture with trees.
Vine tomatoes and vine spinach (malabar) and vine beans also work well with permaculture.

The other thing about a large fruit tree is that birds can eat from the top of the tree, where humans cannot even reach, so they can live peacefully together, because humans should take care of birds. Birds are our friends. Birds help to beautify the landscape, at the very least, so humans should figure out how to feed them.
On the ground, cats do a great job of chasing birds, so if there are a lot of trees, birds could not land easily on the ground and cats could chase away the ones that do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2016 08:15PM by Tai.

Food is really local and cultural. The villagers would not eat amaranth.
They do not even eat Chinese rice that is easier to grow along the river on the same land and does not require to cut down trees. They want their traditional rice.

The villagers in the forest have too many herbs for health, they do not use or do not need fruits. They do eat fruits but they do not view them as medicine. They have some fruit or herb seeds they use too for medicine but most of the times it is the herbs that are used even for healing wounds.

For us in modern societies we have access to the supply of food worldwide. That is great.