122 Part II: Outsiders
area of Meto had become “just another jungle valley with few signs of its for-
mer habitation.” Where did they go? Almost all the planting area had shifted to
the northeast, five or six kilometers away. People had begun building field huts,
then improving them until they became like second homes, while they spent
less and less time in the village. Eventually the final step was to abandon the
original village and move out to the newly developing area. In the process,
however, only some members of the old village reassembled at the new one.
Others went off in other directions, forming new communities elsewhere.
The great problem of the last few decades, however, is finding new land
that is not already in the control of another group. There is virtually no virgin
forest left, and population growth in the hills means that there are already
claims on almost all the land. The result is that people at Chengmengmai were
beginning to talk about terracing their hillsides so they could turn to the wet-
rice cultivation practiced in the valleys that enables one to go on using the same
land practically forever. But terraces are expensive to build and maintain, and
they would need a dam in order to channel the water, which they were looking
to the government to build.
Hmong tend to idealize the lowlanders’ wet-rice system, viewing it as an
easier life than their own life in the hills, but most of the evidence suggests they
are wrong. A compilation of studies on the labor expenditures by foragers,
swiddeners, and intensive (plow) agriculturists suggests that in the sort of inten-
sive cultivation required by the wet-rice method, Hmong labor investment will
radically increase (Ember 1983).Anthropologist Edmund Leach (1964) described the keen admiration that
British administrators had for the terraces of the upland Burmese during the
early days of British control. It seemed like a highly efficient utilization of land,
and they encouraged the highland peoples to extend the practice. But the more
encouragement given by the British and the more political conditions became
settled so that agriculture could proceed peacefully, the fewer new terraces
went in. Gradually, in fact, people began dissolving back into the forest, return-
ing to ancient methods of swidden cultivation. The explanation proved simple
and logical. Terrace cultivation was so expensive and so labor intensive that
only certain kinds of conditions forced people to it. One of these was chronicAverage Men Women
foragers 14
swiddeners 41 36 46
intensive cultivators 70 63 75Figure 4.2 Hours worked per week