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The dominant forest type of the region, the doḍḍa ka:nu ‘ evergreen forest ’, also
displays seasonal characteristics, in spite of the impression of changelessness that
the English gloss ‘evergreen’ tends to impart. Even though it is cool and dark year
round, and has a permanent water supply, it is home to animals like the buffalo and
pangolin for only part of the year. These animals prefer to live in the lowland forests
during the rainy season. Honeybees, on the other hand, start to arrive in the doḍḍa
ka:nu in March–April, just prior to the start of the rainy season, when the fl owers of
the honne tree start to bloom (see Chap. 6 for more details on seasonal cycle s ).
Finally, certain types of aṇabe ‘ mushrooms ’ can be found in the doḍḍa ka:nu only
in the rainy season—these include doḍḍaṇabe , ko:ḷi aṇabe , beṇḍe aṇabe and eṇṇe
aṇabe , which start to appear in June–July.
While the examples given above are testimony to the remarkably detailed knowl-
edge that the Solega have of forest resource availability and the movements of wild
birds and animals, they are not nearly as impressive as my consultants’ ability to
accurately report the phenological status, at any given moment, of any of the 300 or
so tree species known to them (Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.5 ). This awareness of tree life
cycles is inextricably linked with the knowledge of the kinds of habitats in which
they normally grow. Many of the landscape/forest terms discussed above are
strongly associated with very specifi c suites of tree species (which may or may not
overlap with the species growing in other forest types). By combining such distribu-
tional information with the phenological information for practically every single
tree species known to them, the Solega have the potential to construct a detailed and
dynamic three-dimensional botanical map of their ancestral lands. When other
information, such as their knowledge of animal movements and water availability,
is overlaid onto this map, it results in a map of accessible resources that is constantly
updated with the passing of the months. Figure 5.4 represents a much simplifi ed
version of this concept, with the time dimension depicted along the x-axis, and three
forest types arbitrarily arranged along the y-axis (the complex spatial relations
between the three landscape/forest types have been omitted for the sake of clarity).
In the month of March, for instance, the ka:nu ka:ḍu would still be inhabited by
buffaloes, civets, monkeys, etc., and honeybees would have only just started to
arrive from the lowland forests, to coincide with the fl owering of the honne tree.
Trees like the kara:va:di ( Persea macrantha ) would already be producing ripe,
edible fruit, while others, like the matti and bejja , would still be bare. At the same
time, in the guddega:ḍu and the maṭṭa:ga:ḍu , one would expect to fi nd the animals
and plants mentioned earlier, and react accordingly to effi ciently and safely collect
the appropriate resources. The Solega therefore have the potential to perceive their
ancestral lands as a patchwork of forest types, each one changing with the seasons
to yield different resources at different times of the year.
Figure 5.5 shows four landscape/forest types arranged in a single linear transect.
The real ecosystem is, of course, not as simple as depicted, because the various
landscape/forest types would form a two-dimensional mosaic with far more compli-
cated boundaries, overlaid on the third dimension of elevation. Still, the fi gure pro-
vides a good overview of the kinds of phenomena that Solega people would associate
with each location, in different seasons.
5 Landscape Terms in Solega