In Royal Commentaries, Garcilosa opens with a transcription of the oral retellings he grew up with of the origins of the Inca Kings. He writes that before the Incas came, the people lived “without tilling or sowing the soil”. Then, the first Inca prince and princess taught the people to “till the soil, and grow plants and crops, and breed flocks, and use the fruits of the earth like rational beings and not like beasts.” During our visit to the Pisaq ruins today, the tour guide said the Incas brought “civilized society” to the peoples of these mountains through the introduction of agriculture. It wasn’t very clear, but I think he explained that before the Incas, the people gathered wild foods.
I think it’s interesting that in both these narratives, the implementation of organized agriculture is a defining factor for what makes a society “civilized”. I think about this in relation to “Canada”, where European agriculture was very much weaponized by the government as a tool of assimilation. Perhaps you’ve heard of the forest food gardens of the Coast Salish and Ts’msyen peoples along the northwest Pacific coast. For the longest time, academics believed these forests were untouched and that these peoples were solely hunter-gatherers before they were introduced to European agriculture, because they failed to recognize that ways of actively cultivating food existed outside of our narrow idea of what agriculture entails. People were actually harvesting from very carefully managed gardens designed to be in-tune with the surrounding forest. The dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands was justified by the claim that they were not using their lands to their full potential; that their lands weren’t productive enough. The idea was that a claim to land was only legitimate if you intended to cultivate it in the way the Europeans did. This destroyed Indigenous food systems, both physically and through the severance of lineages of intergenerational knowledge transfer, and severely disrupted Indigenous diets.
So, I wonder about pre-Incan systems of agriculture. Were the people really just gatherers? Maybe agriculture wouldn’t even be the right word for their way of growing food. How do we define agriculture? Is any human system of working with plants in a way that benefits them an “agricultural” system? In my classes where we’ve discussed Indigenous food systems in “Canada”, we don’t (or we very rarely) use “agricultural” to describe Indigenous systems of growing food because in this context, the colonial connotations outweigh it’s usefulness as a descriptive term. In this case, the sign or the representation (our knee-jerk image of what agriculture looks like) is too far off from the reality to be of use.
But even if a people were solely hunters and gatherers, does that make them less “civilized”? Or less deserving of respect? Since we’ve really been on a let’s define things streak recently, how would we define civilization? And under that definition, is it an ideal that we should or must strive towards?
Edit: Changed my question and title according to Jon’s comment.
3 replies on “Agriculture as a mark of civilization”
“Since we’ve really been on a let’s define things streak recently, how would we define civility? And under that definition, is it an ideal that we should or must strive towards?”
I think you mean “civilization,” and if so this is a good question. I’m thinking back to how proudly the guide at the Museo Larco told us that Peru was the only “cradle of civilization” in the Americas (if I remember correctly), and one of only six worldwide.
But it’s complicated. Depending on what we mean by “civilization” (and it’s a good question to ask us to define it), this may include the use of technology and so on… and we might understand why people are proud of the Inca walls, counting system, and other indices of “advancement.”
We might see why Garcilaso might want to emphasize this. But yes: why should be prioritize this, necessarily? Why should it be “worse” for the Spaniards to destroy an “advanced civilization” such as the Incas, compared (say) to the more “primitive” Taino in the Caribbean?
I always love reading your thoughts because you bring up a lot of points that I wouldn’t have thought about, or had the knowledge to explore. I think agriculture is such a key component to any ‘civilization’ or ’empire’, but it’s often shrugged off as a quiet expectation, of which we hold to a European standard of quality. Agriculture and the ecosystems of land is absolutely a way in which colonization (unfortunately) manifests and manipulates. Agriculture is what allows/disallows people/empire to thrive, and ecology can also be Indigenous! I don’t have an answer to your question, but it does remind me of how intertwined Indigeneity is with land, or rather, the understanding/harmony with the land. Perhaps civility or civilization must broaden so that we can understand these nuances beyond our Westernized/Europeanized ways of thinking.
Woah. I really feel the points you’ve brought up and appreciate your perspective so much. I feel that the minimal interference way of nourishing bodies is overlooked as we can’t measure it in our conventional ways (?) I was thinking about the need/rational for expansion of bodies.
So fascinating to imagine the methods of substance of pre-inca societies not so focused on agriculture. The intact relations to spaces of wild harvest and knowledge of how to cultivate natures. I’m not sure what it says of “what we must strive for,” I guess to understand better/ participate in Indigenous food ways.. and critically question what the use of lands to “full potential” purposes. & save seeds~