コンゴ盆地の食文化と 農業イノベーションの歴史. (Japanese)

A History of Food Culture and Agricultural Innovations in the Congo Basin. (English)

GUINEA; CONGO River Watershed; SAHARA

This article reviews the history of agri-food culture in the Congo Basin in the light of recent advances in linguistic and archaeobiological studies, including new findings from genome and isotope analyses of humans and cultivated plants. In particular, it focuses on dietary and agricultural innovations made during the 20th century by using the example of the Songola, a Bantu-speaking people in the Maniema Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 10200 and 8400 years ago, people in the humid green Sahara were involved in hunting, fishing and gathering, using ceramic pots to cook their food. The desertification of the Sahara might have been a compelling factor for the inhabitants to commence in the domestication of pearl millet, African rice, and Guinea yam along the Niger River. Later, Bantu-speaking people penetrated into the Central African forest with their iron tools and domesticated plants, living side by side with the hunter- gatherers who had already lived in the forest long before the “Bantu expansion.” The major crops of these early Bantu migrants included oil palm and other plants of vegetative reproduction such as Guinea yam. When they accepted banana/plantains from Asia, and later cassava from South America, their capacity for cooking food and brewing alcoholic beverages developed significantly both in terms of diversity and quantity. When the authors carried out their fieldwork between 1978 and 1990 among the Songola people in the eastern part of the Congo Basin, the traditional food culture created as a result of the three-stage “vegecultural revolution,” that is the introduction of Guinea yam, plantain, and cassava, was still in place. The introduction of rice, cassava flour, and mold-fermented liquor in the early 20th century were other major innovations which led to creating new trade items. These recent innovations, as well as those implemented in the past, are the result of continuous improvements carried out by villagers, which might be viewed as an embodiment of their “food sovereignty.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

本論文ではコンゴ盆地の食文化の歴史を，人と植物のゲノム分析や安定同位体分析を含む生物考古学，言語 学の最新の研究成果によってレビューした上で，コンゴ盆地東部マニエマ地方のバンツー系ソンゴーラ人を例 として，20 世紀の民族誌データを加えて，コンゴ盆地における食と農のイノベーションの歴史を復元した。 1 万年以上前からすでに，湿潤な「緑のサハラ」には土器をともなう採集，狩猟，漁労を生業とする人々が いた。約 5000 年前からの気候の乾燥化によって南下した人々は，ニジェール川のほとりで穀物のトウジンビエ， アフリカイネと，根栽のギニアヤムの栽培化に成功し農耕を開始した。農耕以前から移動を開始していたバン ツー諸語話者は，その後製鉄技術とアブラヤシとギニアヤムを携えて森に入り，バンツー拡散のはるか昔から 森にいた採集狩猟民とともに暮らし始めた。(1) ギニアヤムに加えて，新たな焼畑作物として，(2) アジアから のバナナ，(3) 南アメリカからのキャッサバの導入という，3 次にわたる根栽農耕革命を経て，各段階で食と酒 の文化がどのように展開したかを，本稿では推定復元した。次に，ソンゴーラ人の，1900 年から 1904 年の民 族誌と 1978 年から 1990 年の著者らのフィールドデータを用いて，20 世紀の変化を追った。1915 年からのア ジアイネの粒食の導入，1932 年からのキャッサバの粉食とこれらを組み合わせたカビ発酵酒の導入は，新たな 交易品の獲得となる大きなイノベーションであった。採集・狩猟・漁労と根栽農耕を基盤とする食文化の伝統 に何を付け加えたかは，まさに「食料主権」というべき，地域住民の主体的選択の結果であった。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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