Faces of Culture

Patterns of Subsistence: The Food Producers

This program examines several different models of food production and various features of food-producing societies. First shown are the Yucatec Maya employing the "slash-and-burn" technique of soil preparation. Rituals associated with food production are illustrated with film of Melanesian farmers practicing the hazardous land-diving ritual originally intended to ensure a good yam harvest. The program also looks at several examples of intensive agriculture, including that practiced by the Khmer in Angkor and by North Americans on the Great Plains. Other societies featured in the program are the Taiwanese and wet rice cultivation and the Balinese.