ABSTRACT
Since it is common practice in British Guiana to refer to a 'Negro peasantry' and make the assumption that villages are peasant communities, composed of small farmers and their families struggling to make a living from the soil, it is necessary to stress time and again the fact that the household in a rural Negro village community is not by any means the kind of corporate productive unit encountered in the general run of peasant societies. It is not tied to a farm which is the basis of its existence, and the productive activities of its members do not fall into place as parts of a total pattern of exploitation of a natural environment. For any particular household the overriding consideration is the acquisition of cash income, and cash is in turn the means of acquiring necessary goods and services. Subsistence crops and the unsold portion of products accruing from agricultural activity generally, are regarded as supplementary to the money income of the group, in the same way that kitchen garden produce is regarded in this country. A striking example of the truth of this statement is to be seen in the fact that all magical practices concerned with acquiring wealth are directed towards getting money, or 'gold', and not towards ensuring the productivity of farms or the increase of animal stock (I). No instance of anyone employing any kind of supernatural aids to farming was encountered during the course of field-work. On the other hand, rational techniques for improving the
yields of farms and the quality of produce are extremely difficult to introduce into the Negro communities, and the methods of agricultural production are just about as rudimentary as they could be. This is a generalization of course, and the few exceptions to the rule do not invalidate it. Where better methods are employed one's immediate reaction is to find out if the operator is a non-Negro, and in the majority of cases this is so.
