ABSTRACT

Where life is regularly menaced by undernourishment, malnutri­ tion, and starvation, the major preoccupation is necessarily and naturally sheer survival. 'Give us our daily bread* is then an urgent appeal for help, not the empty platitude it has become in our embarrassingly affluent society. From this tribal perspective the idea that over-eating could actually become a hazard to health seems at once inconceivable and obscene. From day to day and from season to season, the food quest must receive primary atten­ tion if basic subsistence needs are to be met. Life hangs by a pre­ carious thread, and minor variations in climate, resources, or population can readily plunge a tribal community headlong into disaster. There is either too little rain or too much; desperate droughts are all too often followed by flood and tempest which cause even wider ruin and suffering. Ironically many delicate traditional demographic equilibria are strained further by critical increases in population following the introduction and diffusion of modern medical facilities. Inadequate traditional storage facilities and deficiencies in transport and communications drastically limit the beneficial effect of local surpluses in a bountiful year. The crippling impact of lean years is thus difficult to alleviate. Pro­ duction, moreover, tends to concentrate upon a few major re­ sources and this, combining with the other constraints mentioned, means that the economy as a whole can have little elasticity.