ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on research in Doyon, a transhumantagro-pastoral community in Northwest Yunnan, China,which lies at the southeastern limit of the Himalayan mountain range. Much of the literature on transhumant agropastoralism in the Himalayan region has been concerned with the interaction of spatial resource use and time, illustrating that spatial mobility over the annual cycle not only enables farmerherders to make good use of a variety of fodder resources but also limits potential conflicts between agricultural production and livestock management (e.g. Fricke 1989; Casimir and Rao 1985; Ehlers and Kreutzmann 2000; Stevens 1993). Rather than providing a detailed account of herders’ spatial use of forage resources, the main focus of the chapter is on how villagers understand the process of plant growth and its implications for animal and human health. It is seen that the forces that drive the annual cycle of plant growth enabling the growth of crops for feeding people and grass for feeding livestock, also adversely affect both humans and cattle. In order to maintain the health of their cattle, most villagers feed them meat. The chapter describes two cultural models through which villagers explain the interactions between plant growth processes, and human and livestock health. It also describes some incidents which occurred in interactions between villagers and the staff of a Chinese nongovernmental organization (NGO) which has been working on problems in animal husbandry in the village. These interactions show that cultural models concerning plant growth and animal health underlay the ways in which villagers ‘indigenized’ the exotic fodder technologies introduced by the NGO.
