ABSTRACT
Map 5.2: Average rainfall figures on Sulawesi (adapted ii'om M. Kornrumpf. Mensch ttnd LandschaJt auf Celebes [Breslau: Hirt 1935])
The food crop production of these coastal areas was of course dominated by crops that were relatively drought-resistant such as foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and maize (Zea mays), supplemented with crops like tubers (ubi, especially Dioscorea hispida). Rice cultivation was virtually absent (Broersma, 1930: 31; van der Hart, 1853: 15; Radermacher, 1786: 158). Millet and ubi (tubers) were the staple crops prior to the introduction of maize in the seventeenth century.3 Maize first arrived in North Sulawesi via the Philippines, where it had been introduced from South America by the Spaniards. It became increasingly important in the diet, especially during the nineteenth century (Collins, 1936: 116; Heersink, 1995: 84; Stibbe and Sandbergen 1935 [7]: lO7). Henley, in an unpublished paper, attributed the success of maize to several factors: that it was relatively well adapted to dry and barren conditions; its productivity was high on marginal soils; and it also could be integrated into the existing agricultural cycle since it hardly competed with older crops. Maize also increased the diversity in the local subsistence cultivation and decreased the overall risk of crop failures (Henley, 1993). The basic diet of imported rice, maize, millet, tubers and sago was supplemented by game, fish, bananas, coconuts and edible leaves while a broad spectrum of less nutritious plants was consumed during famines, such as mango stones and the pith of the kuala (Corypha gebanga) (van den Brink, 1943: 247-248; Heersink, 1995: 20).
