*3.2. Shifting, Fire-Fallow, and Intercropping Cultivation in the Millet Culture*

Tayal people have a myth (Figure 4) about shooting the sun; this story is evidently the people's response to climate change in natural history, which also has to do with millets. Legend says that a long time ago, two suns appeared in the sky and caused a great drought. The Tayal chose brave warriors to carry infants on their back and go where the sun was. During the long journey, the children grew up and finally shot down one of the suns to restore life to the earth. Throughout the long journey, each warrior kept a tiny tube in his earlobe, and inside the tube were millet grains. Millets were to be sowed on their path, so that the warriors could find their way home and meanwhile secured enough food for their travels. The elders often repeat this story, as if to tell us that climate change is not a modern occurrence.

Millet plays an important role in the Tayal migratory epic. According to the elders, traditional millet cultivation has three important ecological secrets: first, fire-fallow cultivation; second, shifting cultivation; and third, intercropping. Millet is a drought-tolerant crop so it does not need a complex irrigation system, and it is often grown on uneven lands and steep hills (Figure 5). The changes to agriculture due to limitations of the topography show Tayal people's adaptability to mountain life.

**Figure 4.** A wall painting about the myth of "Shooting the Sun" in Cinsbu Church. (Photo by Yih-Ren Lin).

**Figure 5.** A sketch of traditional millet field on a mountain slope (Sketch by Wen-Chi Liao).

The Tayal practice fire-fallow cultivation because they do not separate forestry from agriculture as modern land management would. When the Tayal ancestors first arrived in a new location, they would clear up trees and weeds, and then burned them. Next, they would mix ashes with the dirt and use them as a kind of natural fertilizer and start to farm. In the fire-fallow process, they used fire very delicately. Determining wind direction and when to ignite the fires are skills necessary for fire-fallowing; otherwise it could lead to devastating forest fires. Through this farming method, the Tayal could artificially turn their woods into fields and, more interestingly, recover their fields into woods.

This use of land brings us to a discussion on shifting cultivation. Realizing how long-term farming would make the land less fertile and make it hard for the millets to grow, the Tayal practiced shifting cultivation. Unlike modern agriculture where farmers keep adding fertilizer, the Tayal ancestors chose to let their land rest. Letting the land rest is a special feature of the millet's shifting cultivation. Moreover, while they let the land rest, the Tayal grow Makino bamboo (Figure 6), which they call "luma" or they grow Formosan alder (*Alnus formosana* Makino), "iboh". The Tayal people are very dependent on Makino bamboo; bamboo shoots are a source of food, and bamboo stem is used for construction. As for alder trees, they are a heliotropic plant that form symbiotic relationships with

the rhizobium that grows in its roots. Rhizobium has the ability to fix nitrogen into the soil, so once they burn the alder after a few years, the land retains the nitrogen rich soil. Thus, through implementing shifting and fire-fallow cultivation, the Tayal people have created a complex adaptive ecosystem. They are a part of nature, and not apart from it. This could be what the North American Chief Seattle truly meant when he said that man belongs to the earth.

Intercropping is still another special feature of the millet fields. Instead of saying that the millet is the only crop, you might say that it is the flagship crop behind the creation of the Tayal homeland. Traditionally, besides the millet, in a millet field there are also sweet potatoes, taros, corns, pigeon peas and other different crops. Other grains and beans are grown amongst the millets, creating a nutritious diet for the Tayal, which contains protein-rich beans as well as starch (Figure 7). Furthermore, these crops also attract animals like birds, mice, and wild boars. The Tayal set traps for the animals in the fields, adding a new source for animal protein. The elders told us that in the past, millet was very rare and had to be carefully protected. One night, the person guarding the millet field heard a clanking sound and thought it was a thief. But upon listening carefully, he found that the noise was coming from beneath the ground and it was the sound of the sweet potato roots expanding. These roots created crevices and space in the soil, allowing the millet to sprout. The story of sweet potatoes helping the millet grow was a touching tale of ecological symbiosis to our ears. The concept of an ecological network has already long been passed down in the indigenous culture. According to the Pacific Island indigenous myth, peas, corn, and cassava are three sisters. Cassava loosens the soil underground to let Corn grow vertically upwards, and Peas can grow along the cornstalk, creating an interdependent/intercropping ecosystem. The intercropping tradition convey strong ecological significance while the Green Revolution of modern agriculture endorses mass production of a single crop, going against the balance of nature.

**Figure 6.** Resting millet field covered by the vegetation of Makino Bamboo.

In short, fire-fallow, shifting, and intercropping cultivation in the Tayal millet culture formulate a harmonious union of farming and the ecological system. This is most likely a result of long-term evolution and adaptation. Even more noteworthy is that this kind of codependency and mutual support is especially important under the context of climate change. As a major staple food, millets facilitate and shape the dynamic development of Tayal's traditional territory, in which the responsive strategies to climate change reside.

**Figure 7.** A traditional mix-cropping millet field and the traps for animals (Sketch by Wen-Chi Liao).
