WORKING DRAFT of 17 July 2000 B includes notes, refs, and tables. Not for attribution without permission of author. To be published as:  Social Competition, Social Intelligence, and Why the Bugis Know More about Cooking than about Nutrition. In The Origins of Human Social Institutions. W.G. Runciman, ed. Proceedings of the British Academy. London: British Academy.

 

SOCIAL COMPETITION, SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND WHY THE BUGIS KNOW MORE ABOUT COOKING THAN ABOUT NUTRITION[i]

 

Jerome H. Barkow, Phd[ii]

Dalhousie University

Halifax, N.S.

Canada B3H 3J5

 

Nurpudji Astuti Taslim, MPH, MD

Center for Food, Nutrition, and Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Veni Hadju, MD, Phd

Center for Food, Nutrition, and Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Elly Ishak MSc, Phd

School of Agriculture

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Faisal Attamimi, M.Sc.

Center for Food, Nutrition, and Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Sani Silwana, MPH

School of Public Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Djunaidi M. Dachlan, MSc, MD

 Center for Food, Nutrition, and Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

Ramli, MSc

Center for Food, Nutrition, and Health

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

A. Yahya, MA

Faculty of Socio-Political Studies

Hasanuddin University

Makassar (Ujung Pandang), Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABSTRACT: Indigenous knowledge is a loose term for the locally-based technical knowledge of pre-industrial communities. Much indigenous knowledge is of immense value, particularly in fields such as agriculture, ecological management, herbal medicine and fisheries, but in some domains, particularly that of child nutrition, it may be less effective. A recent multidisciplinary food/health/culture project in the former Bugis kingdom now known as Boné District, in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, revealed that indigenous knowledge of nutrition was at times arguably dangerous to the health of infants and children. Indigenous knowledge of cuisine, however, was highly elaborated,  producing sumptuous dishes pleasing to  many palates. For the evolutionist, this situation is at first glance unexpected, given the apparently close connection between infant nutrition and reproductive success. This ironic situation can be resolved if we view human intelligence as having evolved to solve problems of social living and competition, problems involving a relatively short timeframe. Bugis cuisine, like many other cuisines, was developed in the context of social competition and short tmeframe corrective information. Child nutrition, though possibly having competitive elements, may have a timeframe too long for our evolved error-correction mechanisms to be very effective.

 

 

 

 

A      INTRODUCTION

At first glance, asking about the accuracy and adaptiveness of aspects of culture seems unnecessary (Aunger, 1994a; Barkow, 1989a, 1989b). Our species is utterly dependent on culture: culture and our capacity for culture co-evolved (Dobzhansky 1963, Geertz 1962) and culture is the chief tool our species uses in adapting to environment. Should not cultural (indigenous) knowledge, therefore, be adaptive? And if any domain of indigenous knowledge should be adaptive, should it not be knowledge about food? Let us go one step further: if knowledge about food should be adaptive, should not knowledge about the food needs of infants and young children be especially accurate?

 

This paper is a serendipitous product of a  study of foodways and nutrition funded by the Canadian International Development Agency and coordinated by Dalhousie University. The research focussed on the nutritional status of pregnant women and of children under five in two small Bugis-speaking communities in Boné District, South Sulawesi. One community is an inland, rice-growing village (Taretta), the other a coastal fishing village (Panyula). The total sample of households studied was 156. Our concern was with diet, nutrition, and food processing. The data were collected during May-August 1999 and, as of this writing, continue to be analyzed.

 

In the course of this study, we became aware of a certain irony: on the one hand, knowledge of cuisine was highly developed; on the other hand, knowledge of nutrition was not. An evolutionary perspective seems to suggest that the cultural emphases should have been reversed B indigenous knowledge about nutrition should have had priority over indigenous knowledge of cuisine.  This paper explores that incongruity. The plan of attack will be: 1) to define some terms; 2) to prepare a theoretical context for the data; 3) to describe indigenous knowledge about cooking; 4) to describe indigenous knowledge of nutrition and the nutritional status of young children and their mothers; and 5) to seek to understand how it is that people can be better cooks than nutritionists.

 

A      DEFINITIONS

We will use Aculture@ to mean a pool of shared information associated with one or more populations that may be geographically localized or widely distributed or both (Barkow, 1989a).  It is assumed that pools overlap, and that specific items of information may occur in any number of pools. Individuals use the information in these culture pools, selecting, revising, contributing, and Atransmitting@ items. A particular individual may have access to more than one pool of information: the present age of Aglobalisation@ is one in which information pools are constantly splashing into one another. These pools of cultural information can usefully be thought of as being composed of Aparticles@ By Aparticles@ or  Ainformation items@ within a pool is meant very loosely what some have termed Aculturgens@ (Lumsden and Wilson 1981), Amemes@ (Blackmore 1999, Dawkins 1976), and Atraits@ (Boyd and Richerson 1985).  It is not assumed that these particles are discrete B individuals constantly alter them in using them B while their Atransmission@ is always problematic, involving inference and approximation rather than precise duplication (Boyer, 1998; Sperber, 1996). This process presumably involves various evolved mechanisms of the brain, so that different kinds of information may be processed differently (Barkow, 1989a).

 

By Amaladaptive@we mean any behavior or knowledge leading to behavior that reduces the genetic fitness of the individuals so-behaving. The best available indicator of a maladaptive behavior is evidence of it leading to lower completed fertility, though behaviors increasing the likelihood of malnutrition can be useful, if somewhat problematic, indicators of maladaptation.

 

By Acuisine@ we mean a specific tradition of processing and preparation of food. By Anutrition@ is meant  nourishment of the human body, the ingestion of nutrients that help to sustain the body in a state of health.

 

The term Aindigenous knowledge@ is most often used in the context of socioeconomic development, where it is often associated with participatory approaches to development and with the issue of intellectual property rights. In this development context it tends to focus on the technical knowledge of local communities, with regard, for example, to agricultural techniques, to the management of resources such as fisheries and forests, to local pharmaceuticals and health promotion and healing practices.  As Sillitoe (1998, 224) points out, Aindigenous-knowledge research sets out explicitly to make connections between local people=s understandings and practices and those of the outside researchers and development workers, notably in the natural-resources and health sectors.@ (For useful discussions of indigenous knowledge, see  Antweiler, 1998; Ellen and Harris, 1997; Grenier, 1998; Nygren, 1999; Rhoades and Bebbington, 1995; Semali and Kincheloe, 1999; Sillitoe, 1998; Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha, 1995).

 

A      THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

There appears to be no existing literature directly comparing the extent of indigenous  knowledge of cooking with indigenous knowledge of nutrition. More surprisingly, we have not been able to find a literature seeking to understand the nature and effectiveness of indigenous knowledge domains in the light of our understanding of human intelligence and its evolution. There is, however: (1) a literature analyzing our taste preferences from an evolutionary perspective; (2) another arguing that indigenous knowledge of food processing can increase nutritional value and/or remove toxins; and (3) a third literature that asks whether local food prohibitions can be maladaptive.

 

B      Evolutionary Perspective

Food is obviously crucial to fitness.  Eaton, Shostak and Konner (1988) argue convincingly that our taste preferences are geared to essential  nutrients likely to have often been in short supply during the Pleistocene. Presumably due to the resulting natural selection, our preferences are for the sweetness that indicates ripe fruit and likely absence of toxins, the savoriness of the salt that can be difficult to find away from coastal regions, and the satisfaction associated with fats and oils and their concentrated calories. We love these tastes (as the manufacturers of industrial foods well know).  Other nutrients, such as fiber and vitamin C, were much less likely to have been rare, in previous environments,  so there presumably was weaker selection pressure to prefer nutriments containing them.  Our food tastes, in short, would appear to have evolved as guides to proper nutrition in Pleistocene environments.

 

We have been cooks for anywhere from 200,000 years (Brace, 1996) to 1.6 million years (Wrangham et al. 1999, 572). Even the more conservative figure implies that there has been a sufficient number of generations (depending on strength of selection pressure and existing Aexaptations@) for us to have evolved mechanisms, algorithms, or rules-of-thumb that would tend to result in good nutrition for a fire-using, food-processing species. Have we done so?

 

B      Indigenous knowledge of beneficial food-processing techniques

Katz et al. (1974) found that Mayan processing of ground dried maize with limestone increases the tryptophan content while adding calcium to the diet (tryptophan being a precursor of niacin a deficiency of which causes the disease pellagra).  Bogin (1997,117) points out that many of the foods people have eaten would be poisonous without considerable processing (e.g. manioc, horse chestnuts), while rhubarb and cashews are toxic unless treated with heat before being eaten. Spice mixtures that kill or suppress harmful bacteria and fungi are common, cross-culturally, particularly in the warm regions where they are most needed (Billing and Sherman 1998). No doubt food-processing techniques that increase availability of nutrients and/or make food safer abound (cooking, in a great many cases, being an obvious example). We do not, however, know where such indigenous knowledge comes from. One could argue that such information particles (Amemes@) are invented serendipitously and then become common through processes involving Amemetics@ rather than genetics or the nature of human intelligence. For example, the rule of Aimitate the successful@ (Barkow, 1989a; Boyd and Richerson, 1985) could explain the spread of such techniques, as others noticed that the innovators and their families were healthier than most. However, we should keep in mind that our sample of human societies is very heavily biased . . . in favor of survivors! We only have knowledge of successful societies.  Groups that followed practices that left them more malnourished, diseased, or poisoned than competing societies have presumably been less available for study than groups that, among other things, got at least some of their nutritional practices right.  Therefore, in studying indigenous knowledge and practices regarding food, we would expect that these in general lead to proper nutrition and health but we should not expect perfection: some practices might be potentially harmful.  Because the theoretical context here involves biological evolution, we also should question whether any presumably potentially harmful local knowledge actually has consequences for nutritional status and ultimately for genetic fitness. The literature on this question is sparse, however, and focusses primarily on food prohibitions.

 

B                              Can local food prohibitions be maladaptive?         

Are cultural food prohibitions (taboos) maladaptive (or at least unhealthy) for the individuals who follow them?  One school of thought argues that they can be, at least potentially (e.g., Hull, 1986; Katona-Apte, 1977; Wilson, 1973; Wolff, 1965), while others are unconvinced and/or emphasize that it is poverty that is without doubt the most important cause of malnutrition. Various studies have found that, around the world, women often have food restrictions imposed on them, either during specific periods or in general; these tend to involve high protein foods that are mostly likely to be forbidden during pregnancy (Rosenberg, 1980). For example, Gabriella Ferro-Luzzi (1973) interviewed some 1200 women in Tamil Nadu, India.  She found that the women were subject to over 100 food avoidances associated with menstruation, lactation, and childbirth, and she concluded that these restrictions were harmful to the women and to their children. Marvin Harris (1987), however, points out that the Tamil Nadu women may have regularly violated the rules, the forbidden foods may not have been part of their normal diet even when not pregnant or lactating, and they could have been compensating by eating additional foods or larger-than-usual quantities of other foods. Moreover, criticizes Harris, Ferro-Luzzi used interview data rather than systematic observation and measurement of what the women actually consumed.  In support of his position, he gives us the example of Wilson=s (1973) study of Ru Madu, a fishing village on the East Coast of Malaysia. Wilson compared interview data on what women said they were not supposed to eat during the first 40 days post-partum with what two post-partum women actually ate during that period. There were marked discrepancies.[iii] Laderman (1984: 547) argues convincingly for Abehavioral flexibility in the face of ideology@ with regard to food behavior.

 

More recent research has painstakingly focussed on actual consumption and not merely claims of food restrictions. In general, the result seems to be that most of the time the restrictions make no difference, but occasionally they do. Aunger, for example, concludes that the impact of food taboos in his research area is slight, and  Aonly at the extreme range of undernutrition do further nutritional decrements actually translate into fitness differences@ (1994a, 303).  In his methodologically meticulous study (1994a, 1994b) conducted among four groups in the Ituri Forest (of what was then known as Zaïre and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo), he found that there was evidence of lowered reproductive success (completed fertility) in only one of those groups, and then in less than 5% of the women. These individuals most likely  Alived at the margin of energy balance@ (1994a: 290). Kikafunda et al. (1998) found even less evidence of food taboos affecting health. They studied 261 under-30-month-old infants/toddlers in Uganda. They did find much evidence of malnutrition, but anthropometric measurements showed no relationship between food taboos and either stunting or underweight. Food taboos, in short, appear to have little or no effect on nutritional status and on genetic fitness. As Laderman (1984:549) points out, the term itself seems to imply a rigid rule and a belief in supernatural repercussions if it is transgressed.  In fact, as she discovered for a Malay village in Malaysia and as we found in South Sulawesi, food Ataboos@ are better thought of as rules that may be interpreted flexibly or simply ignored. Moreover, for few if any societies do such prohibitions make up more than a small part of indigenous knowledge and practices regarding food and nutrition.

 

Several caveats are necessary before we begin describing indigenous knowledge of cuisine and nutrition in the two South Sulawesi communities studied.  First, as we have already argued, it is a serious error to assume that people rigidly follow their food ideologies.  Second, as we shall shortly see, the communities studied have not so much a system of Afood prohibitions@ as a complex and varyingly known balance theory relating food, bodily state, and health to one another.  Such a conceptualization should not be reduced to taboos or prohibitions, as the system as a whole may encourage the consumption of some foods even as it discourages the consumption of others, and may be varyingly interpreted from family to family. Third, while the question of whether nutritional practices are maladaptive (in the sense of lowering reproductive success) in these two communities will be examined, that analysis is not the major goal of this paper, which is about comparing the effectiveness of local knowledge of nutrition with that of local knowledge of cooking.

 

 

A      CUISINE (INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE OF COOKING) IN THE STUDY VILLAGES

The simplest means of establishing the elaborateness and sumptuousness of Bugis cuisine would be to serve a meal typical of celebrations (Bugis pesta). Perhaps in the future, multimedia presentations will permit virtual meals, but for the moment we must dine on description. Paul Rozin=s (1987) concept of Aflavour principle@is useful, here. Rozin pointed out that national cuisines tend to have distinctive flavors due to the use of certain ingredients. For Chinese food, Rozin informs us, the ingredients are ginger, rice wine and soy sauce; for Mexican food they are chili peppers and lime and/or tomato. For Bugis food, the research team B which included several individuals expert in Bugis cuisine, and who consulted friends and family members  B determined that the distinctive flavor principle is derived from the following ingredients, in order of priority:

 

$       Candlenut

$       Onion

$       Tamarind

$       White pepper

 

Additional ingredients frequently found in Bugis cuisine are coconut milk, chili peppers, and terasi (fermented fish or shrimp paste; terasi is Ind., tarasi is Bug.). Bugis food in part symbolizes Bugis social identity, and lawa (Bug., chopped raw fish or vegetable and grated coconut, seasoned and mixed with an acid such as lime juice) is the dish that my Bugis colleagues agree is especially "Bugis." (Not surprisingly, informants from the fishing village studied particularly prized lawa bale, fish lawa.)

 

Bugis people are not the only ones who enjoy Bugis food.  Christian Pelras (1996, 228), author of a comprehensive study of the Bugis kingdoms, describes how one James Brook, visiting the region in 1840, was singularly impressed, while Pelras himself writes (1996, 22) about "the excellence and delicacy of Bugis cooking, which can be experienced not only among aristocratic families but also in very simple and even poor households...." He adds that "sweets and pastries. . . are produced in innumerable variety" (p. 228). Susan Millar (1989), in her tightly-focused study of weddings and status in another Bugis District, Soppéng, discusses the immense amount of care and labour involved in the preparation of the food served at a Bugis wedding and the importance for determining the hosts= status of the foods= variety, quantity, and quality. (Today, in the more urban areas, families are likely to hold the wedding at a restaurant, substituting money for the clients who, in more rural areas and in the past, would have done the wedding cooking; but even in rural areas, some families will now hire a professional caterer).

 

Below are a number of recipes, collected in the study villages by Dr. Elly Ishak, which may give some sense of the nature of Bugis cooking.

 

B                      Bugis recipes

Masak santan (mixed vegetables in coconut milk)

Vegetables (immature jackfruit, pumpkin, eggplant) are cooked in coconut milk with turmeric, onion, chili peppers, and lemon grass.

 

Beppa janda

 A wrapper is made from finely grated cassava and salt. It is rolled into a tube around the banana. The dish is steamed, then served sprinked with grated coconut.  (Beppa santan is eaten both as a snack or as part of a lunch or supper.)

 

Nasu likku (coconut cream chicken)

Chicken is cooked with coconut milk and  onion, garlic, candlenut, caraway seed, pepper, galangal, laurel leaf, lemon grass, palm sugar, and salt. Nasu likku is served either with steamed  rice or with boiled rice cake (Bug. burasa).

 

Bale tapa (fish smoked over a grill)

Ground candlenut, chili, garlic, onion, and soy sauce are mixed together with fresh fish (usually milkfish), which is then either roasted or grilled.


 

Nasu Bale (stewed fish).

The most commonly used fish for this dish is fresh cakalang, a type of tuna. The fish is thoroughly cleaned, then cut into several pieces and washed until all the blood has been removed. It is put in a pot together with water, turmeric, onions, tamarind juice, MSG and salt. The pot is brought to a boil, them simmered for 45 B 60 minutes.

 

No claim is here made that these and other Bugis dishes are entirely unique, or that other Indonesians would consider Bugis cooking superior to that of their own home regions B Indonesia is a land of notable regional cuisines, after all, and there are certainly marked similarities between Bugis food and, for example, the Malay dishes described by Wilson (1986). The only point of this discussion is  to establish that the women interviewed (cooking is entirely gendered, with men being in principle forbidden to even enter a kitchen, though they may grill some foods in the garden or aboard their fishing boats) in the two study areas had considerable knowledge of and skill in cooking, permitting us the generalization that the knowledge domain of cuisine is well-developed and highly effective in the local culture.

 

A                      UNHEALTHY LOCAL KNOWLEDGE OF NUTRITION: SOME LIKELY SUSPECTS

It is important to make clear at the outset what is not being argued: 1) It is not being argued that the major cause of malnutrition in the two communities is indigenous knowledge of nutrition or food ideology or lack of education about scientific nutrition: poverty is no doubt the major cause of malnutrition in the study communities. 2) It is not being argued that diet is the sole cause of malnutrition: parasitic infections (e.g., nematodes) and other diseases may also play a role but, as no data on their prevalence was collected, they will not be discussed. 3) No implication is intended that the food beliefs and lack of nutritional knowledge prevalent in the study communities are unique: as we will see, it is the lack of uniqueness that gives the data their theoretical import. 4) While the focus of the discussion is on food beliefs and practices likely to be contributing to malnutrition in the study communities, it is not being argued that such practices are typical; a great many local food practices and beliefs no doubt make for healthy eating. For example, drinking water was invariably first boiled and then kept in covered containers in the study villages, as has long been the practice in the Bugis communities of South Sulawesi (Pelras 1996). What is being argued is simply that local knowledge and practice in some cases appear to contribute to malnutrition.

 

The clearest example the research team found of a local food belief and practice likely to have a negative impact on nutrition was denying the newborn the mother=s colostrum. (Colostrum is the pre-milk breast secretion; the actual milk does not appear until the second or third day after birth, or even later).  Colostrum is quite important for the health and nutrition of the infant (Barkow and Hallett, 1989). Not only does it provide the neonate with sterile fluid, it also permits it to in effect share the mother=s immune system until its own has matured somewhat. Popular books today focus on the health benefits of colostrum (e.g., Hawken, 1999; Ley, 1997) while current animal research finds that it not only provides immunological advantages but also increases the general vitality of the young animal (Blum et al, 1997; Burrin et al, 1997; Hadorn et al, 1997). Key informants in both study communities (including ritual practitioners/healers [Ind. dukun, Bug. sanro] and older women in general) agreed that, in the past, infants would be given the breast only on the third day so as to avoid the colostrum. One woman, telling us that with her later children she had followed the health post=s advice to give the breast immediately, remarked that doing so had been distasteful and difficult. Colostrum denial was found in approximately one third of the Human Relations Area Files societies for which data were available (Barkow and Hallett 1989, 305). The practice has in the past been common in Indonesia and in Thailand  (Van Esterik 1989, 129), but today it is waning due to the influence of education, the local health posts and (in the case of Indonesia) government training programs for dukun; it remains common in the study villages, though precise data were not collected. It seems possible that colostrum denial is to some degree responsible for the high rate of morbidity in the communities studied: for the 199 children aged 0#60 months in the two study samples, approximately 25% were described by caregivers as having been ill during the three weeks prior to the interview.

 

A second idea that appears likely to have nutritional impact in the two study communities is the belief that pregnant women should eat little, and especially not Ahot@ foods (which tend to be the high protein foods). (As was discussed earlier, similar prohibitions have been very common in much of the world.) This was regularly explained in terms of avoiding having a large infant who might be difficult to deliver and whose birth might tear the perineum. Two health-centre midwives interviewed in the farming village of Taretta explained that women in the early stages of pregnancy often believed that they should not drink milk, and that in the later stages they should avoid meat, beans and peanuts. (They do, however, believe that it is important that they eat vegetables.)  Lack of proper maternal nutrition during pregnancy can result in a low birth weight infant (that is, under 2500 grams at birth); low birth weight babies are susceptible to neurodevelopmental disorders, including cerebral palsy, and may  suffer from poor health later in life. For Taretta, some 33.3% of the 97 infants in the study sample had low birth weight; for Panyula, the comparable figure is 11.3% of 102 infants. Because low birth weight is not necessarily caused by poor maternal nutrition (preterm delivery is a possible cause, for example), the data can only be considered suggestive: the belief that pregnant women should eat little, especially of high protein foods, may be having a negative effect on fetal growth and infant health.

 

A third belief (similar to that described by Laderman (1984, 553) for a Malaysian village) is that children will develop a parasitic infection B usually described as Aworms@ (Bug. cacingan) -- if fed too much fish: the stomach is said to swell and Amakes noises.@ (One informant, in explaining this belief, quickly added that Anow we know that it is caused because their hands are not clean.@) Survey data collected and an analysis of the nutritional adequacy of the diet (based on a 24-hour dietary recall survey) shed some light on young children=s fish consumption[iv]. Table 1 shows that of the 23 Taretta children 12-23 months old in the sample, none were given fish as often as one-to-two times a week. For Panyula, of the 27 children of that age in the sample, only 7.4% received fish with that frequency.  If we move to the 24 to 60 month age group (table 2), these figures rise: for Taretta, 57.7% of the 52 children in the sample received fish daily, while for Panyula the comparable figure was some 89.4% of the 47 sample children. In short, children appear not to be given fish to eat on a regular basis until they are two years of age. (Not surprisingly, they are given fish more often in the fishing village of Panyula than in the farming village of Taretta.) Does the presumed reduction caused by the Afish causes worms@ belief in the frequency and amount of fish given the children  result in  protein deficiency?

 

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TABLES 1 AND 2 ABOUT HERE

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          Table 3 shows that the under-two infants= protein intake is not strikingly inadequate: the two-to-five-years-old group for Panyula receives 98.3% RDA, while that age-group in Taretta receives 73% RDA.  Thus, beliefs notwithstanding, Panyula children are receiving adequate protein, and Taretta children only somewhat less. While one could argue that the fish-causes-worms belief does lower the protein intake of the children of Taretta, more likely factors involve the fact that: 1) fish are far less available in the inland community of Taretta than the coastal fishing village of Panyula; 2) the market of Taretta meets only every fifth day while that of Panyula meets every day, affecting food availability (particularly that of a food as perishable as fish); and 3) Taretta as a whole is less prosperous than is Panyula. It thus seems unlikely that the belief that fish cause worms in young children has any real nutritional impact in either village (a conclusion similar to that of Laderman [1984] for the same belief=s effect in the Malaysian community that she studied). Even if the belief does affect the amount of fish given to the children, in both communities the 2-5 year old group has other protein sources, including tofu and tempeh, mung beans and peanuts, and eggs.

 

-----------------------------------

TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE

---------------------------------

 

B                      Balance theory

Both study communities shared a version of balance or hot/cold theory that is similar though not identical to indigenous systems described for other areas of Southeast Asia (e.g., those described for Peninsular Malaysia by Manderson [1986], for Malays by Wilson [1973] and for Javanese by Hull [1986]).  Many individuals interviewed described foods and illnesses as being either hot or cold, and the body itself as often being in either a hot or cold state. (However, some illnesses, explained one sanro, were due to supernatural causes.)  But knowledge of this theory was not evenly distributed. During one group interview, as a 70-year-old sanro explained the system, two married women in their twenties listened with expressions of surprise on their faces. They afterwards explained that they had had little knowledge of the system as a whole, though they were aware that there were foods that pregnant women should not eat, foods for particular illnesses, and so forth.  Older women generally had a greater awareness of the system than younger women. (No men were interviewed on this topic.)

 

Focus groups and key informants from both communities agreed on what might be thought of as Acore@ indigenous knowledge of nutrition: All interviewed agreed that what was tasty and filling was good for the body, and that rice was by far the most important food B even the fishers agreed that rice was more important than fish, the second food that would be mentioned  (Ayou can always eat rice with salt, but with fish, you don=t have a meal,@ explained one man). They also tended to agree that some foods were Ahot@ and some were Acold,@ as were some body states (e.g., pregnancy is cold, menstruation is hot). Tables 4-6 summarize the consensus.  There are degrees of being Ahot@ and Acold@ both for people and for foods. A pregnant women is hot (ice is believed to cause miscarriage). A woman in labor is very  hot and remains so after delivery, until (according to one sanro) her true milk comes in and she becomes cold (and therefore should eat hot foods to restore balance). A lactating woman is hot but milk is cold. Menstruating women are also hot. Men are hotter than women. Meat is hot as are the larger fish such as tuna. Ocean fish are hotter than freshwater fish. Two older key informants felt that eating hot food makes people more emotional, more easily angered and hot-tempered.  People also tend to feel physically hot when they eat hot foods, and cold when they eat cold food. Older women explained that the hot foods they had avoided when younger now gave them no trouble (such as headache).  When asked about pregnancy cravings, women and men occasionally listed hot foods that wives had craved and that husbands had done their best to supply, regardless of the hot state of pregnancy. There was agreement that if one was in a cold state then a particularly hot food should be avoided, though (according to some informants) a food that was only somewhat hot would be safe, and in some instances a cold food would actually be advisable.  Thus, one sanro explained that papaya, being cold, was good for fever.  A lactating woman, being cold, should avoid palm sugar and other hot foods, while ensuring a good milk supply by eating cold foods. Healers varied in the details of their accounts.

 

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TABLES 4, 5, 6 ABOUT HERE

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Many specific food beliefs held by some individuals appear to have little to do with hot-cold theory but much to do with the kind of similarity of cause-and-effect found in Asympathetic magic@ and in homeopathic medicine.  Thus, cucumber and papaya are not good for girls because they are watery and this will make the girl=s vagina too wet and displease her eventual husband. Men should eat bamboo shoots and the head of the Agold fish@ (Cyprinus carpio) because these improve virility. (Eggplant, however, is said to cause male impotence.) Eating the Agiant squid@ (Bug. gurita) will cause a pregnant woman to have a difficult delivery. Similarly, a pregnant woman should not eat seaweed lest she get the medical condition mola hidatidosa (Bug. hamil anggur, literally, Apregnant grapes@, in which the apparent pregnancy is due to the uterus being full of grape-like growths).  Coconut milk and oil make for an easy delivery, as does having the woman in labour take a mouthfull of water and then spit it out. Pineapple can cause a miscarriage. A nursing mother must not eat banana blossom (which, as the fruit itself grows, appears to shrink, and is thought to cause the infant to shrink as well).  A father-to-be must not kill any animal or eat duck (though fishing is certainly permitted). He must not open the water gate to flood his rice paddy, lest his son be born with a cleft palate. (The sanro interviewed also considered many foods to be curative for specific diseases, but these will not be listed here, in the interests of brevity.)

 

While anthropologists have traditionally collected Abeliefs,@ they have rarely looked at the consequences for nutrition of food storage, processing and cooking techniques. Two members of the health team, Elly Ishak (a food technologist) and Faisal Attamimi (a pharmacologist and toxicologist) did just that. In general, they found no variation in basic cooking and storage techniques in the two communities, and little variation from household to household. Several food processing practices, in their opinion, lowered the nutritional value of foods. Rice, a staple food, would be washed from 3-6 times in copious amounts of water. Unfortunately, this practice tends to remove the water-soluble vitamins; from a nutritional perspective, a single washing would be preferable. Vegetables would be washed, sliced, and then left to soak for long periods, presumably reducing much of the vitamin C and thiamine content. Vegetables would then be cooked for about 30-40 minutes, until very soft, resulting in additional vitamin loss.  Earlier, we saw the ingredients for making stewed tunafish. The fish is simmered for 45-60 minutes. From a nutritional point of view a very brief cooking time would be preferable, as long cooking damages the protein and lowers its nutritional value.

 

Table 7 shows that, among under-five children, malnourishment in the two study villages ranges from about 35% to 52.5% (depending on village, type of measurement, and gender). (See table 3 for the nutritional analysis of the dietary recall survey.) For the mothers of these children, table 13 shows that, as assessed by standard anthropometric measures, 41.5% of them are malnourished. 

 

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TABLES 7 AND 8 ABOUT HERE

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It is impossible to determine, from these data, the precise contribution to malnutrition (if any) made by beliefs about foods and by the techniques used in preparing food.  Suppose, however, that poverty is the sole factor in the malnourishment the study documented: if so, then we should expect to find fewer malnourished infants and young children among those who are more prosperous than among those who are less prosperous.

 

The relationship between nutritional status indicators and socioeconomic indicators is shown in Table 9. The data were collected by Drs. Nurpudji Taslim and Veni Hadju (both physicians and faculty members at UNHAS). They  used several measures of malnutrition: HAZ refers to height-for-age, WAZ weight-for-age, and WHZ weight-for-height (the Z stands for Az-score@). The norms used are those considered standard by the WHO. The indicators of socioeconomic status they used are self-explanatory, with the exception of the Apoor@ category, which had to do with proportion of income spent for food. Families spending 70% or more of their income for food were categorized as Apoor,@ those spending a lower proportion of income were labeled Anot poor.@  Only the relationship between WAZ (weight for age) and father=s occupation achieves statistical significance (p=.04), though the relationship between WAZ and the Apoor@ category is marginally significant (p=.076). HAZ (height for age) and WH Z (weight/height ratio) measures are not significantly associated with any of the socioeconomic indicators. Similarly, size of family, mother=s education, and presence-absence of a television were not associated with any measures of malnutrition. It would appear that food beliefs/practices, and not just poverty, contribute at least somewhat to infant and child malnutrition in the two communities studied.  (An alternative interpretation is that those with slightly greater income choose not to use it to provide additional food for their young children. It would be interesting to replicate this study in communities with a larger proportion of genuinely prosperous families, using a larger total sample.)

------------------------------------

TABLE 9 ABOUT HERE

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A                      DISCUSSION

A number of theorists have produced mathematical models in which maladaptive culture traits are socially transmitted (Boyd and Richerson [1985], Logan and Qirko [1996], Takahasi [1998]). Aunger (1994a) presents empirical evidence that maladaptive (both in the nutritional sense and in the sense of reducing reproductive success) cultural traits do occur. Thus, it would not be surprising for the present study to find that some practices are contributing to malnutrition. Colostrum denial would appear to be what the legal profession would consider a  prima facie case for a nutritionally unhealthy cultural trait. The preparation of vegetables and the long cooking of fish are quite likely to be contributing to malnutrition, as well. Moreover, that the less poor generally have children as malnourished as the more poor also suggests that food beliefs and practices may be contributing to malnutrition in the study villages. Of course, some of the food practices and beliefs the research team found are more likely to be healthful than maladaptive: for example, in a world with little access to Caesarian sections (as was the case, historically), efforts to avoid large babies, in spite of the evident risk of low birthweight infants (and all the sequelae attached), may actually increase completed fertility rates. Giving fish to the adults rather than the children (if this is what is actually occurring) could conceivably increase the lifetime reproductive success of the former, perhaps by permitting them to have additional offspring. It may also be that the danger of very young children choking on the small bones of fish may outweigh the benefit of additional protein[v]. Many of the food proscriptions and prescriptions for particular bodily states could have unknown but nevertheless real health benefits.

 

Are the two study communities unusual in their child nutrition and food-processing beliefs and practices? While the research sites do not constitute a representative sample of some defined population, there is no reason to believe that they are very different from other communities in Boné or, indeed, in other parts of South Sulawesi: In their lack of any equivalent of a scientific knowledge of nutrition they may actually be typical of pre-industrial human societies. Dettwyler (1994), for example, in discussing her work in Mali, points out the lack of a concept of nutrition in the groups she worked among. Barkow recalls how, in his own first fieldwork in 1967, in a Hausa village in Kaduna State, Nigeria, he remarked to a man eating a piece of boiled cassava that it was of low nutritional value (that is, that it was not very good for Abuilding the body@).  That individual=s wry response, ABa maganin yunwa ba ne?@ (AIsn=t it medicine for hunger?@) eventually led to the realization that the villagers saw food only as that, a cure for hunger: some foods tasted better than others, but there was no systematic theory of nutrition.  This is hardly surprising, given that even in industrialized countries, scientific nutrition is a historically recent development: only well into the 20th century did its concepts of nutrients and food groups become common knowledge.

 

Why should this be so? Why is it that nutritionally wise beliefs and practices are not universal? In the two study communities,, how is it that the indigenous knowledge of cooking the women share permits them to prepare impressive and delicious feasts, while their indigenous knowledge of child nutrition is at best, spotty, at worst, somewhat harmful? How is that that they have developed more expertise in cooking techniques than in child-feeding? Why, in their food processing and cooking, have they not invented a set of nutrient-sparing techniques? It is as if, over historical time, far more thought and energy have been spent in perfecting a lovely cuisine than in determining how best to feed children! During the hundreds of thousands of years that we have been using fire, we have often become expert cooks, but we have usually remained relatively inept nutritionists!

 

To respond to these questions, we need to think about where indigenous knowledge comes from in the first place: this means that we must begin by discussing the nature of human intelligence and its relationship to socially transmitted information.

 

B                      Human Intelligence in Evolutionary Perspective

Human intelligence seems to have evolved in part 1) to keep our excessive reliance on socially transmitted information from having maladaptive consequences (Barkow, 1989a, 1989b), and 2) in part to solve problems of social living, including social competition (Byrne and Whiten, 1988; Humphrey, 1976, 1983; Whiten and Byrne, 1997).

 

Our evolutionary history has left us with a hypertrophied reliance on socially transmitted information. Especially as children, we are deeply dependent on the pools of transmitted information we loosely call Aculture,@ pools that include, of course, indigenous knowledge. But this is a risky adaptive strategy: socially transmitted information can at times be ineffective or even maladaptive. Various processes (discussed at length in Barkow, 1989a, 1989b) lead to this situation, as when ecologies alter so that formerly adaptive practices turn out to have negative longterm consequences (e.g., climate change, overfishing, population growth, etc.), or when uncorrected errors gradually accumulate, over time (e.g., Acolostrum is bad for the infant@). However, the most important source of Abad@ socially transmitted information, for present purposes, is a  byproduct of social competition: self-interested bias. We tend to invent, edit, and revise socially transmitted information in ways that support our own interests both as individuals and as groups (e.g., Aour religion/ethnic group/class/academic discipline, etc. is superior to all the others@).

 

This tendency for socially transmitted information to contain potentially maladaptive information has apparently led to selection for various error-correction mechanisms. For example, the problem of accumulating error seems to be dealt with in part by so-called Aadolescent rebellion,@ which (whatever its other functions) appears to serve in part as a general editing mechanism in which much that parents and others have sought to transmit to the young person is called into question, challenged and compared with alternative particles of information (Barkow, 1989a, 1989b). Another way of dealing with the problem of accumulating error may be our tendency to attend preferentially to the high-in-status and learn from them, rather than from those lower in status, thereby eliminating some less-than-adaptive practices in favor of some that have a higher probability of effectiveness in the real world (Barkow, 1989a). Given that social status tends to be tied to genetic fitness (e.g., Cronk, 1991), these high-ranking information-sources are likely to be a better source of effective particles of culture than the low-ranking.

 

Perhaps the most powerful mechanisms for correcting socially transmitted information are those that track the self-interest of others in their roles as suppliers of information. If you are suspicious of the arguments we are making in these pages then you are exemplifying one of these mechanisms: distrust! We are often suspicious of the information conveyed by individuals and groups with Avested interests,@ and we seek to evaluate their motives and biases and past record of accuracy.  Suspicion also plays a role in the regulation of social exchange.

 

Social exchange is a core component of human society, a component that in the context of biological evolution is often referred to as Areciprocal altruism.@ Here we have another risky adaptive strategy B the benefits of mutual exchange of resources and of aid in general are obvious, but so is the risk of being cheated. One protective mechanism that appears to have evolved as a result is the specialized memory involved in reciprocal altruism. We readily recall every instance in which we have aided another, especially when the aid may not have been fully reciprocated (Cosmides and Tooby, 1992); we tend to selectively forget instances in which others have aided us, especially those in which we ourselves never fully repaid the altruist: after 30 years, many a divorce case shows how effective our biased memories can be.

 

Another example of an aspect of human cognition that reflects the social nature of our evolutionary environment is that of gossip.  Consider, for example, the strength of our interest in the sexual and status-related activities of high-ranking members of our local group. This interest is what underlies the transcultural universal gossip (Barkow, 1992) and the modern phenomenon of the soap opera.

 

Consistent with the idea of social intelligence, we note that social competition serves to focus and even enhance our intelligence and problem-solving ability; when the competition is group competition, it increases our ability to cooperate. Knowledge domains related to competition will probably be the most elaborate and effective sectors of the cultural pool.

 

Finally, social competition and informational editing involve a rather brief timeframe during which feedback from physical and social events is evaluated. We seem adept at solving problems in which there is feedback in minutes and we are often successful even when feedback requires months. We are not very good at problems involving much longer time frames, however. 

 

Now we have some background theory about the nature of human intelligence and cognition and the various evolved mechanisms that serve to limit the amount of socially transmitted error in our cultural information pools. We are now almost ready to return to the core question of why Bugis knowledge of cuisine seems to be more effective than their knowledge of nutrition.

 

B                      Human Intelligence and Indigenous Knowledge

The discussion of the evolved psychology of human intelligence suggests that, for any domain of indigenous knowledge, one can ask the following questions:

 

$       Is social competition involved in knowledge production?

$       Does self-interest play a role in disseminating and revising information?

$       Are the problems comparable to the difficulties of social living our intelligence arguably evolved to solve, particularly with respect to timeframe?

$       What error-correction mechanisms are relevant? Are there specialized mechanisms primarily applicable to this domain?

 

Now, let us ask these questions of the Bugis domains of cuisine and of child feeding/nutrition practices.

 

C                 Bugis cuisine. Bugis cooking involved competition, historically.  As was earlier discussed, at the Bugis pesta (celebrations), the hosts= status depends in part on the quantity and quality of the food produced.  Susan Millar (1989) describes, for the neighboring District of Soppéng, the importance of weddings and other pesta in determining relative social position, and how quality and quantity of food (cooked by clients) plays an important role in establishing or confirming the relative standing of families.[vi] It is likely that, for centuries, Bugis-speaking women B  and the Bugis nobility whose standing depended in part on display of elaborately prepared food (cookies in particular) B have sought skill in cooking. It has been argued that competition among aristocrats, the wealthy and chefs played an important role in producing haute cuisine in China (Anderson, 1988; Mennell, 1996; Mennell, Murcott and van Otterloo, 1992): the Bugis case would seem to fit this model.[vii]

 

Self-interest in cooking no doubt exists and keeping recipes secret or transmitting misleading information about them are probably common in some societies; in the Bugis case, however, there appears to have been little opportunity or motivation for such informational editing. Cooking knowledge is transmitted by direct observation. One learns to cook by watching and assisting one=s elders, who are usually one=s close relatives. The problems of cooking are, however, similar in one major respect to those faced by our distant ancestors: they involve a brief timeframe. As the proverb has it, Athe proof is in the pudding,@ that is, validation or corrective feedback, as the case may be, occurs shortly after a dish has been cooked. As for evolved mechanisms, one could argue that the sense of taste is indeed such a specialized mechanism: we seem to automatically become experts in the cuisine with which we are raised, and errors or other departures are instantly apparent to us.

 

C                 Infant/child nutrition. Is child nutrition a matter of competition? Though no specific data were collected on this point, it seems reasonable to assume that in the study villages B and probably everywhere else B mothers take pride in the health and vitality of their offspring: where there is pride there must be an element of competition. Women in the study sites regularly sought expert advice on infant and child health from the dukun and the staff of the community health centres and posts, showing their strong concern for the well-being of their children.  However, whatever competition may or may not have existed concerning number of healthy children, it is not comparable to the formalized competition of a pesta, with its elaborately prepared dishes on display as a claim to and legitimation of relative social standing.

 

Does maternal self-interest bias child-feeding knowledge and practice? From the perspective of evolutionary biology, this is possible: a mother might enhance her own ability to have additional children by scanting those already born, or she might increase her completed fertility rate by favoring the child who would benefit more from a given amount of food at the expense of one who would benefit less (e.g., an ill child or a very young one could benefit more from, say, an egg, then one who was healthy or considerably older). In the present case, none of the feeding practices observed or indigenous knowledge provided by key informants and focus groups suggest any such self-interested biases. Indeed, though this possibility was not a research focus, it seems more likely that any food saved by the mother would be consumed neither by her nor by her children but by the adult males. Women learn infant and child feeding practices from their own mothers; new mothers are given explicit feeding advice by the sanro, and today, by health post personnel as well.

 

Are child-feeding problems comparable to the problems faced by our ancestors? In a sense they are simply the same problems B infants and children must be fed B  but this fact is misleading. If human intelligence evolved primarily as a response to the problems of social life, the relevant question is whether infant/child feeding problems today are in any way comparable to the social problems faced by our ancestors. As with the case of Bugis cuisine, the dimension that can be readily compared with domains involving social life problems is that of timeframe for effective feedback.  Unlike cooking, for which the timeframe is indeed comparable in being brief, the timeframe for feedback from child feeding is slow and complex, making error correction very difficult. Compared to the immediacy of determining whether or not a cooked dish tastes good, the effects of feeding a child fish or fruit a bit more often are very unclear and may not be manifest for months or years (while the danger of the small bones choking a child can, alas, be learned quickly indeed!). Child health is determined by many factors, and children do not react uniformly to varying diets, so that corrective feedback with regard to nutrition is unreliable.

 

Have we evolved specialized mechanisms pertaining to infant feeding? It is instructive to compare the strength of our interest in the sexual and status-related activities of high-ranking members of our local group (that is, our tendency to gossip) with the strength of our interest in a child=s diet: the former is so great that soap operas can transfix us, but there are no television shows showing the drama of permutations of diet on an infant=s nutritional health! Similarly, we readily recall every instance in which we have aided another, especially when the aid may not have been fully reciprocated, but the details of what a child once ate, years past, are only vaguely recalled.  We have apparently never been selected for the ability to recall precisely how much of what food was fed to which child when and then to track this information against the child=s future growth and health. Why not?

 

Why have we not evolved some kind of specialized infant/child nutritional Amental organ@ or Anutritional intelligence module@ to keep track of child (and maternal) feeding and nutritional health? Here, one can only speculate. Perhaps  existing adaptations, discussed earlier in terms of our evolved taste preferences, have generally been adequate to ensure proper diet for both mothers and children. Perhaps having much choice in what to feed a child is a relatively new phenomenon. Perhaps the selection pressure for a nutritional health module has long been there but there is no substrate which could develop into such an organ (because something would be adaptive is hardly a guarantee that it will evolve, after all). Perhaps it is rare for child-feeding practices to have a strong impact on total reproductive success. Perhaps systems of food prohibitions and balance theories are relatively new, in the history of our species, and there has not been sufficient time for us to evolve specialized abilities to counter them. Unfortunately,we have no data with which to evaluate these possibilities. The infant-feeding practice that seems most likely to have affected fitness is that of colostrum-denial, but it is not clear that it has ever been sufficiently widespread, or that it has been practiced enough generations, for it to have produced a countering evolutionary response.

 

We now are in a position to answer the question of why the indigenous knowledge domain of cuisine seems so much more effective than the indigenous knowledge domain of child feelding/nutrition in the two study villages (and, presumably, in other Bugis communities as well).  Cooking, particularly in this particular society, turns out to be a good fit for our social intelligence: skill in cuisine has, at least historically, been strongly connected with social competition; our sense of taste is an evolved mechanism providing fairly unambiguous feedback about the effectiveness of our culinary efforts; and this feedback is in the short timeframe to which our intelligence appears to be well-adapted. For child feeding/nutrition, social competition was not visible and, if present, is certainly muted; we appear to lack any specialized evolved mechanisms to permit us to correlate the details of past feeding practices with the health and growth of our children; the feedback that we do receive occurs in a lengthy timeframe and is highly ambiguous, given the many factors that influence infant/child health. It is thus not surprising that Bugis indigenous knowledge of cooking is more effective than indigenous knowledge of child feeding and nutrition.

 

A      CONCLUSIONS

This serendipitous comparison of indigenous knowledge of cuisine versus nutrition has produced a general, testable set of hypotheses: accurate and extensive domains of indigenous knowledge are most likely to develop when they are (or have been) foci of social competition, when they can benefit from specialized evolved mechanisms, and when the timeframe of corrective feedback from physical or social reality is short.  Study of  indigenous knowledge domains of many kinds and in many societies will be needed to evaluate these hypotheses  B do they apply to agricultural knowledge, for example, or to the raising of livestock? If the theoretical discussion that led to these hypotheses is accurate, they  should apply to many knowledge domains.

 

What of the situation in which there is strong social competition in a domain of knowledge but little possibility of corrective feedback B e.g., religion and philosophy? Here, we would expect an extensive domain of knowledge, perhaps with consensual criteria for excellence and perhaps filled with great beauty and insight into the human condition, but not having the kind of fit with science and engineering that feedback-corrected domains, such as fishing knowledge, are likely to have. Indeed, one could argue that the distinction between the humanities and the sciences is simply that one ultimately includes a corrective feedback from physical reality that affects the results of the social competition producing the knowledge, while the other does not. Indigenous knowledge domains, therefore, would be quite comparable to those of industrial societies, the distinction being that the scientific method permits reality checking to be built into realms in which it would not otherwise be present.

 

Students of human intelligence would do well to consider the various domains of indigenous knowledge as natural experiments, amenable to field study. To study cultural knowledge domains and the social processes whereby they may be created, maintained, edited, revised and deleted is to study the intelligence of our species in situ.

 

Finally, this analysis does yield at least one piece of practical advice: If you seek fine cuisine, go where there is a long history of competition among cooks.

NOTES

 

 


[i] This research was sponsored by ISLE (Island, Sustainability, Livelihood, Equity), a 1996-2000 Canadian International Development Agency project administered by Dalhousie University and involving, in addition to that university, the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, the University of Prince Edward Island, the University of the West Indies, the University of the Philippines (Visayas), and Indonesia=s Hasanuddin University. The authors wish to thank CIDA as well as ISLE=s patient and encouraging director, Dr. Gary Newkirk, and its administrator, the kind and efficient Ms. Pauline Peters. Thanks are also due to the staff of Dalhousie=s Lester Pearson Institute, Ms. Becky Field in particular. The data were collected in connection with an ISLE-sponsored multidisciplinary course on AIsland Food Systems@ which was organized and coordinated by Professor Claude Caldwell of NSAC, who was always generous with his support. Thanks are also owed for their warm helpfulness to the Bupati of Boné, Andi Muhammad Amir, and to the secretary to the Bupati, Dr. H.A. Mappamadeng Dewang, as well as to Mr. Murtir Jeddawi, Chief of the Boné District Planning and Development Board. We also wish to thank the following individuals for their helpfulness and generosity: Mr. Muchlis A. Rasyid and Ms. Taswina A. Muchlis, Head of the Tanete Riattang Timur Subdistrict and Head of its Women=s Movement, respectively; Mr. A. Bachtiar and Ms. A. Bachtiar, Head of Panyula Village (of the Tanete Riattang Timur Subdistrict) and Head of the Panyula Village Women=s Movement, respectively; Mr. A. Lantara, head of Amali Subdistrict, and Ms. A. Lantara,  Head of its Women=s Movement; and Dr. M.Y. Sara, director of the Taretta Village Health Centre. Finally, our deepest appreciation to the people of the villages of Taretta and Panyula, who were very kind to and open with the inquisitive strangers in their midst.

 

[ii] Barkow is responsible for this paper=s theoretical analysis. Correspondence concerning the paper should be addressed to him (j.h.barkow@dal.ca). Nurpudji was the principal investigator for the project and she and Veni Hadu were responsible for collecting data on nutritional status and dietary intake; they and Ramli were responsible for the nutritional analysis. Sani Silwana, Yahya, Djunaidi and Barkow were responsible for collecting foodways material. Faisal Attamimi and Elly Ishak were responsible for the food safety analysis.

 

[iii] See Hull (1986) for a thorough discussion of ways of collecting and interpreting information about food taboos.

 

[iv]Dietary recall data and anthropometric measurements are only snapshots in that they refer to a single point in time and do not reveal possible seasonal variation.Unfortunately, the present study could only collect data at a single point.

 

[v] Barkow wishes to thank Marta Mahler for this suggestion.

 

[vi] Barkow wishes to thank Susan Millar for helpful e-mail discussion of cooking and competition in Bugis society. Any errors are of course his.

 

 

[vii] In France and in China, haute cuisine is largely the province of males (though in recent years it become less gendered), in spite of  women generally being responsible for ordinary, household cooking. Among the Bugis, men are not permitted to set foot in the kitchen, even during preparations for a pesta; the exceptions to this rule are the bissu (Ind. waria, male transvestites), who are said to be the best cooks of all.

 

 

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Mennell, S., Murcott, A., and Van Otterloo, A.H. 1992: The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture (London, Sage).

 

Millar, S.B. 1989: Bugis Weddings. Rituals of Social Location in Modern Indonesia (Berkeley, CA, Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies/University of California at Berkeley).

 

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Rhoades, R., and Bebbington, A. 1995: Farmers who experiment: An untapped resource for agricultural research and development. In Warren, D.M., Slikkerveer, L.J., and Brokensha, D. (eds.) The Cultural Dimension of Development: Indigenous Knowledge Systems, (London, Intermediate Technology Systems), 296-307.

 

Rosenberg, E.M. 1980: Demographic Effects of Sex-Differential Nutrition. In Jerome, N.W., Kandel, R.F., and Pelto, G.H. (eds.) Nutritional Anthropology: Contemporary Approaches to Diet and Culture, (Pleasantville, NY, Redgrave), 181-203.

 

Rozin, P. 1987: Psychobiological Perspectives on Food preferences and Avoidances. In Harris, M., and Ross, E.B. (eds.) Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits, (Philadelphia, Temple University Press), 181-205.

 

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Table 1.  Percentage of children 12-23 months given specific foods in Taretta (n = 23) and Panyula (n = 27)

 

 

Type of  food

 

Never

 

1-3 x / month

 

1-2 x / week

 

3-6 x / week

 

Everyday

 

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

 

Infant formula

 

95.7

 

92.6

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

4.3

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

7.4

Processed food

100

100

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Other milk

82.6

77.8

0.0

14.8

4.3

3.7

8.7

0.0

4.3

3.7

Meat (beef/goat/etc.)

56.5

77.8

43.5

18.5

0.0

3.7

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Fish

30.4

18.5

4.3

0.0

0.0

7.4

17.4

22.2

47.8

51.9

Poultry

43.5

77.8

52.2

22.2

4.3

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Liver (beef/chicken)

61.9

79.2

38.1

20.8

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Eggs

28.6

16.7

14.3

16.7

23.8

37.5

33.3

29.2

0.0

0.0

Tempeh/tofu

76.2

66.7

9.5

16.7

9.5

12.5

4.8

4.2

0.0

0.0

Mung bean/peanut

9.5

25

4.8

25

19.0

12.5

33.3

29.2

33.3

8.3

Green leafy veget.

4.8

16.7

4.8

12.5

4.8

16.7

19.0

25

66.7

29.2

Red/yellow vegetab.

38.1

50

42.9

16.7

14.3

20.8

4.8

8.3

0.0

4.2

Red/yellow fruits

33.3

4.2

14.3

33.3

38.1

20.8

4.8

33.3

9.5

8.3

Other fruits

9.5

4.2

4.8

0.0

42.9

25

28.6

50

14.3

20.8

Fruit juice

100

100

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Snack

14.3

16.7

9.5

0.0

38.1

20.8

23.8

29.2

14.3

33.3

 

 

Table 2. Percentage of children of age $24 months given specific foods in Taretta (n = 52) and Panyula (n = 47)

 

 

Type of  food

 

Never

 

1-3 x / month

 

1-2 x / week

 

3-6 x / week

 

Everyday

 

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

Taretta

Panyula

 

Infant formula

 

98.1

 

97.9

 

1.9

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

0.0

 

2.1

Processed food

100

100

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Other milk

55.8

31.9

7.7

25.5

26.9

21.3

3.8

4.3

5.8

17.0

Meat (beef/goat, etc.)

65.4

61.7

28.8

34.0

5.8

2.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

2.1

Fish

0.0

0.0

5.8

0.0

9.6

4.3

26.9

6.4

57.7

89.4

Poultry

48.1

42.6

46.2

53.2

3.8

4.3

1.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

Liver (poultry/beef)

69.2

54.2

30.8

41.7

0.0

4.2

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Eggs

12.8

0.0

23.1

41.7

33.3

33.3

28.2

12.5

2.6

12.5

Tempeh/tofu

82.1

45.8

10.3

37.5

2.6

12.5

5.1

0.0

0.0

4.2

Mung bean/peanut

5.1

20.8

7.7

33.3

25.6

12.5

30.8

25

30.8

8.3

Green leafy veget.

2.6

4.2

2.6

4.2

17.9

25

30.8

37.5

46.2

29.2

Red/yellow vegetab.

48.7

37.5

35.9

33.3

12.8

20.8

2.6

4.2

0.0

4.2

Red/yellow fruits

17.9

16.7

12.8

33.3

41.0

25

25.6

20.8

2.6

4.2

Other fruits

0.0

0.0

2.6

0.0

25.6

62.5

66.7

29.2

5.1

8.3

Fruit juice

100

100

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Snack

2.6

 

2.6

0.0

17.9

25

59.0

33.3

17.9

41.7

 

 

 

Table 3. Quality of nutrient intake in Taretta (n=86)(a)

 

 

Variable

 

6-11 mo

 

12-23 mo

 

$ 24 mo

 X(b)

RDA

% RDA

 X(b)

RDA

% RDA

 X(b)

RDA

% RDA

 

Energy

 

132

 

269

 

48.9

 

259

 

746

 

34.7

 

449

 

1250

 

35.9

Protein

4.5

2

225

8.5

5

170

16.8

23

73.0

Vitamin A (RE)

44.3

13

340.8

99.6

126

79.0

79.3

350

22.7

Vitamin D (RE)

0.6

6.6

9.1

2.1

7

30

3.9

10

39

Vit. B1 (mg)

0

0.1

0

0.1

0.4

25

0.2

0.5

40

Vit. B2

0.1

0.2

50

0.1

0.4

25

0.1

0.6

16.7

Niacin

0.3

3

10

1

7

14.3

2.4

5.4

44.4

Vit. B6

0.1

0

--

0.1

0

--

0.3

0

--

Pantotenic Acid

0.5

0.5

100

0.6

0.7

85.7

1.1

0

--

Folate (ug)

14

0

--

21.0

3

700

29.9

40

74.8

Vit. B12 (ug)

0.3

0

--

0.7

0

--

1.1

0.5

220

Vit. C (mg)

1.4

0

--

1.9

8

23.8

5.1

40

12.8

Zinc (mg)

0.5

4.2

11.9

0.7

5.8

12.1

1.3

10

13

Iron (mg)

0.4

10.8

3.7

0.8

5.8

13.8

1.2

8

15

Magnesium (mg)

14.2

51

27.8

27.5

66

41.7

54.0

0

--

Sodium (mg)

30.1

199

15.1

48.0

401

12.0

72.6

0

--

Phosphor (mg)

71

306

23.2

125.9

193

65.3

220.9

250

88.4

Calcium (mg)

28.2

336

8.4

43.5

196

22.2

39.4

500

7.9

Potassium (mg)

107.7

346

31.1

196.5

512

38.4

367.2

0

--

Copper (mg)

0

0.1

0

0.1

0.3

33.3

0.2

0

--

 

(a) Dietary intake was analyzed with WFOOD2 (University of Berkeley, 1994) to get the amount of each nutrient consumed by the child. Each of the nutrient intakes was compared to standard (NCHS/WHO 1998)  recommended energy and nutrient intake from complementary feeding for Indonesia. For the 6-23 month age group, the RDA was adjusted for nutrients from breastmilk intake.

 (b) AX@ indicates Amean.@

 

 

 

 

Table 4.  Foods frequently described as hot include:

 

beef

pineapple

jackfruit

tiger mango (Bug. pao maccan)

goat

sticky rice

sambal (sambal is Ind.; peco ladang is Bug; the term refers to a sauce made of chili pepper, tomato, and terasi)

horsemeat

palm sugar

mango

fermented cassava or rice (tape)

fish

salt fish

dried fish

durian

ginger

 

Table 5. Foods frequently described as cold include:

 

papaya

sweetsop (Ind. sarakaya)

bananas

chicken

boiled rice

peanuts

mung beans

string beans

eggplant

kelor (the pinnate leaves of the merunggai tree, eaten as a vegetable and considered to be especially cold B B people are said to shiver after eating kelor)

cassava

yam

breast milk

cucumber

watermelon

greater galangale (galangal)

immature coconut

 

 

 

Table 6. Body states:

HOT                                                    COLD

men                                                                  women

pregnant women                                               infants

parturient women

lactating women

menstruating women

 

Table 7.  Prevalence of malnutrition in under-five children by sex

 

 

 

 

Village

 

 

 

Nutritional Status

 

Taretta (%)

 

Panyula (%)

 

Total (%)

 

n = 102

n = 97

n = 199

 

Underweight

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Boys

38.1

35.1

36.4

  Girls

38.3

42.5

40.0

Stunting

 

 

 

  Boys

31.0

36.8

34.3

  Girls

35.0

52.5

42.0

Wasting

 

 

 

  Boys

9.5

10.5

10.1

  Girls

5.0

5.0

5.0

 

 

 

Table 8. Nutritional status of mother

 

 

 

 

Village

 

 

 

Nutritional Status

 

Taretta (%)

 

Panyula (%)

 

Total (%)

 

n = 87

n = 72

n =  159

 

1. Arm Circumference

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Malnourished

48.3

33.3

41.5

    Normal

51.7

66.7

58.5

2. Body Mass Index (BMI)

 

 

 

     < 18.5

16.1

9.7

13.2

    18.5 B 25

67.8

69.4

68.6

    > 25

16.1

20.8

18.2

 

Table 9. X-square significance between nutritional status and socioeconomic variables

 

Nor-mal

           

p

 

 

 

WA Z-Score

 

HA Z-Score

 

WH Z-Score
 

 

Under-weight

 

Nor-mal

 

Stunted

 

Nor-mal

 

Wasting

 

Size of Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<5

 

42

 

26

 

40

 

28

 

64

 

4

 

6-10

 

50

 

28

 

49

 

29

 

72

 

6

 

>10

 

4

 

3

 

5

 

2

 

6

 

1

 

p

 

ns

 

ns

 

ns

 

 

 

Poor category

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes

 

76*

 

51

 

76

 

51

 

118

 

24

 

No

 

20

 

6

 

18

 

8

 

9

 

2
 

 

0.076

 

ns

 

ns

 

Mother=s education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>Primary School

 

59

 

37

 

57

 

39

 

90

 

6

 

Above primary school

 

37

 

19

 

37

 

19

 

90

 

6

 

p

 

ns

 

ns

 

ns

 

Father=s occupation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmer/Fisher, labourer

 

56

 

42

 

57

 

41

 

91

 

7

 

Government official, own business

 

38

 

14

 

35

 

17

 

48

 

4

 

p

 

0.040

 

ns

 

ns

 

Television

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes

 

34

 

18

 

33

 

19

 

50

 

2

 

No

 

62

 

38

 

60

 

40

 

92

 

8

 

p

 

ns

 

ns

 

ns