Ata Tana 'Ai - Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Ata Tana 'Ai are subsistence horticulturalists, hunters, and gatherers. The economy of the Ata Tana 'Ai is based on the shifting cultivation of rice, maize, and yams. Domestic animals include pigs, goats, chickens, horses, and dogs. The principally vegetable diet is supplemented by the meat of animals sacrificed on ceremonial occasions and by deer and wild pigs hunted in the forests. The forests of Tana 'Ai provide opportunities for gathering wild fruit, vegetables, and materials for building. The Ata Tana 'Ai carry out shifting cultivation with a tool kit consisting of short steel machetes, small iron knives, and dibble sticks. Men use spears and bows and arrows in hunting. Both men and women manufacture a variety of baskets for domestic purposes. Women weave cloth on backstrap looms from thread spun from cotton grown in local gardens. Household utensils, such as metal pots, plastic containers, and Florenese ceramic pots, as well as clothing and items required by schoolchildren, are obtained in the local markets.

Trade. Men of Tana 'Ai maintain trading relationships with men of East Flores, the north coast, central Sikka, and, in some cases, with people of the islands to the east of Flores. A principal trade good is gin or palm wine made from the lontar ( Borassus sp.) palm, for which Tana 'Ai men exchange pigs, goats, rice, and bamboo and timber for the construction of houses and fences. In recent years most families have derived some cash income from small-scale and occasional trading of copra, coffee, spices, eggs, and chickens in the weekly market on the north coast.

Division of Labor. Whereas the classifications of Tana 'Ai culture associate women with the domestic spheres of house and garden and men with the wild sphere of the forest, there is considerable equality between men and women in laboring for subsistence. Both men and women participate in all the work required for horticulture, although men are expected to provide the labor for the heavy work of clearing the forest and construction of sturdy fences to protect crops from deer and wild pigs. Men, women, and children share the work of burning newly cleared fields, weeding, planting, and harvesting. Men hunt in the forests, often in groups, whereas women weave textiles. Men construct houses and granaries. Men and women share the routine domestic chores of house maintenance and caring for domestic animals. Women usually cook the meals but no opprobrium is attached to a man cooking. Older children, especially adolescent boys and girls, provide care for infants and young children of the household or hamlet and fetch water from springs and streams for their household.

Land Tenure. Arable land, whether under cultivation or reserve, is divided into fields, which are distributed among the houses of the community. Houses hold rights to their land corporately and by virtue of belonging to clans whose rights to the land are traced in the mythic histories to the founding of the domains. The founding ancestors of each clan were granted land by the ancestors who founded the domain as a whole.