Calendar Keepers: The Unsung Heroes in Indigenous Landscape Management

Abstract

Indigenous communities use their calendric knowledge to carry out landscape management activities. Using the example of the Mao Naga community of Northeast India, we demonstrate that keepers of such calendars are facilitators of landscape management activities of the community. The Mao Naga community chief once served as the chief calendar keeper from whom calendric information flowed to village-level calendar keepers. The chief calendar keeper processed information on the skyscape and local seasonal indicators and disseminated it to the village-level calendar keepers, and other community members. The calendar keepers determined the dates for sacred holidays called genna, and festivals which in turn determined landscape management activities that include agriculture, hunting and fire management. The village-level calendar keepers combined calendric information received from the chief calendar keeper with their own observation of skyscape and local seasonal indicators. The observation of local seasonal indicators by the village-level calendar keepers enabled them to keep the ecological calendar dynamic, flexible and relevant to the landscape. The Mao Council has introduced a printed traditional calendar which makes it easier for determining lunar months and festival days. But it lacks information on sacred holidays and local seasonal indicators. We recommend that the printed traditional calendar be developed further to include information on sacred holidays and local seasonal indicators. The improvised printed ecological calendar should then be administered by the calendar keepers.

Case Studies in Biocultural Diversity from Southeast Asia—Traditional Ecological Calendars, Folk Medicine and Folk Names

“…Gell observes that the calendar keepers have to assume authority and power in order to ensure that the dispersed calendrical information is clear and accepted without contesting claims. The chapter from Lokho et al (2022), in this light, also demonstrates the power tussles associated with the institution of calendar keeping and how contesting calendars that bypass the authority of calendar keepers lead to confusion and knowledge erosion.…”

“…In the Mao Naga experience, change in traditional beliefs due to the embracing of Christianity has led to the erosion of calendric knowledge (Lokho et al 2022). Like the Mao Naga, the Sundanese community of Rancakalong of West Java, Indonesia used to practise an agricultural model that followed their traditional ecological calendar called pranata mangsa (Iskandar and Iskandar 2022).…”

“…Both languages and species evolve in similar ways (Loh and Harmon 2014), and often, factors and processes driving the evolution of languages and biological diversity, or their losses, are the same. Globalisation, acculturation, resource exploitation, plantation agriculture, urbanisation and formal education are factors that affect both languages and biological diversity.…”