24 agriculture: Asia and the Pacific 16th-century painted manuscript, illustrates vast amounts of food coming in as tribute Raw foods included squash, honey, cacao, and chilies In addition, the Aztec received many types of foods already prepared, including many meat dishes The Aztec tribute system was a useful method of supplementing not only the food needs of Tenochtitlán but also its labor needs A tribute workforce could be redistributed to better serve the needs of the urban population and ruling elite Men and women supplied the labor for cooking and other food preparation as well as labor in the marketplace Labor redistribution was intricately organized by the Aztec state Asia and the Pacific by Kenneth Hall Early Asia and Pacific agricultural productivity ranged from annual cycles of shifting cultivation among hunting-andgathering populations in the highland, frontier, and remote island regions to the sophisticated wet-rice agriculture that could produce up to three crops a year in southern, eastern and southeastern Asia’s densely populated river plains Asia and Pacific island farmers produced a variety of grains, fruits, vegetables, and marketable specialty produce, such as cotton, hemp, tea, and spices Most Asians cultivated and gathered root crop starches as well as rice by choice over other grains, such as wheat, millet, and sorghum Taro and tapioca were the principal starches in Pacific island diets, but they were supplemental crops in Asia’s grain-cultivation areas Cultivated or gathered yams and sago palms were the other source of dietary starches on the islands of southeastern Asia The staple grain crops in India were wheat and barley in the cooler north and elsewhere as winter crops; rice in the irrigated plains and south, and millet in the dry regions of the Deccan plateau Sugarcane was widely grown, as were leaf vegetables and gourds, plants of the Sesamun genus (valued for its edible oil and including sesame), peas, beans, and lentils The Kerala coast region of southern India was the source of pepper, cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon; the Himalayan foothills produced valuable saffron; and cotton production was concentrated in the Gujarat and Tamil regions of the northwestern and southeastern coasts Fruits included mangos, small Indian bananas known as plantains, and the sour fruit of the tamarind that is used to flavor curry Coconut palms were imported from Southeast Asia in the Middle Ages, but palmyra and talipot palms, which provided the traditional Indian writing materials and were the source of alcoholic drinks known today as toddy and arrack, were products of coastal India Date palms grew in the dryer regions of western India In addition to rice, which was their dietary grain staple throughout most of the region, Southeast Asians cultivated limited numbers of vegetables (cucumbers, onions, ginger, beans, and various gourds and, later, soybeans, introduced into the region by Chinese settlers in the fifteenth century) but instead favored fruits and spices Fruits included coconuts, bananas, durian, mango, mongosteen, jackfruit, rambutan, and citrus fruits such as limes Southeast Asian spices included coves, nutmeg, and mace from the eastern Indonesian archipelago Spice Islands; widely grown varieties of Southeast Asian peppers (with the exception of black pepper, which was a product of India), tamarind, turmeric, ginger, cubeb, and calamus were used for food flavorings as well as medicines throughout Asia Turmeric was notable for producing the “hottest” flavoring for foods Sugarcane was native to Southeast Asia, where it grew wild and was cultivated in the well-watered regions It was sold as a confectionery or was chewed Brown sugar, derived from boiling the sap of the sugar palm, was more popular as the source of liquid sugar Honey was less in demand but was widely available and used especially as a medicine Betel, a byproduct of the nut of the areca palm grown in southern and southeastern Asia, mixed with lime from crushed clam shells (to produce a chemical reaction) and wrapped in a betel vine leaf to form tambula was a chewable narcotic It produced red saliva, which chewers spit out, and was widely popular in India, South China, and Southeast Asia Animal Husbandry in Asia Chickens, both domestic and wild, were common in all the settled and hunting-and-gathering regions of Asia Chickens were allowed to run wild in vegetable gardens, orchards, and grasslands because “wild” chickens were culturally valued over domesticated chickens Pigs were not indigenous to southern Asia but were common in Southeast Asia and in eastern Asia as sources of meat and fertilizer Pig sows were especially prized, since they produced annual litters of piglets Pigs were efficiently raised as a meat source because they needed only a small, marginal space to scavenge for their diet, eating almost anything that resembled food Pigs ate and processed human feces; subsequently, their excrement was used as garden fertilizer By the late medieval era people newly converted to the Islamic religion in island Southeast Asia faced the dilemma posed by Islam’s outright prohibition on the eating of pig Local populations resolved this dilemma by eating pig meat that had been raised and slaughtered by non-Muslims Dogs were initially domesticated as a food source (along with pigs) but in time became hunting companions and tended