SAGO IS A FORGOTTEN WEALTH

DIAGNOSTIC STUDY

SME

THE SAGO & STARCH INDUSTRY CLUSTER

SALEM (TAMIL NADU)

BY

C.SUDHANDHIRAN

Project Co-ordinator,PROJECT UPTECH

STATE BANK OF INDIA, SALEM

DEVELOPED UNDER

THE CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT AGENT TRAINING PROGRAMME,

ORGANISED BY UNIDO CDP, NEW DELHI

&

THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE OF INDIA

(EDII), AHMEDABAD

YEAR 2001

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 THE GLOBAL SCENARIO

Tapioca Cassava (Manihot Esculenta Crantz) was introduced in India during the later part of the 17th

century by the Portuguese living in the state of Kerala. India’s share is about 6 per cent in the total world

production of tapioca. The other important tapioca producing countries are Brazil, Nigeria, Zaire,

Thailand and Indonesia. Tapioca is a tuber crop of huge economic importance as it is used not only for

human and animal food consumption but also as a raw material for various industrial products. Each day

about 500 million people consume tapioca world over and derive 300 kilo calories of energy (Edison,

1999).

Globally cassava is grown in about 95 countries with major contributions coming from Africa (57%)

followed by Asia (25%). The wide agro-ecological adaptability of cassava coupled with its ability to

withstand biotic and non-biotic stresses have made it a crop of primary importance for the weaker

sections of the society, especially in the developing countrie s of Africa, America and Asia.

Tapioca is one of the most important subsistence food and industrial crop for the developing countries.

Globally, about 158 million tons of tapioca is produced from an area of 15.7 million hectares with an

average productivity of 10 tons/ha. As mentioned earlier, among the tapioca producing continents in the

world, Asia ranks next only to Africa with an area and production of 3.97 million hectares and 51.44

million tons respectively (anon., 1993).

1.2 THE NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY

In India, tapioca is grown in an area of 3.1 lac hectares with an annual production of 60 lac tons.

Although cassava is cultivated in about 13 states of India, the major production comes form the southern

states of India i.e. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In the view of the changing lifestyle, influx

of gulf money, availability of grains through public distribution system and a shift in cultivation pattern

favouring plantation crops, the areas in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh showed a gradual increase in

cassava production over the years.

While the total production of Kerala came down to 2.58 million tons in 1996-97 from 4.2 million tons in

1967-68, the same rose to 3.04 million tone from 0.42 million tons during the corresponding periods in

Tamil Nadu. This remarkable increase in production in Tamil Nadu was the result of adopting high

yielding cultivators like H 226 and H 165. A survey conducted by CTCRI has indicated that more than

three fourth of the cassava area in Salem, South Arcot and Dharmapuri districts was under these variety of

seeds.

The huge shift in the focus of cassava production from Kerala to Tamil Nadu is clearly evident from the

following table:

CASSAVA PRODUCTION KERALA TAMIL NADU

1967-68

a. Area under cultivation

b. Percentage of national

production

86%

91%

13%

9%

1996-97

a. Area under cultivation

b. Percentage of national

production

61%

45%

29%

52%

Tapioca is cultivated predominantly in Kerala as a staple food crop while it is more of an industrial crop

in Tamil Nadu. Tapioca root is valued for its starch content and mainly used by sago industries. The

tapioca root contains 30 to 40 per cent of dry matters, which is principally carbohydrate. It has acceptable

levels of B vitamins and provides other minerals too. In Tamil Nadu, tapioca is being grown in an area of

85,412 ha accounting for an annual production of 32.22 lac tons. Around 80 per cent of the total tapioca

production is utilised by the sago and starch based industries in the state (According to Thamburaj and

Kannan, 1997; Vikas Singhal, 1999).

Based on the statistical projection, the production of cassava is expected to reach 6.08, 6.76 and 7.44

million tons respectively by 2000, 2010 and 2020. But considering the population growth rate, the

country should aim to produce cassava tubes to the tune of 12 million tons by the year 2020, which would

call for extensive R&D strategies in the field. The present productivity of 22.5 t/ha is projected to rise to

26.95, 32.57 and 38.20 t/ha by 2000, 2010 and 2020 respectively.

1.3 USES OF TAPIOCA

· Tapioca as a food security

Tapioca can serve as a nucleus for many industries with the application of biotechnology, especially

in the fermentation industries (Balagopalan et al., 1992). On the other hand, tapioca has emerged as a

cash crop in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The crop fulfills the need of the massive starch and sago industries in these states. In order to

maintain the supply of food materials and to keep pace with the ever-increasing population, tapioca

has to be retained well within the cropping system of marginal farmers.

· Tapioca based agro industries

Globally 58 percent of tapioca produced is used as human food, 28 per cent as animal feed, 4 percent

in alcohol and starch based industries and only 10 per cent is spoiled (Mandal, 1993). While more

than one fourth of the total tubers produced (158 million tons) in the world is in Asia, India accounts

for only 6.5 per cent and Indonesia and Thailand account for about 10 per cent (Anon, 1993).

Thailand and Indonesia export tapioca chips and pellets to other countries. The pellets are used as

animal feed in western countries. In India, particularly Tamil Nadu and Kerala have the potential of

increasing the productivity further and compete in the export of chips and pellets in the international

market.

Tapioca can be used as a raw material for a number of value added industrial products such as starch,

sago, glucose, dextrin, gums and fructose syrup. Most of the items mentioned are industrial products

which can be categorised as “growth industries”. The industrial tapioca starch finds its application in

various fields. The major consumers are cotton and jute textile, and paper and hard board industries.

Liquid glucose and dextrose are widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. Both these sectors

are in a rapidly growing stage. The Government of India has included liquid glucose and dextrose in

the list of items where there is likely to be a sustained demand and scope for investment. Since there

is substantial growth in the food and pharmaceutical industries, naturally the demand for liquid

glucose and dextrose is bound to go up in future. As tapioca starch possesses the advantageous

physio-chemical and structural properties it can be easily converted to liquid glucose and dextrose.

Many factories have been established recently with this objective.

· Cassava-chips and flour

White chips are used for the preparation of cassava flour, which is consumed in the same manner as

rice flour. It also forms a major component in many animal feeds. In industry it serves as a raw

material for manufacturing starch, dextrin, glucose and ethyl.

Very fine cassava chips or crisps are deep fried in edible oil, packed in polythene bags and sold as

snack food commercially in various parts of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Gold fingers,

wafers, sago pappads and tapioca pappads are some of the other snack food items produced in home

and cottage industries and are available in the market for sale.

· Sago

Sago (sabot-dana or pearls) is used as a snack food in preparation of porridge. It is also popular as an

infant food. About 35 industries from Andhra Pradesh and many from Tamil Nadu are engaged in

manufacturing sago from cassava tubers.

· Starch

Cassava finds a major industrial utilisation in the production of starch. Starch and sago are produced

from cassava tubers in more than 900 small and medium scale factories and at least two large-scale

industries in Tamil Nadu. In Andhra Pradesh one large scale and about 35 small-scale industries

process cassava tubers for starch and sago production.

The cassava starch is used in paper industries (at beater stage, as calendar sizing, for paper coating, as

wet and additive), Textile industries (as wrap sizing agent, in fabric finishing), Food industries and

Adhesives. Gum and laundry starch is produced in cottage industry near Trivandram for marketing

and sales on a regular basis.

· Modified Starches

Two firms in Tamil Nadu namely, M/s SPAC Tapioca Products (India) Ltd and M/s Varalakshmi

Starch industries Ltd, Salem are engaged in manufacturing, marketing and sales of cassava starch

derivatives such as corrugated gum starch, carboxyl methyl starch, acid modified starch, cationic

starch and pregelatinised starch.

Another firm in Andhra Pradesh, M/s Vensa Biotek Ltd of Samalkot is expected to commence

production of cold-water soluble cassava starch using CTCRI technology. And a firm in Kerala

named M/s National Chemicals and Adhesives of Quilon manufactures and markets carboxyl methyl

starch using cassava starch as animal feed material. This firm is also involved in large-scale

manufacture and marketing of Dextrin, which is derived from cassava starch.

· Dextrin

A good number of small-scale industries are engaged in producing dextrin from cassava starch, which

is relatively a simple process.

· Sweeteners

Liquid Glucose is being manufactured by M/s. Vensa Biotek Ltd., Samalkot, AP from cassava starch

and/or flour. M/s. Varalakshmi Starch Industries Ltd., Salem, TN reportedly manufactures maltodextrin

and monosodium glutamate from cassava starch. M/s. jayant Vitamins, Vadodara, Gujarat had

ventured in producing sorbitol as a sweetener and a precursor to manufacturing of Vitamin C.

· Ethanol

The CTCRI technology for the process of manufacturing ethyl alcohol using cassava chips, flour or

starch has been procured by M/s. Superstar Distilleries, Kochi, Kerala and M/s. Vairam Agro Fuels,

Chennai. The former licensee had commenced commercial production and limited marketing

· Starch-based biodegradable plastics

The CTCRI technology for manufacturing of starch-based biodegradable plastics has been licensed to

4 parties in the states of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. M/s. Shivalik Agro Poly

Products, Parwanoo, HP has already commenced commercial production. The unit at Bangalore,

Karnataka is expected to commence production shortly using cassava starch.

2. THE SALEM CLUSTER

2.1 ABOUT THE REGION

Salem has traditionally been known as the land of sago and starch. The industry got a fillip during the

Second World War when imports from the far-east were rendered impossible. The Salem region offers a

good raw material base, cheap labour and good sunshine throughout the year. All these factors provide a

congenial environment for growth of tapioca based products and have made this place famous for the

same even at an international level.

The productivity of tapioca is about 25-30 t/ha in this area, which is known to be the highest in the world.

The national average is 19 t/ha while the world average production stands at 10 t/ha only.

2.2 THE GROWTH OF SAGO AND STARCH INDUSTRIES IN SALEM

In the year 1943, Mr. Manickam Chettiar an adventurous entrepreneur went to Kerala and found tapioca

flour to be a good substitute for American corn flour. He tried various ways and means to improve the

production and marketing of this flour. To meet the growing demand of sago and starch, Mr. Manickam

with the help of a genius mechanic Mr. Venkatachalam Gounder, improved the method and machineries

for production. In their efforts, they were able to increase the production of Sago flour from 20 to 25 bags

per day.

The sago and tapioca starch industry was born during the Second World war but the end of war posed a

threat to its existence because of the changes in the import policies. As a result of the successful

representations made by the sago and starch manufacturers, and at the instance of the then Governor

General of India, Thiru. C. Rajagopalachari, the Indian Government imposed a ban on import of starch.

The industry heaved a sigh of relief temporarily before they were made to confront with the import of

maize starch under P.L.480, which again came to an end in 1965.

The sago industry in the Salem district and the adjoining areas has witnessed a phenomenal growth in the

last 60 years, as shown below:

Year No of Units Production (in tons)

1945 7

1949 45 7000

1957 125 23000

1960 200 50000

1970 650 1.5 lac tons

As on date there are more than 750 sago and starch units in Salem, Namakkal, Dharampuri and Erode

districts, registering an awesome growth! It is but appropriate to name this grand growth as the “Sago

Revolution”.

2.3 THE ROLE OF 'SAGOSERVE' IN THE CLUSTER'S GROWTH

Prior to the formation of SAGOSERVE, an industrial cooperative service society, the manufacturers of

starch and sago in this district faced a lot of problems such as lack of financial assistance, warehousing

and marketing facilities for tapioca products. The merchants used to offer low prices for their goods and

exploited the manufacturers due to an absence of organised marketing and warehousing facilities.

To overcome these problems, the sago/starch manufacturers in 1981 formed the Salem Starch and Sago

Manufacturers Service Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd., popularly known as the SAGOSERVE under

the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act 1961. This society is functioning under the administrative

control of the Director of Industries and Commerce, Government of Tamil Nadu.

After the emergence of SAGOSERVE, the bargaining power of manufacturers has substantially increased

and the menace of middlemen in this trade has been completely eliminated. Owing to the sustained efforts

of the society, sago/starch industry has now become the backbone of Salem district’s rural economy,

providing employment to more than 5 lac people both in agriculture as well as factories.

sago natural

In what most people are describing as a medical miracle, Randall McCloy Jr., the only surviving miner of the West Virginia Sago Mine disaster, has returned home. McCloy endured more than 40 hours trapped underground in a collapsed mine exposed to carbon monoxide before being liberated.

When rescued from the Sago mine nearly four months ago, he had brain failure, heart failure, kidney failure, and liver failure.

Needless to say, his outlook appeared very bleak. He was immediately transferred to one of the 30 brain trauma centers in the United States located at the West Virginia School of Medicine and was to be under the care of Dr. Julian Bailes.

Dr. Bailes called upon Dr. Barry Sears, one of the leading authorities in high-dose fish oil in the United States, to see if there was anything Dr. Sears might suggest.

"Barry's our hero," Bailes said recently. "For me, Barry is one of the main reasons why I got interested in the whole essential fatty acid area. I've read everything he's written, and he convinced me that DHA could play a role in Mr. McCloy's recovery. He sent me his product, which was the main source in his treatments."

Dr. Sears suggested administering 30 grams per day of the fish oil concentrate he developed, OmegaRx*, that would provide 18 grams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) via tube feeding. The oil was an integral daily part of Randall McCloy's treatment for the next several months.

Because this was a very high dose of EPA and DHA, McCloy's blood levels were constantly monitored to ensure that the levels of these fatty acids (EPA and DHA) fell within a certain therapeutic range. Bailes said the blood test numbers were "right on the money." The EPA was needed to reduce the inflammation caused by the lack of oxygen within the organs, and the DHA was required to rebuild the brain, Dr. Sears said.

Today the damage to his heart, kidneys, and liver has been reversed, and he is home with his family. A miracle it is, but a miracle that Dr. Bailes believes was considerably helped by high-dose fish oil. "I certainly think it played a big role," Bailes said. "How can he rebuild his brain if he doesn't have the substrate to do it?"

Dr. Sears said he plans to continue to do studies with Dr. Bailes through his nonprofit Inflammation Research Foundation on the impact of high-dose fish oil on brain trauma patients.

Maintaining a Healthy Brain

Sago Sago Flour/Starch

Sago
Proper Sago Palm care is essential for a beautiful looking plant. The Sago Palm tree, scientifically known as the Cycas revoluta, is one of the most primitive living seed plants. They are unusual ornamental plants that are very hardy. In the United States, they are typically found in warm moist climates like the Houston area. They are related to conifer trees. They are characterized by a rough trunk with light feathery leaves.

SAGO GETO LOH.........

SAGO GETO LOH

Sago natural food The valid scientific name for sago is Potamogeton pectinatus, assigned by Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum of 1753. The name Potamogeton is derived from the Greek for "river neighbor," and the specific epithet pectinatus ("comb-like") derives from the closely set insertion of the plant's leaves. The synonyms P. interruptus Kit., P. latifolius J. Robbins, P. flabellatus Bab., and P. columbianus Suksdorf have been used in North American botanical texts. Many other synonyms have used in Europe. Two modern treatments, Kartesz and Kartesz (1980) and United States Department of Agriculture (1982), recognize 40 and 35 North American species of Potamogeton, respectively, and place the genus in the family Potamogetonaceae. Earlier, the genus had variously been placed in the families Zosteraceae and Najadaceae (Fernald 1950). There are about 100 species of Potamogeton world-wide (Kadono 1982). Sago flowers and leaves are simple and anatomically reduced, compared to those of other family members (Sculthorpe 1967). Sago was one of the first Potamogetons to be described. An illustration of "fennel-leaved water milfoile" is easily recognized as sago in the ancient herbal of John Gerarde (Johnson 1633; Moore 1915). An excellent history of the genus is available (Moore 1915).
Colloquial names for sago in the United States include duck grass, duck moss, eelgrass, fennel pondweed, foxtail, Indian grass, old-fashioned bay grass, pondgrass, potato moss, and wild celery (McAtee 1939). In Europe, sago has been called poker and pochard grass (McAtee 1917) and, in Australia, string weed (Fletcher et al. 1985).
In North America, sago is placed with P. filiformis and P. vaginatus in the subgenus Coleogeton, in which all leaves are linear or setaceous, nonfloating, and divided their full length by crosspartitions (Fernald 1950). Harrison (1949) claims members of this subgenus are, unlike others, water pollinated. The three coleogetonous species have also been shown to form a distinct subgroup based on the chemistry of the waters they inhabit (Pip 1987). In the field, sago can be differentiated from the two other coleogetonous species by the presence of usually sharp-tipped or gradually pointed leaves and leaf sheaths that are rather narrow but free at the tips.
Sago has an average of 2n = 78 (70-87) chromosomes (Kalkman and Van Wijk 1984). Analyses of isoenzymes indicated that the species is genetically very heterogeneous (Hettiarachchi and Triest 1986; Van Wijk et al. 1988). Sago hybridizes with Potamogeton filiformis (P. x suecicus Richt.) and P. vaginatus (Hagstrom 1916; Dandy and Taylor 1946; Harrison 1949). Meriaux (1978) and Van Wijk (1988) reviewed the work of many European taxonomists who named many varieties or "proles" of sago (dichotomus Wallr., drupaceus Koch, flabellatus Crep., interceptus Asch., protensus Wallr., setaceus Mey., scoparius Wallr., vulgaris Cham. and Schl., and zosteraceus Fries). Both questioned whether these are simple morphs or truly have value as indicators of specific biotopes or habitat types. Luther (1951, cited in Van Wijk 1983) also concluded that the different types of sago were habitat modifications. The varieties interruptus Asch., pectinatus, and scoparius have been maintained in a recent European flora, although their taxonomic validity is said to be unclear (Casper and Krausch 1980, cited in Van Wijk 1988). Van Wijk (1983) found different morphological and ecological characteristics of annual and perennial P. pectinatus in the field and in cultured plants and recommended that the existence of these ecotypes be considered when studying the taxon. Wiegleb (1978) associated the variety scoparius with HCO3-poor waters and the variety interruptus with sites polluted with sewage. Recent work has shown that genetic differentiation does occur in sago and must be considered along with morphological characters if the taxonomy of the species is to be clarified (Van Wijk et al. 1988).
________________________________________
Autoecological Classification
Sago is one of only three or four North American species of Potamogeton that bear starchy underground perennating organs called turions or tubers, although a few other species have tuberous rootstalks. Sago is generally classified as a ruderal (capable of occupying mechanically disturbed areas), has multiple regenerative strategies, and is a stress tolerant, competitive plant that, depending on exposure to wave action, can alter its allocation of resources to different reproductive organs (Grime 1979; Kautsky 1987). In growth form, sago is considered a parvopotamid--that is, a higher aquatic plant rooted in sediment, perennially submersed except for inflorescences, and possessing long stems and small, mostly undivided, leaves (Hutchinson 1975). Luxuriant parvopotamid growth results in dense leaves, branches, and inflorescences in the upper part of the water column, with much thinner vegetation of stems and widely spaced leaves below; vegetation density of the upper part increases as water levels drop (Verhoeven 1980a).
Meriaux (1978) reviewed the work of devotees of the Zurich-Montpellier school of phytosociology (Braun-Blanquet 1932) who placed sago in various orders, alliances, and associations with other species in this elaborate phytosociological classification system. Sago was also recognized as a character or dominant species in several European and Asian associations by Hejny and Husak (1978). Sago is the most prominent plant in the Potamogeton facies of several estuarine plant communities in Europe (Kornas et al. 1960) and a faithful taxon in the class Potamea (den Hartog and Segal 1964) in some wetlands in India (Zutshi 1975). Sago also is a member of several Chara-, Ruppia-, and Zannichellia- dominated communities in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Eurosiberian regions (Lindner 1978; Verhoeven 1980a; Van Vierssen 1982a).
Sago can be considered a pioneering species, because it quickly inhabits newly flooded areas (Nelson 1954) and invades shallow waters with relatively strong wave action (Ozimek and Kowalczewski 1984) or those that are polluted (Haslam 1978). Sago is one of the first species to colonize areas reclaimed from the sea (Wolseley 1986). den Hartog (1963) and Van Vierssen (1982a) considered sago a survivor species that often showed mass development in areas where the environment became temporarily unsuitable for other species. Davis and Brinson (1980) placed sago in a group of plants tolerant of, and able to maintain dominance in, altered ecosystems.
Sago is found in submerged, floating-leaved, and emergent communities. Best plant development occurs in submerged communities, and the poorest in emergent communities where sago plants tend to be short in stature (Van der Valk and Bliss 1971). In general, most other growth forms of hydrophytes, except similar types such as charids, valisnerids, and ceratophyllids, negatively influence the environment for parvopotamids, usually because of competition for light (Hogeweg and Brenkert 1969).
Most submersed macrophytes are sensitive to frost damage (Lohammar 1938). This, combined with the rapid decomposition of plants in water, causes sago to usually behave as an annual in shallow waters in temperate climates, with buried turions the only vegetative structure to survive winter (Lapirov and Petukhova 1985). However, green sago shoots can be collected under winter ice, presumably in deeper waters (Hammer and Heseltine 1988). Turions are perennial diaspores formed underwater and take several weeks or months to develop. The fruit-like seed (drupelets) can require a stratification period to germinate well in areas of fairly mild climate. These findings, plus the observation that sago could not compete well in shallow water against species that produce seeds (annual diaspores) more quickly, led Van Vierssen and Verhoeven (1983) to consider sago a species rather intolerant of habitat desiccation.
In mild climates sago can be evergreen (Spence et al. 1979b). Rarely, some deepwater forms of sago grow perennially from submersed rootstalks and can also have green shoots that survive winter (Moore 1915). Sago can behave as an annual by dying under conditions of high salinity and regenerating from drupelets when salinity decreases (Congdon and McComb 1981). When sago is compared to Potamogeton nodosus, a species that forms winter buds rather than turions, both species invest about the same amount of photosynthate in perennating structures, but sago produces about twice as many propagules (Spencer and Anderson 1987).
The functional aspects of sago's ability to thrive and survive in a wide variety of environments have been addressed in detail by Van Wijk (1988) and will be discussed in later chapters. Van Wijk (1988) points out the confusion that has resulted from use of the terms annual and perennial to categorize plant types as well as life-cycle types, and argues that they should only be used to indicate life cycles of populations without implying a classification of plant species. Under this system, sago could theoretically be said to have an annual life cycle with either (1) generative reproduction by seeds or vegetative reproduction by turions or thickened rhizomes or (2) a perennial life cycle with vegetative reproduction by whole plants or shoots. Not all of these strategies have been observed in nature.
In Europe, the Potamogeton pectinatus association is often linked to brackish water (den Hartog 1963) and inland marshes and depressions affected by mineral pollution (Meriaux 1978). den Hartog (1981) placed sago with a small group of plants that share many properties with marine angiosperms but cannot compete well with them except under special circumstances. He termed sago a member of the eurysaline group of plants in that they are able to tolerate waters from fresh to hyperhaline that vary greatly in chemical composition. These plants are also able to withstand rapid and considerable fluctuations in salt content of the waters they inhabit., Iversen (1929) included sago in a group of species restricted to alkaline waters. Lohammar (1938) found sago in lake waters characterized by both high pH and calcium content. Further analysis of Lohammar's data by Hutchinson (1975) showed sago to be a eurytopic species able to tolerate a wide range of nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus) concentrations. Moyle (1945) placed sago in an assemblage of hard water species able to withstand waters high in sulfate ion. Other classifications based on water chemistry have been proposed by Spence (1967) and Seddon (1972).
________________________________________
Distribution
Unlike most of the Potamogetons, which are interior and northern in global distribution, sago is nearly cosmopolitan (St. John 1916). The plant occurs circumboreally to about 70° N (Hulten 1968) and can also be found in South Africa, South America, South Eurasia, and New Zealand. The species occurs from sea level to nearly 4,900 m above sea level in high mountains of Venezuela and Tibet (Ascherson and Graebener 1907, cited in Yeo 1965). Pip (1987) recorded 19 species of Potamogeton at 430 wetland sites distributed throughout a large area of central North America and found sago second only to P. richardsonii in frequency of occurrence.

A researcher from Aklan State University (ASU) in Banga, Aklan, has ,found an easy way to germinate sago palm (Metroxylon sagu) seeds for planting. Previously people found it hard to germinate seeds of this palm species which yields valuable flour as well as leaves for roofing.
He is Michael Ibisate, research coordinator of the ASU’s College of Agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, who said that sago seeds easily germinate when soaked in a swampy and muddy environment provided that they are physiologically mature.
In his experiment, Ibisate simulated the environment which favors seed germination. This resulted in one hundred percent germination of mature sago seeds after one month, he said.
Ibisate, who has been working on the conservation of sago palm using tissue culture technique, said in their previous study that the sago seed was believed to have poor germination due to the presence of pericarp and sarcotesta. Thus, his research team used embryo rescue technique which enabled the successful development of an immature or weak embryo into a viable plant in vitro.
Aside from tissue culture, sucker is the widely used planting material for mass propagation of sago palm. In this regard, ASU researchers are planning to study further the use of sucker as planting material to determine the optimum conditions required to reduce mortality rate at seedling stage.
Sago, locally known as Ambolong in AkIan, has enormous starch deposit in its trunk. The starch has a high food value and has a big potential for industrial use. A mature sago palm could yield 50 to 70 kilos of starch. The pith, bud and shoot can also be eaten; the sap can be processed into sugar, vinegar and wine.
Apart from its use as food, Aklanons find sago as the best source of material for making shingles used as roofing material for light houses or huts. Ibisate said that many shingle makers in the province prefer using sago leaves over nipa leaves because sago leaves are more -durable, especially when used in coastal areas. Sago shingles fetch a higher price than nipa shingles. The biggest market for sago shingles is Boracay Island in Malay, Aklan.
Ibisate revealed that there is now a growing demand for sago palm as ornamental plant, both for use indoor and outdoor. Sago, he said, can be grown in an ordinary garden soil and does not require much attention.
Ibisate’s ongoing study on the conservation of sago palm is one of the projects being supported by ASU. At present, he is studying various parameters to further enhance the development of sago by using seeds as planting material.
Meanwhile, Ibisate continues to mass propagate sago palm from seeds to help increase the local supply of seedlings. And the good news is that several hundreds of seedlings are now available to interested growers at P50 each.
Answer
Mike, cannas and day lilies are propagated identically from seed. Actually, regardless of what plant you are propagating by seed, the process is the same for seed starting.

Starting seeds is actually an easy process, but success only comes through many years of trial and error. I have been starting seeds indoors for the last ten years and thoroughly enjoy it. Since I start over 500 seedlings, including annuals, vegetables, and herbs, it does become a full-time hobby. The obvious advantages are the cost savings and the variety as opposed to purchasing seedlings at the garden center.

Most vegetable and annual flower seeds need to be started 6-8 weeks prior to your last expected frost. The exact timing can be found on the seed packets, but 6 weeks is usually a good rule of thumb. Trees and bushes need at least 6 months of growing in a pot before transplanting outdoors.

Never sow seeds deeper than twice their diameter. For small seeds, place them on the surface of the growing medium, and then lightly sprinkle the mix over the seed until it is barely covered. Water from the bottom to avoid disturbing the seed.

Larger seeds may need a little help to germinate, such as seeds with extremely hard shells that need broken down before sowing. These require soaking for 24 hours to break down the coating and improve germination. Another method is stratification; a process that entails nicking the seed with a sharp tool or rubbing the seed lightly on fine grit sandpaper.

Seedlings need to be in simulated sunshine for at least 14 hours per day. They also need 8 hours of dormancy for good growth. You either need to invest in fluorescent bulbs called gro-lights, which are as close to natural light as anything sold on the market, or substitute these with less expensive bulbs. By using one cool and one warm white fluorescent in combination, you will achieve the same effect.

If given the correct conditions, namely adequate moisture, strong light, and healthy soil, the plants will germinate and grow to maturity with few or any problems. To maintain moisture, seeds should be covered with plastic. I grow my seedlings in seed trays with individual cell packs. After sowing, I cover with a pre-fitted plastic dome. But once the first seedlings sprout, it is important to remove the cover to avoid damping-off disease. This is a fatal fungus disease which only attacks young seedlings, and is caused by inadequate air circulation and non-sterile soil. That is why I advise all those who start seeds indoors to only use sterile, soils mixes composed of vermiculite, perlite, and sphagnum moss. These mixes can be purchased at any reputable garden center.

Once the seedlings develop their second set of leaves, you can begin supplementing the plants with a diluted solution of fertilizer. Since you want to keep the nitrogen and salt levels low at this stage of growth, I highly recommend staying away from the chemical mixes. Rather, use a seaweed/fish emulsion formula at ¼ the recommended level. This will help the plants’ development and also help ward off disease. You can purchase these organic formulas at most garden centers or through online websites such as Gardens Alive.

Finally, be sure to keep your fluorescent lights no higher than 3” above the seedlings at all times. This is critical to prevent the plants from becoming weak and spindly. As I mentioned earlier, they should be left on 14 hours per day. If fluorescent lighting is not possible, put them in a southwest window and turn them every three days to avoid leaning.

I am attaching a few websites that should prove helpful. I would also advise you to purchase “The New Seed-Starters Handbook” by Nancy Bubel. It has many good ideas and techniques that benefit even experienced gardeners.
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INDONESIA SPICES

Sago, an interesting but underutilized ethanol crop

The true sago palm, Metroxylon sagu, has been described as mankind's oldest food plant with the starch contained in the trunk used as a staple food in southeast Asia. Traditionally, hunter-gatherers use a complex and labor-intensive process of felling the tree, splitting it open, removing the starch and cleaning out its poisonous substances, after which it is ready to be consumed. The starch itself is very nutritious and some of us may have even tasted it because tapioca flour is made from it.
As these sago-growing hunter-gatherers migrate to the cities, they abandon their healthy starch-rich diet and choose for fat and sugar food habits that don't differ much from ours.

But the sago palm remains, in the wild. The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), which strives towards diversifying the world's agricultural crop base and maximizing the potential of less known plant species, considers the palm to be a typical "underutilized" crop. It published an easily accessible but comprehensive study about sago[*.pdf], in its series about "neglected and underutilized species". The study shows the potential of the crop, where and how it is currently used, which barriers there are to increasing its use, and which environmental problems could be associated with its cultivation.

One of the potential uses of the sago palm is ethanol. Throughout its lifecyle, the tree accumulates vast amounts of starch, reaching a maximum when it is about 15 years old, right before its (single) inflorescence occurs. In the wild, around 5 tonnes of starch per hectare can be harvested, but plantations show starch yields of up to 30 tonnes per year.

More importantly, the starch is of such a quality that ethanol conversion efficiencies of up to 72% can be obtained (for hydrated ethanol). Taking an optimistic yield of 20 tons of clean starch per hectare, this comes down to an alcohol yield of 14,400 litres, (1540 gallons per acre) making sago one of the most productive energy crops.

But this is theory. Contrary to palm oil, soya, coconut, cassava and most other tropical crops, sago suffers under a lack of research and development, most notably in crop improvement, phytopathology and plantation management techniques. Despite yearly symposia on sago, the palm has a long way to go before it will be used on a large scale.

Here and there, things are moving, though. The Malaysian government has started a 50,000 hectare plantation with sago palms in Sarawak, and considers it to be a crop with large potential for the development of a biofuels industry. Sago is set to become the second pillar [*.pdf] of Malaysia's bioenergy program.


This is just an introductory file which we will be updating regularly. Here at the BioPact we try to broaden the debate about biofuels, and we try to introduce underutilized crops into it.

SAGO OF INDONESIA

SAGO MAKES GREEN NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Barer-Stein, Thelma. 1999. You EatWhat You Are. A FireFly Book, [GT 2850 .B371 1999]
The Sago Palm (Metroxylon sago) grows well with minimum care in swamp and peat areas otherwise inhabitable for most other crops. It has a high starch yield: one palm may yield between 150 to 300 kg of starch.

Sarawak exports up to 40,000 tons sago a-year and the effluent (sago starch factory wastewater) resulting from sago debarking and processing are often discharged to nearby rivers. This inevitably contributes to river pollution. A typical sago mill consumes about 1,000 logs per day, generating a minimum of 400 tons of slurry effluent which contains about 5% solids (20 tons).

The Biochemistry Laboratory at the Faculty of Resource Science and Technology, UNIMAS under the supervision of Professor Dr Kopli Bujang has for the past couple of years been working on exploiting the potential of the sago waste solids in the slurry effluent, looking at the possible generation of beofuel.

Although the use of sago starch is a clear possibility, the production of biofuel from a food source doest not seems appropriate especially when one is looking at the rising prices of food supply around the world. The group, therefore, have put their focus on using the sago waste solids. This not only shifts the reliance away from the sago starch but also minimize the effects of environmental pollution from the sago factories.

To begin with, the research group has successfully established a complete bench-plant in campus, in preparation for the pilot-plants which are currently being constructed at Kotobuki (Japan) and Malaysia under the supervision of a Malaysian private company.

The parameters are currently being set to increase the filtration efficiency of the slurry effluent to carve the possibility of harvesting the sago fibres for production of fermentable sugars in a continuous pilot-scale level. Using an in-house modified enzymatic process, initials attempts were able to extract 20-25% of fermentable sugars from sago fibres. At the conservative conversion of 20%, it is possible to produce a minimum of 4 tons/day of fermentable sugars from the slurry effluent produce in a typical sago mill.

Two units of hydrolyses and one unit of rotating vacuum pump filter for continuous filtration of the sago effluent have been developed and constructed to enable the efficient hydrolysis of sago fibers at the pilot-scale level. These will make a convenient attachment to the pilot-plant for a maximum production of biofuel and other by-products.

One of the other by-products currently investigated is the alga Spirulina culture on the filtered sago effluent. Standard parameters have been established to allow for the culture to be harvested after 10 to 20 days. The final objective is to market this product as a source of protein and organic health supplements, adding further commercial value to a potential pollutant.

SAGO NATURAL

INDONESIA SAGO PRODUCER
Sago food is also obtained from Metroxylon Rumphii as well as from various other East Indian palms such as the Gomuti palm (Arenga saccharifera), the Kittul palm (Caryota wrens), the Sago Palm (Metroxylon Sagu), much reduced . 1, Portion of See also:
Sago natural flour is used not only as staple food but also as one basic material for adhesives. However, the cultivation of sago trees in Indonesia has not been developed yet. The utilization of land which is suitable for the growth of sago trees has been very low although the acreage of such land in Indonesia is potentially large. According to the Department of Industry, around 51% of the world's sago tree population grows in Indonesia.
The land suitable for sago trees in Indonesia has not been utilized to the optimum level. The productivity of such land is still low. Most of the land is occupied by natural forests while the rest, on which sago trees grow, is managed in...
Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.
Starchy grains prepared from the pith of the sago palm (Metrozylon sago); almost pure starch free from protein. Analysis per 100g: protein 0.5 g, fat negligible, carbohydrate 88g, trace of B vitamins.
Excerpts from Passmore, Jacki. 1991. The Encyclopedia of Asian Sago Food and Cooking. Hearst Books, New York.
The tree from which sago is produced grows wild in low-lying fresh-water swamps in Southeast Asia. Valued for the starch that builds up in the pith of the trunk, the tree trunk is split open, the pith scooped otu and rasped or ground to a course, dries paste. It is moistened to release a milky fluid containing the starch, which is dried into sago starch. Pearl sago is produced by pushing a moist paste through a forming sieve; the resulting “pearls” are dried. They are used in making desserts. In many parts of Southeast Asia sago palm fronds are used for thatching and the fruit, which has an astringent taste, is considered a delicacy. Also known as subadana (India); ambooloong booloo (Inodnesia); pohon sagoo, rombeea (Malaysia).
Garrett, Theodore Francis (edited by). 1898. the Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery. L. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand, W.C. London. Vol. III
is derived from the Malayan Sago, which signifies pith. The sago of commerce is obtained from the interior of the trunk of several palms. It resembles arrowroot in many of its characteristics.

SAGP TECHNOLOGI ALTERNATIF POWER

AN ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY TO READILY PRODUCE ELITE SAGO(METROXYLON SAGU ROTTB.) PLANTING MATERIALS WAS FOUND EFFECTIVE.
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Based on the results of the study entitled “Regeneration and Conservation of Sago Palm in Panay Island, Philippines through in vitro Techniques,” the method called in vitro culture works for mass propagation of Sago palm. The study was conducted by Michael Ibisate and Dr. Elsa I. Abayon of the Aklan State University College of Agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Sciences in Banua. Aklan.
Sago, a monocot and a sucker-producing plant, can be propagated by suckers, or by seeds. Suckers with unopened buds are the best planting materials.
Recently, however, a shortage of planting materials prompted the increased use of seeds for planting. The problem with seeds is its generally poor germination due to the presence of pericarp and sarcotesta, which restrict water absorption and leach out endogenous germination inhibitors.
What farmers usually do to hasten germination was to soak the seeds in water with a temperature of 30°C, but the researchers said here had been no research findings reported as to its success.
Thus, Ibisate and Abayon tried to evaluate the regeneration capacity of sago through embryogenesis, or embryo rescue, which promotes the development of an immature or weak embryo into a viable plant.
The process first involved seed sterilization wherein pre-mature fruits of different sizes were washed with detergent solution for an hour. re-sterilized inside the inoculating chamber in a bleach solution for 30 minutes, and finally washed thrice with sterilized distilled water.
Embryos were then obtained from sterilized sago seeds and cultured into basal MS medium supplemented with Benzylaminopurine (BAP) until the shoot developed.
The newly-cultured tissues were finally exposed to daily light illumination for eight hours a day, with daily temperature of 26°C to 28°C in the growing chamber.
Actually, the study which the University funded aimed to evaluate the regeneration capacity of sago palm through in vitro technique by, determining the optimum level of BAP supplement in the medium in terms of percentage of browning of the resulting embryo, percentage of embryo survival, and the number of shoots per culture.
The researchers found that the MS culture medium supplemented with 5 ppm (parts per million) BAP had the highest percentage of survival (83.33 percent) compared to those added with 3 and 7 ppm which had a comparable survival’ rate of 50 percent with the control.
Results also showed that the medium added with 5 ppm BAP concentration had resulted in less degree of browning of the newly excised embryo. Browning is a frequently encountered difficulty in palm in vitro culture and is generally_ believed to be a response to wounding.
In terms of the number of shoot produced, embryos cultured in MS medium added with 5 ppm BAP developed two shoots per embryo while those without BAP developed only one shoot per embryo. Media supplemented with 3 and 7 ppm BAP levels did not produce shoot.
The researchers also determined the best seed size for in vitro culture in MS medium supplemented with 5 ppm BAP level. Results revealed that immature fruits whose sizes range from 0.99 to 1.99 mm produced 2.11 shoots and 2.11 roots per embryo at 60 days of culture.
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SAGO FOOD

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Discovering Sago – pearls of South East Asia





SAGO PRODUCT NICER AND MORE NATURAL
One of my favourite tropical desserts is Sago Gula Melaka (or simply sago in palm sugar). Served chilled, I enjoy the plain pearls of sago drenched in the delicious richness of coconut milk and sweet nutty flavours of gula melaka (palm sugar). It is particularly refreshing after a robust spicy meal, and is so Malayan in style and form.
I only noticed this dessert when my boyfriend now husband expressed a liking for this local pudding many years ago. I found the recipe in one of my much-treasured “Female” cookbooks, found the recipe simple enough, tried it, and the rest was history.
For a long time sago sat quietly in kitchen drawers only to be used for desserts. In Singapore, that really seems to be the only way it is eaten. Besides Sago Gula Melaka, it can also be found in the sweet Indian dessert of payasam, the Chinese “xi mi lu” a delicious chilled dessert of honey dew melon, sago and coconut milk, and the Nyonya/Malay snack of steamed sago cake.
I thought very little about sago other then enjoying them in these marvellous ways. That is until I started doing some research on South East Asian Food history. In various books, and travel accounts I read, sago kept popping up with increasing regularity. My interest piqued, I delved further into this innocuous pearl of starch, and found a little sago saga to be told.
So it is once upon a time, in a land far far away in the Malay Archipelago, sago was eaten regularly as a staple in this land, until it was displaced by rice. However it continued to be eaten many centuries ago in areas where rice was expensive or not available, such as Timor, the northern Moluccas, the Aru Islands, Buton and Selayar. It came to be seen as food for the poor. How sago was eaten and processed in Amboina, in the Moluccas in the 19th century was described by Anna Forbes, the wife of a naturalist,
“Sago as they used it would be unrecognisable to you. The first time I saw it was as we rowed up the bay of Amboina: the men were eating hard rust-coloured cakes, which seemed to me made of sawdust. And such they in a sense are. Unlike rice or barley, sago is not the fruit of a tiny stem, - it is the pith of the trunk of a great tree. The tree is felled, the pith – a soft fibrous wood – is scraped out, then it is beaten fine, and laid in a trough with water to steep. The water passes through a sieve into another trough, carrying with it the starch in the wood, and this settles at the bottom. The sediment of sago in its first stage – a fine powder, which is at once packed into cylinder-like cases for export. The neighbouring island of Ceram supplies most of the surrounding islands with their daily bread, and while we were at Paso boats frequently landed laden with this product.”
Sago continues to be extracted from the sago palm or other palms which develops a starchy pith. Not unlike Anna Forbes’ description, the pearl sago is known to be produced from the grinded pith. The processed starch from the pith is pressed through a sieve and dried on a hot surface, creating the white pellets of sago we are familiar with.
During the heydays of the East India trade, it was a product traded in the region, and was even considered a superior substance when it was first imported to Britain in the 18th century. It was added to soups and made into puddings and desserts, with its plainness relieved by the use of fruits. Yet its decline in popularity was steep, and it is now at best viewed as quixotic in the British kitchen. Its gluey texture and plain flavours can repel those unused to it.
However in colonial Singapore in the 19th and 20th century, it valiantly captured the palates of the British in the form of Sago Gula Melaka. Popular at home and at dinner parties, it was also the traditional dessert to famed curry tiffins and rijstaffel served in grand households and hotels in the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. The British continued to rave about it even during the post-war period. In the foreword of the 1947 Malayan cookbook, “Good Food” by Mr P C B Newington, A J H Dempster, the Assistant Food Controller of Perak wrote, “And here I would like to add a request that in the next edition Mr Newington includes recipes for the ever-popular mahmee and “Gula Malacca” in the preparation of which most Europeans are quite ignorant” The Gula Malacca here refers to Sago Gula Melaka.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that all these desserts used sago with a variety of milk, for it contrasts and complements so well with a rich liquid. This method of use is even documented in the far-reaches of Canton, China in the Tang Dynasty, when it is taken with water buffalo milk. Yet from this simple record on the use of sago in Tang China, I marvel at the trade links between South East Asia and China those many centuries ago.
Sago is a natural food that had been in existence for centuries. Its use had evolved with the passing of time. Although it is widely used in Singapore for desserts, the Thais invented a savoury twist to this unglamorous substance. It can be found as a bite-sized snack, saku sai moo, which has a cooked filling of pork, coriander, garlic, peanuts, fish sauce and palm sugar inside a sago covering.
Being such an “ancient” food in the region, I am certain of more innovative ways of using sago in neighbouring lands which we are not aware of in Singapore. It will be more than a culinary adventure to rediscover sago, for it is so intimately intertwined with the people of Southeast Asia.
SAGO FOOD JPG.
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SAGO FOOD

SAGO FOOD
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WHEN I was a child, a typical dessert dish in an English household was sago pudding. It was simply sago cooked with milk and sugar, and eaten with a dollop of jam on top. I used to nickname it frogspawn due to its texture. It resembled tapioca pudding which had a smoother texture, but is from cassava. In Malaysia sago dishes are commonly eaten with gula melaka. However, other societies use sago as a staple food item instead of rice or potato.

Sago forms a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and Maluku (The Moluccas). The sago plant has dozens of uses, so when I was in Maluku I was able to see this for myself.

The islands of Maluku in Indonesia were originally known at The Spice Islands and even today many spices are still grown. Although not a spice, sago is an important commodity in Maluku.

Sago is a powdery starch made from the processed pith found inside the trunks of the sago palms . These palms grow alongside rivers and in freshwater swamps. The sago palms grow all over Southeast Asia, and are used as staple foods in places where there is insufficient rain to grow wet rice.

During my stay on Seram island, I was able to see the process of sago preparation right on the riverbanks. The tall palm trees grow at a rate of up to 1.5m of vertical stem growth per year. The palm builds up a store of starch during its life of about 15 years and attains the maximum amount of starch just before the inflorescence opens. Then the tree will die after flowering.

When the palm is judged to be mature, men will cut it down and divide the stem into several lengths. Each piece is split in half lengthways, and used as a container into which the pith containing the dry starch is put. Buckets of water are hoisted from the river and added to the pith, then the mixture is pounded and washed in order to free the flour from the fibres. Pieces of sago bark are used as a filter although nowadays they also use manmade materials.

When the slurry is ready, it is allowed to flow down a sloping ramp into a goti or container made from another length of the palm trunk. This wet sediment will form the sago flour. Round shaped baskets are made from sago leaves, held together by string made from sago fibres. The wet sago is put into these baskets and transported from the river. The purified starch is then dried and preserved as flour.

Just two men work on one palm tree, one pounds and one washes. It takes about seven days to extract the flour from one palm. One tree can produce 400-600kg of wet sago flour, which is is 80 per cent starch, 16 per cent water and four per cent nitrogen.

The waste fibres left over from the washing process were dumped on the ground forming a soggy carpet which squelched between my toes. However, these fibres are still rich in protein and can be fed to pigs and chickens, and can also be used to make string.

The prepared sago flour can be preserved in the form of baked biscuits. During my stay in Maluku, I saw various different types of biscuit. Some tasted OK whereas others resembled chewing a small wad of compacted sawdust! The "toasted bricks" in the market caught my eye but I never tried them. They looked like hollow, extremely thick slices of bread. No doubt they are meant to be eaten with a sauce. The slices of toast made from sago were just about edible on their own. Sago flour is nearly pure carbohydrate and has very little protein, vitamins, or minerals.

Papeda is the sago pudding which totally resembles thick glue and is eaten with fish sauce. It reminded me of glue we used to make as children for sticking papers in scrapbooks! Sago starch is used in making bread and noodles. Pearl sago is the same starch mixed again into a paste and sieved through mesh of various sizes. The finished sago pearls have a long shelf life.

Sago is also used in the textile and pharmaceutical industries, especially as a thickener. For textiles it is used to treat fibres to make them easier to machine.

The sago palm is like the coconut palm, where nothing is wasted. Traditional Maluku houses are 90 per cent made from sago palms. The roof is made from the leaves which resemble attap, but is more durable than nipa commonly used in Malaysia. The walls are made from the fronds.

The palm parts can even be useful inside the house, as the midribs are used for making brooms and baskets. The barks of the petiole are stripped and woven into mats.

So sago certainly lives up to its nickname of the "the tree of a thousand uses".

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Whether used for making foodstuff,ustensils, textiles or roofing, sago certainly lives up to its nickname of the ‘tree of a thousand uses’, writes LIZ PRICE out of Kuala Lumpur
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SAGO FOOD

SAGO FOOD
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Abstract:
A distinction is made between the facts affecting food production and demand for food from an expanding population, the fact of forest conversion to meet that demand and, on the other hand, the uncertainty arising from the observed vegetational, atmospheric, and hydrological changes which are taking place at the present time. An attempt is made to distinguish between anthropogenic and cyclical climatic perturbance.
The author criticises some aspects of the crop-choice and cropping system selection of the so-called green revolution. He stresses the need to view food production systems, not just in terms of the direct agronomic cost, but in terms of the robustness, both of the crop and the cropping system. This view is needed to insure against uncertainty, taking into account the energy and environmental costs and the overall efficiency of the system. He discusses how sago fits into this revolution in agricultural philosophy.
Author: R.W. Stanton
Copyright 2009
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SAGO POTENTIAL AND NUTRITION

SAGO POTENTIAL AND NUTRITION
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Keyword: sago food, natural food, diabetes food
SAGO PALM AND ITS POTENTIAL
The Sago palm (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) is indigenous to Southeast Asia where it is considered a staple food source and utilized for its wide industrial purposes. It is also called embolong, bagsang, langdang, or lumban in the Visayas, or Lumbia in Bagobo.
Sago is a significant source of starch contained in its trunk. The starch has a high food value and can be used as substitute for flour. The estimated starch yield per tree ranges from 50 to 75 kg. The pith, bud, and shoot are also edible. The sap can be made into wine, vinegar, and sugar.
The leafstalks are split and used as construction materials for lighthouses while the external -part of the trunk is used for constructing floors and rafters. The leaflet midribs and the outer parts of the leaf petiole, on the other hand, are used for weaving mats and baskets.
In some parts of the Visayas, shingle made from Sago leaves is believed to be a good substitute for nipa shingle. Sago shingle has four to five times longer service life than that of the nipa shingle. The sago shingle lasts 15-20 years when used as roofings, and even longer when used as wallings.
CONSERVATION PUSHED
Despite its potential, Sago remains one of the country’s underutilized crops. Extraction of its starch content follows a crude process wherein the trunk is stripped and sundried. The dried strips are then pulverized and the starch extracted is cooked.
In some areas it was observed that Sago palm is more of a roofing material than a food source. Professor Dulce M. Flores of UP Mindanao Department of Food Science, who also conducted a research on Sago conservation and utilization, cited the-rampant cutting of sago for roofing and construction purposes as well as to give way for other high-value cash crops. She warned that if such practice continues, the country would lose a crop that has a vast potential as a food and industrial plant.
Basically, Ibisate said that the use of in vitro culture as an alternative technique to mass propagate genetically superior Sago palm would not only conserve this indigenous palm but also help revive the Sago industry in Panay Island, which is comprised of Antique, Aklan, Iloilo, Capiz, Negros Occidental, and Guimaras.
The technology has already caught the interest of the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCARRD), which according to Ibisate, will be funding a related study on Sago palm in partnership with ASU.
Recently, the University has considered a proposal to study the potential of Sago palm as a source of bio-ethanol, which will be another economically important application for this underutilized palm


It is argued, following Francois Sigaut, that the way elements of technology are invented, borrowed and re-combined challenges the notion of 'technical lineage', with its implication of 'successive orderly accretions'. The contention is examined in relation to pith removal equipment used in palm starch extraction in island southeast Asia and Melanesia, which is considered additionally instructive because it yields some potential archaeological traces. The key archaeotypes--pounding and rasping tools--reflect convergent and secondary technologies that most likely were adapted to sago processing from other cultural domains. Pounders are found mainly in the eastern part of the geographic range, and rasps in the west. There is much variability in the distribution of types, even within a small area. Inferences are drawn relating to recent changes (for example, from stone to metal working edges, and from pounders to rasps), and concerning what we can learn from the distribution of different kinds of tool, including the likelihood of versions of the same tool co-existing in the same place, or being independently invented at opposite ends of the archipelago.

SAGO POTENTIAL AND NUTRITION
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SAGO POTENTIAL AND NUTRITION

SAGO POTENTIAL AND NUTRITION
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As Francois Sigaut (1994: 435) has warned, we need to be sceptical when it comes to the notion of 'technical lineage' in studies of the history, prehistory and archaeology of food procurement strategies. Aware that such an approach is often accompanied by a misleading implication of 'successive orderly accretions' of stylistic and functional elements, this article will attempt to demonstrate the point in relation to an aspect of palm starch processing. The distribution of this technology in southeast Asia displays a concurrent diversity of techniques in particular locations, the simultaneous development of similar technologies in widely separated places, and the interchange and hybridization of knowledge practices developed in relation to different genera of starch palms, all of which resonates with Sigaut's critique. I shall argue that the data suggest a need for a much more dynamic and nuanced view of the evolution of palm starch processing technology. Although some attention has been paid to the distribution of sago processing equipment in relation to issues in the archaeology and prehistory of Melanesia, the present article is original in its attempt to look at parallels and variations in an area delineated by the occurrence of sago-producing palms in island southeast Asia more generally. Within this general context it focuses more on the Moluccas, the material culture of which is less studied, but which in terms of the history and distribution of sago extraction and its technology is arguably transitional.

The extraction of palm starch for food is an ancient and widespread subsistence technique in large parts of southeast Asia and the western Pacific (Ruddle et al. 1978). In terms of the history of technology, it presents a paradoxical picture because while the methods are perceived as complex and its archaeology poorly understood, it is often hypothesized as a likely resource base for a pre-agricultural (certainly pre-cereal) phase of southeast Asian prehistory. In another paper (Ellen 2004a) I have examined this paradox in relation to that part of the technical process which involves converting stipe (stem or trunk) pith into raw flour. I show how the equipment employed displays a distribution which suggests that hand pressing technology is associated with Metroxylon sagu and foot pressing with other starch palms that are largely of importance west of Wallacea. As Metroxylon sagu spread westwards, so pre-existing local technologies were adapted to effect its processing. Unfortunately, this is an argument that is unlikely to be ever supported by extensive archaeological evidence, given the susceptibility of the equipment to rapid dispersal and decomposition, though there is some emerging evidence from Niah Cave in Sarawak for the presence of Caryota mitis and Eugeissona utilis starch, but not Metroxylon, in contexts suggesting its human use (Barton 2005). It is, therefore, an argument rooted for the most part in comparative palaeobotany, biogeography, ethnobotany and technology studies.

In parallel, this paper addresses the problem of 'technical lineage' identified by Sigaut, by examining an aspect of starch extraction technology (pith removal) that is significant because, of the various stages in the processing, it is one of only two stages (the second being cooking) that might eventually provide reliable archaeological traces. The key archaeotypes involved--a term I define below--are pounding and rasping tools. The technologies that rely upon these different tools are secondary in the sense that they are most plausibly adaptations to sago-processing from functions performed in other cultural domains. We can reasonably claim this to be so because in cognitive terms the extraction and processing of sago pith as food from inside a hard protective covering of spines is not immediately intuitive, involving complex problem-solving skills (Ellen 2004a: 89-91); and because pounding (or adzing) and rasping sago appear to be more specialized transformations of other more basic technical skills: on the one hand, hammering and cutting with respect to more tractable and obviously useful materials than sago pith; and on the other, rubbing abrasive objects on to less hard ones in order to reduce them to smaller pieces. The evolution of these processes is convergent in the sense of evolutionary biology: having evolved in separate contexts (such as working wood or stone) and involving different kinds of physical action they now produce the same basic end result, namely shredded pith.

The distribution and spread of palm starch extraction in the Indo-Pacific region

Following Dransfield (1981), we may distinguish five palm genera that have been part of the flora of adjacent parts of Sunda and Sahul since the Cretaceous, and that yield pith (or sago) which has been historically harvested by human populations: Metroxylon, Arenga, Corypha, Caryota and Eugeissona. These genera appear to have originated in the swamps and waterways on either side of the Banda Sea, subsequently extending their range through adaptation to marginal environments, colonizing habitats on new land forms. The most important of these genera in terms of human subsistence, Metroxylon, displays evidence of having an 'Austral' or Gondwanic origin. Metroxylon sagu, in particular, was probably domesticated quite early in New Guinea, and phytogeographical data suggest its much more recent westward diffusion, across Wallacea, from a likely centre of dispersal in New Guinea and the Moluccas, almost certainly assisted by human agents (Dransfield 1981, Rhoads 1982, Yen 1995). Data on the local genetic diversity of M. sagu provides further evidence for the hypothesis of westward human-assisted dispersal (Ellen 2004a, 2006). Indeed, for some thousands of years starch-yielding palms in the humid tropics have co-evolved with Post-Pleistocene human populations. The direct archaeobotanical evidence for this is limited, though we have palynology for Borassus and Arenga in contexts suggesting human management from 2500 BP, and possibly also for Nypa (Maloney 1994:147-9), and starch traces for Caryota or Eugeissona (Barton 2005). But this kind of evidence sheds little light on how the palms were being used.

Of the nine genera of starch-producing palms known to be utilized for food in island southeast Asia (Johnson 1977), only Metroxylon, Arenga, Borassus, Eugeissona, Caryota, and possibly Corypha, provide starch on a significant scale. Of these the most productive species is Metroxylon sagu (Watt 1908, Puri 1997, Johnson 1977). I follow convention by describing the processed starch of all these palms as 'sago', even though in the strict sense it should be reserved for Metroxylon. At the present time Metroxylon sagu ranges at its most easterly from Santa Cruz in the Solomon islands to southern Thailand and Burma in the west, via the island of New Guinea, the wetter parts of the Indonesian archipelago, the southern Philippines, and through the Malay peninsula. In Papua New Guinea, M. sagu is most concentrated along the great lowland rivers, especially in Sepik and Gulf provinces, though it is also important elsewhere; and in Indonesian Papua in the administrative districts of Jayapura, Merauke and Manokwari (Flach 1997:21). M. sagu is found and used all over the north and central Moluccas (especially on Halmahera, Buru, Seram and Ambon-Lease, Bacan, Sula and Obi), and in Aru. It is less important in Kei and Tanimbar, and almost entirely absent in the southwestern islands. Especially on large islands, it occurs mainly, though not entirely, in lowland swamp forest, where it is also at its densest. Apart from the Moluccas and lowland New Guinea, it remains an important source of food in central and southeast Sulawesi, in the Banggai archipelago east of Sulawesi, in the Mentawai islands west of Sumatra, amongst the Melanau and Kedayan in Sarawak (East Malaysia), and in parts of Brunei and Sabah (East Malaysia). It is cultivated commercially in the Indonesian province of Riau on the east coast of Sumatra (Bengkalis, Karimun, Lingga and as far north east as the isolated Natuna Island), and in some coastal regions of west Kalimantan around Pontianak, and along the Kapuas. The most important areas of modern commercial production are in Sarawak and Johore (Ruinen 1920:503-4, Flach 1997).

The literature on southeast Asian prehistory reveals a shift from an earlier cultural ecology model (Ave 1977), in which people adapt to swamp land and other restricting environments by extracting sago, to (more recently) a dynamic historical ecology model, in which people actively manipulate Metroxylon in various ways, creating specialized biotopes and anthropic landscapes, in order to meet specific food procurement and trade objectives. The extent to which human populations have actually managed sago has in the past been much misunderstood (e.g. Forrest 1969 (1779):42). However, recent ethnographic work has demonstrated that while sago extraction is certainly cost-effective, and nutritionally satisfactory as part of a broad spectrum food procurement strategy, at the same time ecologies that supply these advantages are themselves often the outcome of long-term environmental management practices. Rhoads (1982) distinguishes three levels of management: repeated extraction as an unintended management technique, horticulture involving deliberate planting of suckers, and palm cultivation, which involves clearing rain forest canopy or creating artificial swamps. However, the distinction between cultivated and non-cultivated, domesticated and non-domesticated, is sometimes difficult to sustain (Ellen 2006). Certainly, more remote palms are less likely to be tended, and palms in a village tended more than others, but between these extremes there is a continuum: hence the often reported description of sago palms as 'semi-wild'. The importance of M. sagu as a long term resource is, therefore, inextricably linked to a history of human interference. Once a palm is planted it will continue to grow on a site for generations. By preventing stems from flowering and allowing a few suckers to develop, clumps may be harvested for centuries. This has important implications for property relations, palm management and the distribution of extracted sago. In fact, the difference between cultivation, incipient arboriculture (proto-cultivation) and non-cultivation is often quite indistinct. While not all Metroxylon sagu areas can be said to be anthropic it is likely that humans have had a significant impact on its spread (Rhoads 1982:23-4, Ellen 2006), and that some so-called 'wild' palms may even be feral clumps of more ancient horticultures, such as in the Gidra, Gadio Enga and Waf areas of Papua New Guinea (e.g. Dornstreich 1977, Ohtsuka 1977, Oosterwal 1961).

Distribution and variation in pith removal technology

My specific concern here is with the origins, elaboration and spread of a subsistence technology. An adequate description of the technical sequences involved must distinguish the following prototypical technical actions: cutting, splitting, chopping, pounding, creating a suspension, pressing, filtering, sedimentation, draining and heating (Ellen 2004b). Each of these elements can be hypothesized as a cognitive archaeotype. Archaeotype is a term used in Ellen 2004a to refer to a discrete technical element, process or item of equipment, that is easily identifiable, shows evidence of antiquity and continuity of usage, and by virtue of which plausibly underpins a series of historically or conceptually related technologies. Each archaeotype will have been discovered many times by humans, and for this reason is presumably drawing on an evolutionary predisposition to identify and solve problems in particular ways. What is more difficult to explain are local combinations of these archaeotypes, that is how people learn to link them together in a process of qualitative innovation (Barnett 1953:7). In starch processing, the most complex operation is that which links separation of starch granules through pounding, the addition of water to create a suspension, the combination of pressing of wet pulp and filtering, and the retrieving of flour following sedimentation. There is much to be said for seeing the entire process, from cutting to heating, as a single integrated body of knowledge and material actions, but since starch separation (Ellen 2004a) has left no discernible direct archaeological trace, I focus here on the operation of pith removal through mainly chopping or pounding, and to a lesser extent by grating. These processes are associated with a characteristic equipment, parts of which can be potentially identified archaeologically. The artifacts examined here are those observed and collected by myself in the field, reported in the published literature, and located in the collections of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden. These latter collections are methodologically significant because they are strong for both New Guinea and eastern Indonesia. Individual specimens in the Leiden collections are referred to here using the code RMV.

Specialized tools for extracting palm pith are known ethnographically and historically for the Indonesian archipelago and for (mainly the western part of) the island of New Guinea (Figure 1), the easternmost limit on the mainland likely being the Sepik basin (e.g. RMV 5526-366, RMV 1863-163). For the eastern part of New Guinea, Swadling (1996: figure 32) reports that the same tools used for wood-working are used for sago pith extraction. On the whole, throughout the range, general-purpose axes and bush knives, either metal or stone, are used for felling the palm, though in parts of New Guinea (for example in the Sepik) there are specialized palm felling tools (Figure 19). Tools for actually extracting the pith can be divided into two types: varieties of chopping or pounding tool, and rasps or graters. Descriptions of the first kind of tool vary, as do the technical actions attributed to it. The implement is variously described as a hammer, mallet, pith chopper, pounder, hoe, pick or adze, and the action as scraping, pounding, cutting and gouging. The confusion is understandable given that the same tool is used for various technical actions: to cut the pith away from the inside of the trunk, to pound the loose pith in the trunk, to loosen the starch granules and to scrape away pith adhering to the inside edge of the trunk. The action required to extract the pith using the second kind of tool can be described as grating or rasping. There are some reports of scraping tools which do not fit either of these categories, such as the hand-held unshafted coconut shell scrapers and serrated iron hoops found in Tikopia (Firth 1950:133-4). There are also museum specimens of single pieces of hard wood described as sago pounders, 'stampers' or 'sticks' for Buru in the Moluccas (RMV 1971-207) and for the Asmat area (RMV 1971-789, RMV 1889-309) on the 'Casuarina Coast' of southwestern New Guinea (Indonesian Papua, Kabupaten Merauke), which perhaps function(ed) after the fashion of rice pounders.

What I shall here call for convenience a sago pounder most closely resembles physically the tools whose names are also used to describe it, such as 'hoe', 'chopper' and 'adze'. It consists of a head with a working edge at one end, usually attached at an angle of 90 degrees to a handle. I here distinguish six basic types:

1. In its simplest form the pounder is composed of a single flexed piece of bamboo ora single piece of wood (Figure 2). In Piliana (central Seram) in 1975, I observed and measured a pounder made entirely of a single piece of Pterocarpus indicus wood (45.5cm shaft, 23cm blade) which had a metal ferrule combined with a stone flake cutting edge. Wooden pounders of a similar design are known for Halmahera (RMV 5382-12), for the Abelam of the Sepik valley (RMV 5526-366) and for the Asmat on the southwest coast of New Guinea. The Asmat examples (e.g. RMV 1698-65, RMV 3070-297) often have a replaceable bamboo sleeve on the working head to provide a more appropriate cutting edge.

2. More common is a tool with a head hafted through a hole in the handle. The head and handle can be of wood (Figure 3), or the head of wood and the handle of bamboo (Figures 4 and 5). The Nuaulu all-wood pounders of this type from south Seram (Figure 6) are rare, and the whole can be reinforced or not with a rattan piece across the angle, with a metal ferrule on the end of the blade. They are made mainly of Intsia bijuga, but also from Lansium domesticum and Shorea selanica. They were unusual in the Nuaulu area between 1970 and 2003, and I only saw one for the first time in 1996. They are reckoned to be longer-lasting than the bamboo pounder, but not as effective, nor as common. Pounders of this basic design are reported for Mentawai (off the west coast of Sumatra), Aru, Seram and the Mimika (e.g. RMV 1971-471, RMV 1889-199) and Asmat (RMV 4476-4) areas of southwest New Guinea, and for Lake Sentani (RMV 5875-11) in northwestern New Guinea, where they traditionally exhibit concave-ended polished stone heads.

3. A third type is made entirely of bamboo or has a bamboo head and wooden handle, where the head is inserted into the end of the handle and held in tension with rattan. This type has a much more restricted distribution. It is typical of many parts of the west central Moluccas, including Seram (Figure 7; also Ellen 2004b), Sula (Figure 8), Buru (RMV 1971-196) and possibly also parts of Halmahera (RMV 370-2198).

4. A fourth type also consists of two parts, head and elbow-shaped handle, though with a hafting formed by lashing the head against the elbow of the handle, with or without lugs. Pounders of this type are always made of wood (Figures 9, 10 and 11), or wood and stone. A similar pounder is recorded for the Penan Benalui of East Kalimantan, where Eugeissona utilis is the most important species for starch extraction (Puri: personal communication). Other pounders of this general construction are known from museum collections for the north coast of western New Guinea (RMV 2027-146), including Memberamo (RMV 1971-1000a, 1971-1001), and for the Sepik (RMV 1863-163).

5. Although first appearances might suggest otherwise, the distinctive 'weti manano' pounder from parts of east and central Seram (Figure 12) is a structural variant of type 4. I have specimens and photographic records of this type from Hatumeten on Teluti Bay. The shaft and handle is of Tectona grandis ('kayu besi'), 79.5cm long with a metal ferrule and blade (Ellen, field notes: 75-01-53). A second example was recorded from Dai on the island of Gorom (Ellen, field notes: 86-16-24). The type has a restricted distribution and for this reason is most likely to have been a local adaptation. Its advantage over other types is its resilience, and perhaps ergonomic properties. A Nuaulu bamboo pounder (Ellen 2004b) will last two or three palms, while the 'weti manano' will last many years.

6. A sixth and final basic structural form is much rarer, where a head is hafted into a split handle, a form recorded in New Guinea for Teluk Berau (McCluer Gulf) (RMV 1971-1133), along the northwestern coast (RMV 1904-605) as far as Humboldt Bay (RMV 1904-603), for the Papuan Gulf (Figure 13), Halmahera (RMV 1106-57), the Kei islands (Figure 14) and Mindanao Fernandez and Lynch 1972:298).
There are other dimensions of variation. In Tolaki, southeast Sulawesi, pounder heads were made of Intsia bijuga, with a handle of any wood (Figure 5). Beccari (1986 [1904]: 287) reports pounders from Bintulu, Borneo, usually slightly hollowed at the working end, while Morris (1953: 25) says that Melanau used wooden pointed adzes prior to the introduction of nail-studded boards. Wooden pounders, as we have already seen, often incorporate pieces of iron, particularly as ferrules, and this is generally reported from parts of New Guinea, the Moluccas and Sulawesi (for example in the Toraja area). Occasionally, pounders are found which appear to be of a construction quite unrelated to more generic types, such as that shown from Brunei in Figure 14; or with the handle inserted into the head: Damar in the Moluccas (RMV 1241-261) or Kayan, East Kalimantan (RMV 1219-78). Different species of palm may require different pounders and different modes of action. Arenga pith, for example, is harder than Metroxylon, and in Cavite province in the Philippines the trunk of Arenga is cut into small pieces before pounding to a coarse meal (Ruddle et al. 1978:19). And, finally, some contemporary pounders (Figure 13) still incorporate stone working edges, a matter I shall explore in the next section.
Rasps (or graters) are reported mainly from the western part of the archipelago. These vary from short rasps no longer than 60cm and designed for use by a single person (Figure 17), to large reinforced boards studded with nails and operated by two people (Figure 18), as found in Pasar Usang, West Sumatra (Ellen 1985: field data), and on Siberut (Whitten and Whitten 1981). As a means of reducing solid pith to pulverized matter suitable for pressing, this method is more cost-effective than hand-held pounders, though the technique is only possible where the bark has been first completely removed. In small-scale operations, and where rivers are not available for transport, rasping may take place at the point where the palm is felled. Elsewhere, as Beccari (1986 [1904]:288) reports for the Melanau of Sarawak, trunks may be floated down river to be rasped in special sheds.

The geographic distribution of sago pith extraction tools is illustrated in Figure 1. At the present time, pounders are found mainly in the eastern part of the sago extraction range, and rasps in the west. The distribution of types of pounder shows a great deal of variability, even within a small area, with evidence that design variants may be used within a single population (i.e. Nuaulu evidence, but see also Klappa 2005: plate 4). This is what we might expect for a tool that is a simple adaptation of a basic axe/adze archaeotype, which itself displays a variety of hafting methods and combination of materials. Despite this shared archaeotype for elbow-jointed tools, and some cross utilization and hybridization of wood-working and sago-pounding tools, as Crosby (1976: 144, 148) has shown, wood-working and sago-pounding involve different combinations of function, often reflected in the use of distinct kinds of implement.

The distribution of rasps and pounders overlaps in the western part of the range, and in places (for example, parts of Sarawak and Brunei) rasps have replaced pounders (Figure 1), to some extent as a consequence of the commercialization of production. The machine graters now found in parts of the Moluccas, New Guinea and Malaysia, are an extension of this basic principle.

Archaeological evidence

Having reviewed the comparative ethnography of one kind of processing equipment in relation to pith removal, we can finally turn to the rather limited archaeological and historical data, in order to examine how far existing theories of the spread and evolution of starch palm technology (particularly with respect to Metroxylon) need to be modified.

We know little of the archaeology of Sahul before 30,000 BP, and there is no evidence of Pleistocene palm starch extraction (Yen 1995:837). Direct evidence for the extraction of palm starch is always going to be difficult to find because the preservation of plant remains from prehistoric deposits in the humid tropics is notoriously poor. Moreover, it is common to extract pith before the palm flowers, which reduces the likelihood of finding fossilized pollen, and therefore of reliable palaeobotanical dating (Rhoads 1977:33). We now, however, have identifiable palm starch residues from one site (Barton 2005), and there are strong reasons--based on the phytogeographic and ecological picture--for hypothesizing palm starch extraction (though not necessarily from Metroxylon) as part of the subsistence strategy of the earliest people in Sahul, and to a lesser extent Sunda.

Apart from starch residues, direct evidence is restricted to stone and ceramic artifacts associated with sago extraction and preparation. We know from the ethnographic evidence for Metroxylon processing that in many areas the palm itself provides material for equipment at all stages of processing (Ellen 2004b), including the containers used for cooking. Pottery is, therefore, not necessary, and less likely to be found. Here I am concerned only with stone artifacts.

In New Guinea, stone pounder heads (Figure 13), often though not exclusively cylindrical or conical with concave working ends, are reported widely between 1915 and the 1970s: from Teluk Cendrawasih (Geelvink Bay), along the northwestem coast (RMV 2970-1568) as far as Humboldt Bay (RMV 602-144, 132, 1904-327, 1904-606) and Lake Sentani (RMV 1356-2, and RMV 5875-11 respectively); the Sepik generally, on Huon Gulf (Hopoi), Collingwood Bay, as far east as the Massim (including Sanaroa and Dobu); and back along the south coast eastwards, via Mailu, the Papuan Gulf (including Kiwai and Kutubu on the southern fringes of the Highlands) to Merauke. These include roughly-shaped or naturally-occurring pieces inserted in old woodworking tools, and sometimes old wood-working blades hafted in slightly different handles; stone tools flaked to an elongated cone with a flat striking head or circular-sectioned, dimple-ended, stone heads hafted in the usual wood-working handle; and an implement made from a wooden handle and head in tension with stone blades inserted in the head (Crosby 1976: 146-8; Rhoads 1980; Figure 13 here; also P. White, personal communication). In addition, a number of New Guinea populations use stone tools to chop down sago palms. A cigar or bullet shaped sago palm feller, made from hammer-dressed igneous rock, and with no alternative uses (Figure 19), has a distribution coterminous with sago production areas (Crosby 1976, Rhoads 1977:32).

Similar reports on the use of stone heads also exist for central Borneo well into the late twentieth century (Ave 1977:23). Round sharp-cornered stones set in a bamboo head were once used in central and eastern Seram (Tauern 1918:103), and stone-headed pounders were reported by people in Manusela and Piliana in central Seram as having been used within their lifetime when I visited in 1975. Wallace reports quartzite heads in east Seram (Figure 16), although his (1962 [1860]:290) description and illustration of a sago 'club' of hard and heavy wood is an implausible shape ergonomically, and we only have Wallace's sketch to go on.

The unambiguous report of similar stone heads from well-defined archaeological contexts is, however, rare. Rhoads (1977:36; 1980:143, VI-22), working at a Kikori river basin site, found several chipped stone pounders with use polish still present (Figure 20), probably datable to 1500 BP. He notes (1977:35) that use wear patterns of all sago pounders obtained in ethnographic contexts are identical regardless of the stone used, a heavy silica gloss building up following persistent use; a distinctive trait which cannot be attributed to any other type of tool known from New Guinea. Artefactual traces of pith extraction further west are more-or-less non-existent. Burnished stone flakes found on Seram (Glover and Ellen 1975, Ellen and Glover 1979) may plausibly be, in some cases, from sago pounders, But apart from the repeat sporadic mentions of stone being used for sago pounders in ethnographic descriptions there is little more that can be said about the archaeology of this technology at the present time.
Discussion and Conclusions

On the basis of the comparative ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence for pith extraction technology reviewed here we can draw a number of inferences about origins and modifications of tools used at the present time. The first two are quite specific and refer broadly to the period, approximately 1500-2000 years ago, when iron was becoming more readily available in eastern archipelagic southeast Asia for the material culture of basic subsistence.

1. That stone pounders and wooden and bamboo pounders with stone working edges have in some locations been superseded by wooden (including bamboo) pounders or wooden pounders with iron parts. This has happened, for example, on Seram since the mid-nineteenth century, with the addition of metal ferrules and in some cases the replacement of a stone flake with a metal working edge (Figure 12). This claim is based on oral tradition, the evidence of re-used stones as strike-a-lights and unstratified surface finds, and the testament of Wallace (1962 [1869]: 290). In New Guinea, the pre-European spread of iron eastwards from before 1606 (Kamma and Kooijman 1973:9) may have allowed some stone tools to be replaced by iron parts from quite early, though in Papua New Guinea stone headed tools are reported as being used down to the present.

2. That rasps used in Sumatra and Borneo, which require the insertion of many nails, were presumably preceded by pounders with non-metal parts, of the kinds described here for these areas. There is no archaeological or ethnographic evidence for rasps with non-metal parts, or close plausible analogies. We know of no use of metal in this way before the European period, and it is most likely that the rasp is no older than the eighteenth century (made using ships' nails) or even the nineteenth century. It might also be linked to the commercialization of sago-production, especially in Sarawak, perhaps under Chinese influence. Though rasps could be made using stone technology, we know of no helpful parallels in the lithic traditions of island southeast Asia.

Claims concerning the more ancient origins of pounders are grounded in the distribution of ethnographic reports on the relationship between wood-working and sago-working tools. Thus, we can draw a distinction on the island of New Guinea between extraction technologies used northeast of a line drawn approximately from Vanimo on the north coast to near Yule Island in the Gulf of Papua, and those to the southwest, with some hybridization of types along the northern boundary (Crosby 1976:149, 152; Klappa, 2005:408-9). Northeastern technologies largely involve wood-working implements adapted for pounding sago, while southwestern implements are generally specially constructed, except for isolates on the west coast of Teluk Cendrawasih and the Kiwai area of the Fly River delta. For Crosby, this suggests that the northeastern technology is indigenous to New Guinea, while the southwestern technology may have diffused from eastern Indonesia. As it happens, the evidence of eastward movement of other elements in the Moluccan sago technology complex (Swadling 1996), and the fact that the stone-metal transition for wood working tools was historically much earlier in Indonesia compared with New Guinea, is consistent with this hypothesis. Since sago pounding and wood-working tools are mechanically similar, and in New Guinea may overlap, and since ground edge axe/adze blades are known from 10,000 BP (Golson 2005: 466-9) and waisted blades from between 25,000 and 40,000 BP (e.g. Bulmer 2005:440; Golson 2001:196-7; Groube et al. 1986), sago use could plausibly be of similar antiquity. This would be consistent with the starch residue, botanical and ethnobotanical data described earlier.

Overall, the distributions of, and similarities between, pith extraction tools pose no particular puzzle in terms of cognitive propensity or comparative technology studies, as they exemplify a form widely found throughout the world, which might be described as the adze/axe archaeotype, utilizing structural principles (e.g. types of hafting) and working patterns easily transferred through analogy. What is clear though, even from a rather limited data set, is that with regard to the tools used to extract palm starch in island Southeast Asia and New Guinea, different elements are invented, borrowed from existing equipment, diffuse separately and are re-combined in different ways. Thus, materials (whether wood, bamboo or some mixture) may hybridize with different methods of hafting, where availability of resources permit. For this reason, we should not take distribution maps of specific variants too literally, as several forms can co-exist in the same place at the same time (as indeed is the case on Seram at the present time), or can be independently invented at opposite ends of the archipelago.

These data and the interpretations I have placed upon them are consistent with conclusions drawn with respect to other elements of the extraction and processing technology associated with starch palms in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, predominantly, though not exclusively Metroxylon sagu (Ellen 2004a), and suggest the need for more nuanced explanations. What an earlier generation might have seen in terms of regional or even global diffusion is much better understood in the first instance as a process of cultural selection involving local decisions as to how best to solve technical problems and how best to modify and improve those solutions over time as circumstances stabilize or change. An understanding of this process of cultural selection must take into account: (a) the broader technical repertoire available to individual populations; (b) a population's ability to adapt and develop equipment intra-culturally across techno-cognitive domains, drawing on a combination of local models; (c) a propensity to vary materials as availability necessitates, and (d) to repeatedly work things out from first principles on the basis of common human frameworks of intuitive physics informed by cultural and ecological experience, borrowing new ideas in part or in their entirety as appropriate. Thus, the data I have presented support the skeptical position taken by Sigaut on the confidence we should place in simple 'technical lineage' models, and teach us that old anthropological controversies about diffusion need to be occasionally revisited less we incline to ah understandable fall-back assumption that all significant innovation must be exogenous.

Acknowledgments

The fieldwork reported here for the Nuaulu area of south central Seram has been undertaken during numerous visits between 1969 and 1996. Fieldwork in Kei was conducted in 1981, in East Seram and Gorom in 1981 and 1986, and on Ternate in 1990. Fieldwork outside the Moluccas was undertaken as follows: Biak, Papua/Irian Jaya (1996), Tolaki, southeast Sulawesi (1976), and in Pasar Usang, West Sumatra (1985). In connection with these last two visits I should acknowledge the support of the Direktorat Jenderal Transmigrasi, and Andalas University in Padang respectively. On all other occasions research in Indonesia has been sponsored by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI: Lembaga llmu Pengetahuan Indonesia), and in the Moluccas latterly also by Pattimura University Ambon, specifically the Pusat Studi Maluku. Fieldwork outside Indonesia was conducted as follows: Sarawak, Kuching (1976) supported by Kemajuan Kanji, and in Brunei (1994), sponsored by the Brunei Museum. Financial support between 1969 and 1992 has come from a combination of the former UK Social Science Research Council, the London-Cornell Project for East and Southeast Asian Studies, the British Council, the Central Research Fund of the University of London, the Galton Foundation and the Hayter Travel Awards Scheme. Work in 1996 was supported by ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) grant R000 236082 for work on 'Deforestation and forest knowledge in south central Seram, eastem Indonesia'. I also draw on research conducted on an earlier ESRC grant (R000 23 3088) for work on 'The ecology and ethnobiology of human-rainforest interaction in Brunei (a Dusun case study)'. The final analysis and writing-up was supported by ESRC RES 000 22 1106, 'The ethnography, ethnobotany and dispersal of palm starch extraction technology'. For access to collections, and advice on data I am personally grateful to Pudarno Binchin and Bantong Antaran of the Brunei Museums, to James Hamill of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum, to various staff at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin, and at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden (especially Sijbrand de Rooij and Pieter ter Keurs), and to Stefanie Klappa at Kent. For original photographic work I am indebted to Spencer Scott in the UKC photographic unit, and to Heather Locke for digitalisation and enhancement. The maps were drawn by Lesley Farr in the UKC Graphics unit. For permission to reproduce images I would like to acknowledge the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin and Dr. Wibke Lobo (Figures 2, 3, 4, 8 and 17), Dr. Jim Rhoads of Curtin University, Australia (Figures 13 and 20), Dover Publications and Ms Terri Torretto (Figure 16), the Director of the Brunei Museums (Figure 15), and Dr. Eleanor Crosby and Turnix Pty Ltd (Figure 19).
References

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