ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Gendered Taskscapes: Food, Farming, and CraftProduction in Banda, Ghana in the Eighteenthto Twenty-first Centuries

Amanda L. Logan & M. Dores Cruz

Published online: 13 May 2014# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract This article blends insights from gender, technology, and development studieswith Ingold’s concept of taskscape to examine the interrelated nature of farming, food, andcraft manufacture practices in Banda, Ghana during the last three centuries. We begin bycomparing two ethnoarchaeological studies that were conducted separately by the authors,one that focused on food, and the other on ceramic production, preparation, and con-sumption. We use these data to analyze gendered taskscapes and how they have changedin recent decades with the introduction of new technologies and major economic andenvironmental shifts. Building on such insights, we analyze how taskscapes shifted inearlier centuries in Banda through archaeological remains of food and craft practice at theeighteenth- to twentieth-century site of Makala Kataa. Craft production cannot be fullyunderstood without reference to food production, preparation, and consumption; thus,viewing these practices as interrelated tasks in a gendered taskscape yields insight into therhythms of everyday life and highlights women’s often undervalued skills.

Résumé Dans cet article, nous combinons des idées qui sont fondées sur des études sur legenre, la technologie et le développement, en utilisant le concept de taskscape créé parIngold, et en examinant l’interdépendance de l’agriculture, de l’alimentation et des pratiquesd’artisanat mises en place à Banda, au Ghana, depuis trois siècles. Nous comparons deuxcas ethno-archéologiques effectués séparément par leurs auteurs, qui discutent la productionde nourriture et la production de poterie, leur préparation et leur utilisation, respectivement.Nous nous servons de ces données ethno-archéologiques pour analyser des taskscapes degenre, particulièrement comment ceux-ci ont évolué au cours des dernières décennies, parsuite de l’introduction de nouvelles technologies et de changements économiques etenvironnementaux majeurs. Aidées par ces idées, nous discutons des transformations dans

Afr Archaeol Rev (2014) 31:203–231DOI 10.1007/s10437-014-9155-6

A. L. Logan (*)Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208, USAe-mail: amanda.logan@northwestern.edu

M. D. CruzDepartment of Anthropology, University of Denver, 2000 E. Ashbury, Denver, CO 80208, USAe-mail: mdores.cruz@du.edu

les taskscapes de Banda en analysant simultanément les données ethnographiques et desvestiges archéologiques de cuisine et d’artisanat fouillés dans le site archéologique deMakalaKataa, qui a été habité duXVIIIe auXXe siècle. Nousmaintenons que la productionartisanale ne peut pas être vraiment comprise sans faire référence à la production, lapréparation et la consommation des aliments. Considérer ces pratiques comme des tâchesinterdépendantes dans un taskscape de genre peut être efficace pour esquisser les rythmesde la vie quotidienne et pour attirer notre attention sur les compétences des femmes qui sontsouvent négligées dans ce genre de recherches.

Keywords Gender . Taskscape . Technology . Agriculture . Food . Pottery .

Ethnoarchaeology. Ghana

Introduction

…we learnt that after packing us off, [Mother] would then go to the market to buythe kenkey and fried fish, tomatoes, onions and fresh peppers,…and once she wasback, wash the grinding stone, grind the vegetables together with salt, … (…)

If it's morning, my child, then there are debts to pay, group matters to meet about,community work to do, in kind or in cash. (…) So here are the numbers to count,young or old, there's the sick to tend to and visit…; the priest, the priestess,marabout and hospital…or someone just fell into the well and drowned…

If it's morning, my child, there are the dead for women to dress up, to mourn, tobury, to celebrate….

And when life is good, there's the biggest harvest in living memory towake up for at dawn, cooking for the annual feast, of the old New Year,Christmas, Idd, the new New Year, marriage to negotiate, a newborn in theneighbourhood.

– Comparisons or Who Said a Bird Cannot Father a Crab?Ama Ata Aidoo (2002: 42–43)

At first glance, village life in West Africa has a rhythm of its own. People rise early,with the cock’s crow, and gather around the family hearth where a morning meal isbeing prepared. The children run off to school, and the men to farm. Some women stayat home to tend to small children and the innumerable tasks that keep a householdfunctioning; some accompany their husbands to farm; and others farm their own fields.By the late afternoon, schoolchildren and farmers start filtering homewards. The smellof hearth fires and the melodic thump-thump of the pestle into the wooden mortarsignal that dinner is on its way. It is easy to let these sights and sounds transport us to‘times past’, when men and women repeated their respective notes in the melody ofeveryday life, allowing us to imagine a time before the smell of diesel fumes, blaringloud speakers, or high-pitched trills of cell phones. And yet, as anthropologists have

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emphasized in recent decades, these scenes fail to capture the dynamism of everydaylife in West Africa, as villages became “remotely global” (Piot 1999; Richard 2010;Stahl 1999; Stahl and Logan in press). As part of this process, gender roles and relationshave been altered, particularly with the spread of European colonialism, monetizedmarket economies, and new technologies (e.g., Cowan 1983; Croucher 2007; Cruz2003; Robin 2006; Stahl and Cruz 1998; Stamp 1993).

In this article, we consider “taskscapes”—interrelated schemes of tasks and theirtemporalities (Ingold 1993: 157)—as a framework to explore changes in everyday life,and in particular, gender relations. Cross-analyzing craft and culinary practices renderstaskscapes visible, both recent and past, allowing us to explore how technologies and dailypractices are bound together and interact with wider social and economic life and genderrelations. On a macro level, a gendered taskscape approach can relate seemingly smalldaily actions to larger political economic and environmental shifts. On a micro level, thisapproach calls attention to two important intersections: 1) the trade-offs involved in labortime-allocation and scheduling between one domain and the other; and 2) the techniquesand skills shared between tasks, both of which often occur along gendered lines.

As a case study, we focus on how gendered taskscapes changed over time in recentcenturies in Banda, west-central Ghana, an area that has been the focus of Ann Stahl’s long-term historical and archaeological research (Stahl 1999, 2001, 2007), and where the authorsconducted separate ethnoarchaeological studies on pottery in 1994 (Cruz 2003, 2011) andfood in 2009 (Logan 2012). We begin by describing changes in taskscapes in Banda thathave occurred in living memory, constructing our analysis based mainly on ethnographicdata, which helps lay the foundation for recognizing shifts in taskscapes in the past. Usingarchaeological data from Makala Kataa, we then explore the character of genderedtaskscapes in the period from the late eighteenth century through the twentieth century.

Temporalities, Techniques, and Gender in Africa

In an attempt to engender Ingold’s concept of taskscape, we blend feminist andAfricanist perspectives on technology. Technological change is at the center of archae-ological understandings of past temporalities and productivities, yet technology tends tobe narrowly defined in Western and gender-specific ways. For example, Western idealsof technological innovation and progress typically are equated with intensification ofproduction and mechanization, but innovation among African farmers may be seen inshifts in division of labor and adoption of new crops (Guyer 1984; Martin 1984: 413).Following Bryceson (1985: 8–9), we seek to broaden the definition of technologybeyond a particular material class, to a social process in which objects, techniques,skills, and social relations intersect in activities (see also Stamp 1993: 48–50), carryingforward the process of social life in what Ingold designates as “taskscapes” (Ingold1993: 157). Tasks are defined as “any practical operation, carried out by a skilledagent in an environment, as part of his or her normal business of life” (Ingold 1993:158). Ingold stresses the interrelatedness of tasks with one another and with otheraspects of life. A taskscape is, then, the entire ensemble of interrelated and interlockingtasks, along with the agents who perform them, and includes their duration andrepetition (see also activity area research, e.g., Binford 1987; Gero and Conkey 1991;Kent 1984, 1987; O’Connell 1987; Spector 1998; Yellen 1977).

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The temporality of taskscapes is not self-evident (i.e., clock time), but is rathersocially defined (Ingold 1993: 158–159, 163), often framed by culturally specificreckoning of time, the performance of activities, and by body movements (Dietlerand Herbich 1993; Herzfeld 2009). Western, capitalist understanding of time is basedon a conception of labor-time as a commodity (Foucault 1977; Thompson 1967), aperspective that does not capture non-Western temporalities, particularly when reckon-ing of time is more often tied to daily, seasonal, and weekly cycles of activities. Instead,taskscapes draw attention to the rhythms of daily life and the key tasks that anchorthem, allowing us to examine alternate temporalities. In taskscapes, social time, labor,and value are intertwined and participate in a network of activities and gestures of“doing” (Herzfeld 2009: 112; Ingold 1993; Miller 2007: 4). In archaeologicalterms, these interrelated temporalities may become materially manifest in two ways:1) as continuity or change in multiple tasks, resulting from either harmonious ordisjoint time, when temporalities of domestic practices mesh or conflict with eachother (Gosden 1994: 126; Roddick 2013: 290); and 2) in the sharing of embodiedtechniques between different domains (Gosselain 2010: 197).

In comparing our ethnographic data on farming, food preparation, and potting, itbecame evident that patterning in both temporalities and techniques was related to thegendered nature of these tasks. Put simply, specific tasks, such as food preparation, areoften assigned to specific genders (Spector 1998). Tasks that are, for example, usuallyassigned to men may become the domain of women under certain circumstances,representing a shift in gendered taskscapes that is made visible by considering boththe temporalities and techniques of different kinds of activities. Unfortunately, domes-tic activities and crafting are only rarely compared to one another, a tendency whichmay be related to the devaluation of home-based work that is traditionally assigned towomen. Concepts like “skill” and “technology” carry gendered implications, such thatthose associated with the domestic realm are often considered “a-technological,” evenif they invoke the same kinds of tasks and knowledge as used by men (Bray 2007; seealso Gero 1991). The gendered nature of domestic activities places them in a realmseparate from craft production, an arbitrary divide in terms of how women actually livetheir day-to-day lives, and one that undervalues the time and skill needed for women tomaster and manage both kinds of activities. In the remainder of this section, we firstdiscuss farming, a key task in the taskscapes of many Africans that has a significantimpact in defining temporalities. We then move on to two other kinds of tasks—housework and crafting—which involve both shared temporalities and techniquesalong gendered lines.

The temporalities of craft production and housework are often defined by theseasonal labor obligations of farming (Costin 1991; Sillar 2010). Farming is a “keytask” (Guyer 1988: 255) in the taskscapes of many West Africans both in terms oftime allocation and as a source of earnings. Key tasks are obligatory andnonpostponable, and thus anchor the rhythms of daily life. Other tasks assigned toindividuals or groups (often defined along age and gender lines) must accommodate thesame rhythm, frequently leading to the formation of work-life groups (Guyer 1988:255). For example, among the Beti of Cameroon, key agricultural tasks are defined byseason for both male and female farmers. During peak seasons when fields are beingprepared and planted, farmers are less available for other kinds of productive activities,such as the making of crafts (Guyer 1988). This is also the case for Banda farmers; men

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almost always perform other tasks (e.g., construction or roofing of houses) during theoff-season.

Several studies on time allocation and scheduling in farming have been conducted inWest and Central Africa (e.g., Guyer 1984, 1988; Netting 1968; Richards 1985; Stoneet al. 1990) which emphasize the dynamic and interrelated nature of agricultural tasks.The scheduling of agricultural tasks is not an environmental constant, but is variableacross groups and over time, and closely tied to social life. For example, Stone et al.(1990) show the many ways in which people adapt the seasonal agricultural cycle totheir economic and social needs by, for example, extending the planting season into thedry season. Which gender performs each agricultural task or grows each type of crop(i.e., cash vs. subsistence) varies across groups and over time, and in relation to powerdynamics. While women often grow subsistence crops, and men often are responsiblefor cash crops, this is by no means a continent-wide constant (Guyer 1984; Linares1985), and does not apply to Banda specifically. Guyer (1984) emphasizes that thedivision of labor by gender cannot be accounted for in ecological or biologicaluniversals, such as planting times and childcare requirements, but is rather groundedin social structures. Farming as a form of technology cannot be separated from thesocial (Fairhead and Leach 2005), nor can it be conceived as static. Rather, Africanfarming is well known for its improvisational character, where farmers are adaptingconstantly to new environmental and social conditions (Richards 1985). The tendencyof Africanist archaeologists to generalize about past farming practice based on thepresent is not only erroneous, but overlooks dynamics that are critical for situatingtemporalities and relations of power in the past (e.g., see Atalay and Hastorf 2006;Robin 2006; Roddick 2013; Roddick and Hastorf 2010).

Housework, and particularly food preparation, may also be perceived as a key taskfor many women—one that has to be performed at certain times of day, every day.Housework has not been a focal point of research in archaeology, despite the centralityof these tasks to daily life and the fact that many of our material residues in houses andmiddens derive primarily from these types of activities (e.g., food preparation,childcare, and cleaning; Atalay and Hastorf 2006; Picazco 1997; Spector 1998). This isnot surprising, as the male, public sphere has long been considered the locus of politicalnegotiation and economic change, while assumptions of continuity have dominateddiscussion of the female, private sphere (Brumfiel and Robin 2008: 3). The rise ofhousehold archaeology has remedied this to some degree by showing the flexibilityand variability in household organization and labor over time (see Brumfiel 1991;Brumfiel and Robin 2008: 4), though very little of this work has been conductedin Africa (but see Croucher 2007 and contributions in Kent 1998).

A tendency to overlook the value of housework goes far beyond archaeology.DeVault (1991: 8) has called housework activities “invisible”—those which, at leastin the United States, lack a specific terminology and are often undervalued as privateresponsibilities of women to care for their families that lie outside of the productivepublic sphere. For example, DeVault found that Chicago women often readjusted theirhousework routines around other members of the family, highlighting the subsidiarystatus of housework. Frequently, such duties are seen not as ‘work’, but as responsi-bilities that tether women to the household and limit their involvement with econom-ically productive activities. This is despite the fact that many women, particularly inAfrica, find creative ways to transpose their domestic skills into money-making

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enterprises, such as the sale of prepared foods, beer brewing, and soap making(Bryceson 2002).

The interaction between daily domestic tasks (e.g., cooking) and other economicactivities (e.g., crafting and farming), may become more visible when new technologiesthat impact women’s labor are introduced, providing an opportunity for the reconfig-uration or renegotiation of daily activities and social forms (Bray 1997: 369). Thelandmark study by Ruth Cowan (1983) on changes in women’s and men’s labor withthe invention of new labor-saving household technologies as part of industrialization,stresses the interrelatedness of technology and social and economic life, providinguseful insights for our analysis of craft and culinary practices. Cowan broke thetraditional division of technology and socioeconomic areas into two domains of workprocess and technological system, “the warp and the woof” (Cowan 1983: 14) ofhousework over time. By work process, she indicates that “no single part of houseworkis a simple, homogeneous activity” (Cowan 1983: 11), which resonates with Ingold’sconcept of network of activities. Despite a Western tendency to divide housework intoseparate, definable tasks, these are not performed in isolation but are linked to oneanother as part of a complex process (Cowan 1983,: 11–12). For example, cookingover a three-stone hearth, as many women in Banda have long done, necessitates thepreceding tasks of collecting firewood, growing and harvesting of the foods to becooked, and making or buying the cooking pot. Cowan’s focus on technological systemalso emphasizes interrelatedness, where “each implement used in the home is part of aseries of implements—in which each must be linked to others in order to functionappropriately” (Cowan 1983: 13). She conveys the idea that technologies areinterdependent, and embody social and economic structures and processes in manyways.

This interdependence is evident in not just how conflicting temporalities are recon-ciled, but in the embodied techniques that men and women use to complete differentkinds of tasks. The sharing of techniques is important, for it provides a material markerof how gendered taskscapes are routinized in bodily practice. The routinization of suchpractices does not mean they are always habitual and unreflexive (contra Bourdieu’s(1977: 93–94) concept of bodily hexis; Farnell 2000: 403–404). Mauss’ conceptof “body techniques” (1936) stressed that bodily actions are not simply mechanicaland universal, but are cultural acts. He first used “habitus” to conceptualize collectiveknowledge involved in “body techniques” and as practical reason (Crossley 2007: 86;Mauss 1936). From a practice theory perspective (Bourdieu 1977), technology is aperformance of skill and embodied knowledge that communicates social and culturalmeanings. These systems of social and practical knowledge—i.e., communities ofpractice—provide a framework to learn specific techniques and skills, as well as tostructure their social and cultural meanings (Kohring 2013: 107). Thus, learning ofskills, including craft techniques, is perceived as a routinization of tasks rather than anindividual, active act of learning and perhaps resisting social rules.

In contrast, Merleau-Ponty and Foucault perceive the body as an instrument of livedexperiences and as a surface of inscription; that is, the body is “lived” and active, actedupon and historically inscribed (Foucault 1977, 1980; Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1965).Both authors seem to argue that the body is a locus of action and a target of power; itmust be considered in terms of its conduct or behavior, and such embodied behavior issociohistorical (see Crossley 1996 for further discussion). The learning of a craft is

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obtained through the mastery over the body of the apprentice, often resulting from thedisciplinary training to which s/he is subjected. Furthermore, individuals are enmeshedwithin a multitude of disciplinary networks based on relations of power and authority(e.g., young people learning tasks and skills in the context of the family; Foucault1980), and acquisition of skills is also reflected in the acquisition of body rhythms,body (dis)positions, and corporeal-based knowledge.

Conversely, the chaînes opératoires concept (Balfet 1973; Cresswell 1972; Gosselain1992, 1995, 2002; Lemmonier 1986, 1990, 1993; Leroi-Gourhan 1943, 1945) assertsthat techniques are social productions; in other words, there is an “objectification” (in thesense of “put into object”) of what are socially elaborated thoughts (Lemmonier 1990:27; also see Bray 1997)—including a gendered division of labor. For example, it is nosurprise that female potters routinely employ tools and techniques from cooking toprepare clay (Gosselain 2010: 197). Practices and bodily techniques shared betweenpotting and cooking constitute practical knowledge, maintained unconsciously throughthe performance of routine actions. While operational chains continue to be studied asindependent rather than interrelated entities, there is considerable potential for compar-ative study, which helps coax to the surface the sharing of temporalities and techniquesalong gendered lines (but see Cruz 2003: 276–280; Gosselain 2010: 197; Roddick 2013;Roddick and Hastorf 2010; Sillar 2010).

Our proposition is that activities—whether crafting, house making, or farming—arebest understood together, not separately, as interactivities in gendered taskscapes,which can be recognized by considering their temporalities, and the sharing of tech-niques and embodied practices. This approach allows us to evaluate empirically howthe content of gendered work changed over time, and how some tasks, like farming,may have assumed “key task” status in the past. Analogies based on the present areproblematic given the dynamic interplay of technology, housework, and farming thatwe have highlighted above (Brumfiel and Robin 2008; Cruz 2003; Robin 2006; Stahl1993). We also cannot assume that the most archaeologically visible tasks are the mostimportant, particularly when so few Africanist archaeologists routinely investigate keytasks like farming. In the pages to follow, we argue that comparing craft and culinarypractice provides one avenue by which to trace the contours of taskscapes in the pastand present.

Study Area

Our focus is the Banda region of west central Ghana, which has been the center of long-term archaeological and historical research directed by Ann Stahl (1999, 2001, 2007,2014; Stahl and Logan in press). Here we draw on this extensive archaeological work,and integrate two ethnoarchaeological studies carried out at different times: 1) Cruz’sstudy addressing ceramic production and consumption conducted in June–December1994 (Cruz 1996, 2003, 2011; Stahl and Cruz 1998; Stahl et al. 2008); and 2) Logan’sresearch, conducted in July–November 2009 and April–June 2011, documentingchange and continuity in food and agricultural practices (Logan 2012). Logan focusedon five villages east of the Banda hills, and Cruz focused both on pottery-producingvillages in the west and pottery-consuming villages on the east, though both conductedextensive fieldwork in Dorbour, a potting village in the west (Fig. 1).

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Although our studies were conducted at different times and with different goals, weboth gravitated towards recording women’s work and women’s histories in living mem-ory. This was not only related to our shared interests, but to what Banda women withwhom we talked wished to emphasize. Similarly, both of our studies involved significantarchaeological components, including data yielded by the site of Makala Kataa, aban-doned as recently as the 1920s, in a direct historical approach (Stahl 2001: 19–40) thatcomparatively assesses our ethnoarchaeological observations and the memories of ourinterlocutors with the archaeological record. In this article, we focus specifically oncontinuity and change in gendered taskscapes over the last three centuries.We first analyzeagricultural production, food preparation, and pottery production in living memory, a timewhen people were increasingly becoming immersed in a cash-based economy. We thenbriefly explore the archaeological record of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries inan attempt to materialize the study of gendered taskscapes in a period predating livingmemory, and for which we are reliant on archaeological material and oral traditions.

Interlocking Domains: Agriculture, Food, and Pottery Production in Bandain Recent Times

In Banda today, the Nafana, a Senufo-speaking group that migrated into the area in theeighteenth century, are numerically and linguistically dominant and formed the majorityof our informants (Stahl 1991, 2001; Terray 1995). Nevertheless, Banda is a bricolage ofsix different ethnolinguistic groups, a diversity that underscores its past position as afrontier region (see Stahl 1991, 2001). Despite this rich ethnic diversity, both Stahl (1991)and Cruz (2011) have emphasized a lack of material markers of ethnic style in the region.

Fig. 1 Map of the Banda area and villages that were the focus of ethnographic study

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Female potters from different ethnic groups, for example, make very similar looking pots,prompting investigation into alternate ways in which communities are structured bymaterial practice, and the impact of changing political economic conditions on everydaylife. Building on this literature, we explore taskscapes in Banda over the last severaldecades, with a focus on farming, food preparation, and ceramic production, the dominantactivities in modern day taskscapes particularly for women. We focus specifically ontracking the temporalities of these different activities, beginning with farming, a key taskin Banda in recent times, and later exploring how these temporalities help structure foodpreparation and crafting. Second, we highlight howwomen often use similar techniques infood preparation and pottery production.

Agricultural Practices

In Banda today, agricultural production and food preparation are key tasks anchored inseasonal and daily rhythms. The timing of agricultural practices is largely dictated by thechanging of the seasons and is highly dependent on when the rains fall. Generally thegrowth cycle of each crop coincides with the rainy season, which currently starts in earnestby April and continues until October. Banda lies at the northern edge of the two-peaktropical rainfall pattern, and the intensity and distribution of rains varies throughout the rainyseason (Walker 1962). Accordingly, Banda farmers recognize seven seasons instead of justtwo. Farmers know which signs indicate the beginning of each of these seasons—such asthe maturation of specific fruits—with each signaling new agricultural tasks (Fig. 2).

Preparation of fields begins during the dry season, as early as November orDecember. To prepare a field for planting, grasses are burned and non-useful treesremoved and often set aside as firewood. In a first-rotation field, yam mounds are raisedafter a little rain eases digging from January on. Yams are the first crop planted in themounds, generally between January and April. With the advent of April rains, other

Fig. 2 Simplified agricultural cycle in Banda as of 2009

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creeping crops like calabash, fnumu (cucurbits grown for their seeds), cowpeas, andokra can be planted in the mounds, taking care not to plant those that will grow quicklyand overshadow the fledgling yam vine. Later, maize is often planted in the sides of themounds. The farmer engages in a carefully choreographed dance of what, when, andwhere to plant. This ensures that the crops in the top layer of the mound, such as maize,do not interfere with the yam growing in the center of the mound, as crops in the toplayer are ready to harvest before the yam reaches maturity. Cassava may be plantedalong the edges of the fields, where its deep roots will not compete with yams for soilnutrients. After these crops are planted, activities focus on weeding. Crops like maize,calabash, fnumu, cowpeas, and okra can be harvested after 4 months, while yamsrequire 6 months to mature. In the second year of cultivation, fields are cleared as soonas the previous year’s yams are harvested. After the rains begin, ridges are raised toplant fnumu (squash seeds) or groundnuts (peanuts). Sorghum (or in the past, pearlmillet) is planted in June when the rains are most predictable, and is ready to harvest in6 months. Maize can also be planted at this time, but is a costly option if planted in theprevious rotation because of the need for chemical fertilizers. For this reason, sorghumis often chosen instead. By year three, speargrass begins to dominate and most farmersdo not find it worth their time and energy to cultivate another year in light of decliningsoil fertility, resorting instead to opening new fields (see also Wills 1962).

The major challenge for farmers in recent decades has been diminishing rainfall andunpredictability as to rainfall timing. The amount of rain in Ghana has been decliningsince the early 1970s, according to both farmers and precipitation data (Shanahan et al.2009). The timing of onset of the rains has also changed dramatically, which impactswhen farmers can plant their crops. Many elderly men recounted the rains beginning inDecember and January in their youth (i.e., prior to 1970), whereas today they aresometimes delayed until April. Thus, yams are no longer ready in early August as theyonce were; instead their harvest is often delayed until September, meaning that grain cropswhich are eaten in the dry season have to stretch that much farther. At the same time, pearlmillet and maize fare poorly due to high sensitivity to rainfall at certain points in theirgrowth cycle, a factor which has contributed to the abandonment of pearl millet cultivationaltogether (Logan 2012). This dynamic has led to increased consumption of crops lesssensitive to rainfall, particularly cassava. The timing of cassava’s growth and harvest cyclediffers from other crops, meaning that climatic shifts have had real impacts not only onfarming practices, but also on other tasks organized around the agricultural seasonal cycle.

New economic demands and changes in labor access, particularly due to educationandweakening of extended family labor-pooling, has resulted in fundamental reorderingof labor in rural communities (Brown 1994; Bryceson 2002; Guyer 1988; O’Laughlin2007). In Banda’s recent past, farm labor was shared among family and friends. Landunder control of the male head of a family was always worked first by all the kinsmenfrom the same extended family, who only later would turn to their own fields (see alsoGoody 1982: 89–90). Today, this system has largely been abandoned. Individualsinstead hire labor, especially for the hard work (i.e., clearing and preparing fields), oftenin the form of migrant Dagaarti laborers from the north. Furthermore, Christianizationand increased education have led to the decline of polygamous families, thus impactingthe structure of the extended family. Large-scale changes in family and social lifeassociated with expanding monetized agricultural production have had additional im-pacts on farming taskscapes. Within the space of two to three generations, most farmers

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have shifted towards either the production of cash crops (sometimes in rapid succession,e.g., tobacco; Stahl and Cruz 1998: 208) and/or attempting to produce large enoughquantities of subsistence crops “to eat and to sell,” placing pressure on food sharingnetworks. Claims on labor provided by kin have also shifted: education and migration tourban areas has impacted the structure of the extended family and made free (i.e.,reciprocal) labor less available. This, combined with the shifts in rainfall describedabove, means that farmers must have bigger farms or farm multiple land parcels withlimited access to labor sharing. Hence, they have to work harder as they try to offsetlosses due to unpredictable rainfall.

Both of these trends—unpredictable rainfall and increasing monetization—have alsohad an impact on the gendered division of labor. Traditionally, men did the heavy worksuch as clearing, weeding, planting, and initial harvesting. Women assisted by weedingand tending, peeling and drying, and in final harvest practices such as gathering grainheads and processing them into clean grain. Yams were associated with men, who wereresponsible for their cultivation; women assisted by carrying seed yams to a farm forplanting and harvested yams from fields to kitchens. While women have been farmingcash crops such as groundnuts (peanuts) since at least the 1950s, in the last threedecades younger women in particular have started running their own farms, producingthe same crops as their husbands, including yams. Some families mentioned that thiswas a way of reducing risk in times of unpredictable rainfall; more farms in more placeson a varied landscape mean that there is greater likelihood that one will produce. Otherssuggested that women needed and wanted their own independent source of income tomeet personal and household needs, such as school fees, potentially increasingwomen’s economic power. Below, we suggest that this shift towards women runningtheir own farms may also be linked to the introduction of new technologies andassociated shifts in one key task most often assigned to women: food preparation.

Food Preparation Practices

The agricultural cycle impacts food practices in two important ways: the daily rhythms offood preparation are built around the timing of agricultural activities, and the agriculturalseason largely determines the available foods. The light morning meal, taken prior togoing to farm or school, often comprises a simple porridge or the previous night’sleftovers left to ferment. Most adults do not eat a formal lunch, but children are oftenfed midday with leftovers from the previous night or foods that are easy to cook orpurchase (e.g., gari, a versatile food made with cassava), depending on whether or notwomen stay at home or go to the farm. The mainmeal in Banda usually occurs in the earlyevening, after farm work is complete, as the vignette that opened this paper describes. It isusually composed of a starchy staple complemented by a thin sauce or “soup.”

Yam fufu (gbosro or simply sro: literally “food” in Nafaanra), a firm mass obtainedby pounding boiled white or African yams, is preferred throughout the Banda area. It iseaten only at certain times of year, generally from the beginning of the yam harvestsometime in August and September and until the yams run out. Concurrently, a declinein yam production associated with changing rainfall, coupled with the need to sell yamsfor the high price they fetch at market, means that yams run short for many familiesquite early (i.e., as early as November). During the rest of the year, kambɔ (or T.Z., as itis known in Ghanaian English—an abbreviation of the Hausa tuo zaafe meaning “hot

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porridge”) is the staple food. T.Z. is a thick polenta-like porridge made by boiling andvigorous stirring of flours from grains and/or cassava. T.Z. is increasingly being madeof cassava instead of maize and millet, because cassava produces a consistentlydependable yield and fetches a lower price at market than other crops. These staplefoods are accompanied by a “soup,” a thin sauce made with a variety of vegetables.People use a dazzling array of wild and domesticated resources to add variety, nutrients,and desired taste to their soups, including meat from wild and domesticated animals,dried fish, peanuts, palm oil, tomatoes, onions, small eggplants (garden eggs), and awide variety of leafy greens. The ingredients are culled from what is available in thefarm or, increasingly in the last decade, at the corner store.

Preparation of both the starchy staples and the soups is time-consuming and requiresspecialized skills. People in Banda—and Ghana more broadly—are connoisseurs oftexture as well as taste. Smoothness is particularly important. For both fufu and T.Z. tobe acceptable, they should be firm, without chunks, and very smooth and sticky. Bothstaples are swallowed without chewing because the mortar or paddle (in the case of T.Z.)has “done the chewing for you.” The longer a woman spends making T.Z. the smootherand better it is, which serves as a source of pride. It requires considerable time investmentfor women and often involves more than one person in food preparation. Far from being asimple porridge, preparing T.Z. and fufu is time-consuming and profoundly physical, andin this sense their taste and texture embody cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984), complicatingclaims that there is little social distinction in African foodways (Goody 1982).

Several new and imported foodstuffs have been adopted in Banda over the last severaldecades. Kenkey and banku, both made of ground maize, are relatively recent introduc-tions to Banda and often bought and consumed outside the household. Like otherpurchased foods not used on a daily basis they are considered more prestigious thanhome-cooked meals like T.Z. Imported foods are also imbued with a sense of prestige,particularly rice. It can be prepared in the home much more quickly than T.Z. or fufu, but itis beyond the means of most Banda rural villagers to eat on a regular basis. Noticeably,other new ingredients have also saved time in food preparation at home. Canned tomatopaste is commonly used as a way to produce a soup quickly, and as a way to subvert theseasonal availability of fresh tomatoes (Goody 1982: 179).Maggi cubes—aNestlé bouillonproduct most often found in shrimp flavor—are ubiquitous and have replaced local spicealternatives such as fermented dawadawa or cotton seeds, herbs, and wild mushrooms.Importantly, this means women no longer need to scour the bush looking for these wildingredients nor ferment or stew them for long hours. In this sense, Maggi cubes can bethought of as congealed cubes of women’s labor, substituting for both labor and flavor.These are just a few of the changes in foodways associated with increasingly monetizedhousehold economies, and the shift towards women, like men, working long hours at theirown farms. Furthermore, they point to the varied ways in which a change in key tasks—those involved in farming—and who performs them, influences other aspects of daily life.

A critical issue to address is how women balance their household duties with runningtheir own farms. For those who can afford it, the use of hired Dagaarti labor to do hardphysical tasks (i.e., clearing fields, raising mounds) that were traditionally performed bymen, greatly facilitates the capacity of women to run their farms as well as theirhouseholds. Female labor availability is also bound up with the introduction of diesel-powered grinding mills and changes in the production and consumption of cloth (seeBrumfiel 1991 and discussion below). Diesel-powered grinding mills were introduced

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beginning in the 1970s, although they were rare throughout the 1980s and many villagesdid not acquire one until well into the 1990s, and some still lack one today. In the earlydays of their introduction, the use of the grinding mill was limited to those able to pay thefee for the service. Soonmanywomen rushed to use the mill once they realized howmuchtime it would save them, preferring to pay the small fee instead of engaging in the arduoustask of grinding (Goody 1982: 69–70). Before the diesel mill, pounding or grindingenough grain for the daily family meal could take several hours; some women did it everyfew days, but many ground grain every morning for 1 to 3 hours. Grinding mills are aprime example of labor-saving kitchen technologies to which Ruth Cowan refers; how-ever, time saved on specific kitchen tasks was spent doing other things. Indeed, womenstarted running their own farms about the same time that grinding mills were introduced, atrend that intensified in the decades to come. Increased involvement in farming enabledwomen to raise additional income and help stabilize family finances at a time when shiftsin environmental and economic conditions made it difficult to keep afloat. This wasfacilitated again by the seasonality of labor. Mills free up time particularly during the latedry and early wet season when T.Z. is the staple; these months are critical to establishingone’s own farm, because it is time for field preparation and planting. But as with theintroduction of new technologies elsewhere (e.g., Cockburn and Fürst-Dilić 1994; Cowan1983), there were unintended social consequences and interactions. For example,pounding of grains in the mornings was a social task, often completed by young womenwithin the same age group. The introduction of the grinding mill thus inadvertentlycontributed to the dissolution of such social groups along with other major social shiftslike the growing popularity of Christianity and cessation of female nubility rites.

Craft Production

The production and trading of craft goods has long been an important householdactivity in Banda (Cruz 2003; Stahl and Cruz 1998; Stahl et al. 2008). Women havebeen largely responsible for spinning thread for textile production as well as potting,while men were known as weavers in the past. Spinning and weaving have all butdisappeared in the Banda region, undermined by easy access to cheaper imported cloth.This has affected the valuation of women’s work, for textiles are, and were, of greatcultural and ritual importance. The erosion of the role of women in producing cloth issomething many elderly women discuss with sadness. In the past, women spent aconsiderable portion of their day spinning thread, a task they reminisce about and arekeen to illustrate today (see Cruz 2003; Stahl and Cruz 1998). As a result, the gradualdisappearance of cloth production may have allowed women to invest more time inother activities, such as farming. Unlike spinning, potting is still practiced today, andwe discuss some of the ways in which pottery production is closely bound with farmingand culinary practice, particularly in relation to women’s labor and scheduling.Moreover, when analyzed in the context of potters’ taskscapes, potting shares tech-niques, motor skills, body rhythms and often tools with food preparation.

Currently, potting is a specialized activity confined to three villages west of theBanda hills carried out only by women who produce a variety of vessel forms and sellthem in local markets (Fig. 1). During the 1994 ethnographic field season, older womenrelated that in the past potting had been more widely practiced, in more villages botheast and west of the hills, a trend confirmed by archaeological data that show a greater

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variety of vessel forms, clay sources, and abandoned clay pits (Cruz 1996, 2003; Stahl andCruz 1998; Stahl et al. 2008). In Dorbour, the only potting village today in the Bandaparamount chieftaincy, the principal economic activities are subsistence farming, potting,and trading in pots. As in other villages, farming is both a male and female activity.However, and unlike in non-potting villages, most of the women in Dorbour are or wereinvolved in ceramic production. Indeed women who never learned the craft recognized itsimportance as an income-generating activity and are often involved in the trading of pots.They buy unfired pots from skilled potters, fire them, and travel to regional markets or gofrom village to village to sell their wares. The importance of potting as an income-generating craft is attested by older women who, in 1994, recognized that the numberof potters had increased dramatically in the recent past. The number of younger womenwho were learning was fairly high, and there were two older women who started learningpotting later in life to replace spinning. Importantly, potting and the trading of pots is donein tandemwith farming, and is scheduled both around farming tasks and seasonal weatherconstraints. For example, potters mentioned that potting should not be done during theHarmattan (dry season) as the wind dries the pots excessively and too quickly, causingthem to crack prior to firing. Nevertheless, skilled potters recognized that sometimes theywould make pots during this season, but it required extra care. Pots had to be covered withmoist cloth, and the risk of loss to damage was high.

Both in Dorbour and in the neighboring potting centers of Adadiem and Bondakile(both integrated into the Sampa area), pots are made by individual women who may beassisted by a younger woman who is learning. The apprentice is often a daughter, butcan be a relative living in the compound or nearby. Ceramic manufacture takes place inthe courtyard of the compound, where cooking and other household activities alsohappen, creating a shared social work space (Fig. 3). A potter works on groups of six toeight pots at once, taking 3 days to complete each group. The number of pots dependson the type and size being produced: larger water storage pots are made in smallernumbers, while a potter can work on a larger number of small pots. Each potter canmanufacture a wide variety of types; however, they work on only one type of pot at a

Fig. 3 Pot manufacture in a Dorbour compound (photo by Cruz)

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time. This routinization of gestures contributes to a high degree of homogeneity in size,form and decoration that archaeologists usually relate to increased specialization (e.g.,Benco 1986; Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Costin 1991, 2008; Costin and Hagstrum 1995;Rice 1981, 1984, 1989: 110; Roux 2003). The techniques and tools used are simpleand easy to obtain: the pots are made by drawing the clay, using a rounded piece ofcalabash or an old metal lid as turntable. Pebbles and dawadawa pods are used tosmooth the surface and shape the pot. The decorative motifs are fairly homogeneous,based mostly on the use of maize cob roulette to cover the body of the pot. The upperthird (rim and shoulders) is usually burnished, while grooving and other motifs may beapplied over of the maize cob roulette. Women reported that decoration had becomesimplified over time and that they were adopting methods that helped them to be moreefficient and saved time. One potter was using a plastic scrubber to achieve a burnishedlook faster than using the traditional pebble. Grooving motifs also became simpler, andthe number of other decorative techniques (e.g., impression and incision) had dimin-ished greatly to save time, as potters had to juggle craft manufacturing with domesticand farming tasks (for a similar case, see Hall 1998: 255–257).

A common complaint by potters was that they had less control over male kin,particularly brothers, who in the past provided them with foodstuffs from their farms,thus freeing women to spend more time in potting activities. The migration of men tourban areas and cocoa farms, coupled with the shrinking of the extended families, hasgreatly increased the workload of women, who more than ever need to generate incomein an efficient manner. In response, women have adopted expedited decorative methodsand rely on children to help obtain clay. In the past Dorbour potters could call on malerelatives to help dig the clay; however in recent decades, this activity has becomemonetized. Men now dig clay to sell to potters who cannot do it themselves, eitherbecause of age or because of taboos on women entering the pits. For example, inAdadiem, only 5 km away from Dorbour, potters began digging the clay after menstarted migrating in large numbers to the southern cocoa fields. In doing so, womenbroke a taboo that prevented them entering the clay pits. People in the village believethat breaking this taboo led to the clay “disappearing,” which forced potters to start anew pit with clay of inferior quality. Consequently potters now resort to the labor ofboys and young men, over whom they still have some control, to dig the clay.

In addition to potting, Dorbour women perform a wide variety of activities thatrequire the reckoning of both quotidian (e.g., cooking meals, farming, taking care ofchildren; Dietler and Herbich 1993) and seasonal cycles (planting, weeding, harvest-ing). Potting is embedded in the layered temporal cycles of daily domestic tasks,agriculture, weather, and the periodicity of markets. The spread of Christianity addeda weekly cycle to the lives of Banda women. Traditional sacred days (Jiniŋge andSumbɔɔ) continued to be observed and women did not go to farm or fire pots on thosedays, because failing to observe these rules could result in supernatural sanctions (potsunsuccessfully fired meant a loss of income). These articulating cycles and activitiesrequire that women carefully manage the sequence and duration of daily tasks in atemporality that produces the structure and rhythm of daily life. Individual lives ofwomen equally follow expected social stages that are articulated with the cycles ofactivities. In the past, young girls often apprenticed potting and domestic tasks, such ascooking, with their mothers or other close female relatives; however increased formalschooling has meant that learning potting occurs later or not at all. Young married

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women who live in independent, single-family houses—increasingly the case withyoung Christian families—may become more independent in their management oftasks and of their lives. Those married into traditional, polygamous households mayface additional responsibilities, managing more complex households and sharing thetask of feeding their husband and his elderly relatives. Thus, the women perform tasksas part of interwoven cycles whose temporality is enmeshed in economic and socialfactors, as well as with the materiality of daily life.

Shared Tools and Techniques in Banda Taskscapes

Potting occurs in a space shared with everyday tasks such as food preparation and childrearing (Fig. 3). On a smaller scale, taskscapes are unified by the tools, bodily logics, andchaînes opératoires used to produce both pots and food (see Sillar 2010). In the Bandaarea, women use similar tools and embodied techniques in the preparation of both foodand pottery, a transference also noted by Gosselain (2010: 197; Figs. 4 and 5 illustratetwo of these intersections). Specifically, the sequence of gestures through whichDorbour potters prepare clay are similar to those used to prepare fufu and T.Z. Clay ispounded in a wooden mortar and then sieved (Fig. 4a,b), similar to the transformation ofgrains into flour for T.Z. (Fig. 4c,d). Clay is mixed with temper and water and poundedinto a paste, using similar tools andmotions as in transforming yams into fufu (Fig. 5a,b).Temper is pounded in a mortar, and sometimes clay can be pounded with a pestle on astone. This unity is expressed linguistically as well: for example, sisa denotes bothtemper ground on a stone and pearl millet ground on a stone (Logan 2012: 246).

Even as such techniques are deeply embodied, there is also considerable room forinnovation and variation within culturally defined limits. Although individual pottersmay experiment with techniques and decoration, the final result conforms to enduringconventions of form and decorative grammars as seen by comparison to archaeologicalsites (Cruz 2003: 265, 516–519). Likewise, women prepare fufu and T.Z. to meetcertain expectations for texture. Rigid operational chains of preparation and rhythms ofwork (or tempo; Bourdieu 1977; Herzfeld 2009: 109) ensure a desirable, culturallyacceptable texture, even if new ingredients like cassava are substituted for preferredones like maize or yams (Logan 2012: 326–335). According to Herzfeld (2004:154–155), the embodied skills of artisans (and perhaps cooks) are not only expressionsof confidence in gestures and consistency of product, but also inspire confidence incustomers, thereby enhancing an artisan’s individual standing and economic success.Therefore, embodiment and control of techniques and skills entails social control (oftaste, accepted pots, attitudes). It follows then that a change in the basic operationaltechnical chain of one activity may also impact other activities.

There is an obvious down-the-line interaction between food and pottery productionand consumption: pots are used to make, store, and serve foods. Thus we might seeshifts in vessel forms as well as functional and decorative attributes, that may indicatechanges in food practices, as archaeologists have noted (e.g., Brumfiel 1991; Gijantoand Walshaw 2014; MacLean and Insoll 1999; McIntosh 1995). In Banda, thisrelationship is somewhat complicated as potters do not consider their vessels as madefor specific functions, seeing them instead as acquiring their purpose in use. This mayspeak to the marginal role of clay pots in a time when metal ones dominate. However,older potters indicated that a pot in the making would be referred to as chɔ and it was

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only its use that would give it a specific name (sro chɔ if used for food, kaŋɔɔ if used toboil water, or twe chɔ if used to boil medicinal herbs; Cruz 2003: 247–248). Onemay argue that potters have broad roles or activities in mind (see Rice 1996: 136, fora discussion) when they manufacture a vessel and it is’ use that is determined by theconsumer. For example, a constricted vessel, designated as chɔ, may be perceived tohave characteristics to withstand and conduct heat as well as to prevent spillage, and inthat sense its perceived function would be to cook over the fire, no matter what wascooked or boiled. However, in Banda, a chɔ may be used in a ritual context as a sɛ, aman’s god, acquiring then the designation of sɛ chɔ, and sitting at a corner of the house,with medicines and other sacred objects inside. In this case, the chɔ’s capabilities ofconducting heat and preventing spillage are irrelevant and the use is independent ofmorphology and functional characteristics. Conversely, nonconstricted, hemisphericbowls may be used over the fire to cook a sauce or warm a small amount of food,

Fig. 4 a Clay pounded in a wooden mortar and b sieved in Dorbour (Photos by Cruz), similar to thepreparation of flour for T.Z., which is c pounded or milled into flour and d sieved in Bui (photos by Logan)

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withstanding possible limitations imposed by the broad opening. However, pottery maychange to accommodate new dishes and new cooking techniques, or to make foodpreparation easier or faster. For example, elder potters interviewed in 1994 recalled thata new form of grinding bowl with incisions on the interior to permit easier grinding ofvegetables was introduced from the Ashanti region. This form does not appear innineteenth-century archaeological contexts, but fragments of men’s bowls found inMakala Kataa have strong use-wear compatible with grinding food. This is consistentwith potters mentioning that prior to grinding bowls, normal bowls were used for thesame task, but incisions may have made the task of grinding more efficient.

Nevertheless, the practices of how women learn how to make pots and food candiffer. While both require apprenticeships to experts, these relationships vary. Fromabout age ten, most young girls are taught to cook by a relative, typically the mother orgrandmother. It takes girls several years to master the craft of making T.Z., and evenadult women who joined the community from elsewhere claim it took several years tolearn skills needed to complete the entire chaîne opératoire (Logan 2012: 332–333).Although potting skills may be learned from anyone in the community (Cruz 2003:267–269), more often girls would learn from their mothers or from female kin withwhom they were living. As with cooking, young girls learn potting by helpingthe potter in tasks such as pounding and sieving the clay, slowly acquiring the bodilyrhythms and techniques of the craft. Young girls may experiment with making smallpots, usually referred to as “pots for playing.” Such pots have a double function: theyare a means for young apprentices to learn how to form pots, while they can then beused by other children to play at cooking. Women who learn at an older age usuallyobserve experienced potters and experiment on their own, starting with simpler formsand small sizes before attempting more complex forms. Thus, because of differences inapprenticeship, communities of potting vs. food practice may differ. Food practiceswould be expected to follow along kin and household lines, whereas potting, thoughmost often following kin lines, can also follow different social axes. For example, twopotters interviewed in 1994 had very similar decorative styles although they did notbelong to the same katoo (extended family) and were not female kin. When questioned

Fig. 5 a Preparation of clay using similar bodily techniques and tools in Dorbour as b for the preparation ofyam fufu in Banda–Ahenkro (Photos by Logan)

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about the similarities, the younger potter clarified that the older was her mother-in-law with whom she had apprenticed after marrying. This illustrates thatrelations of apprenticeship more often shape similarities in style (writ large)than do kinship relations.

In the preceding sections, we have illustrated how the domains of farming,food, and craft production define and interact in the rhythms of economic andsocial life. Below, we move back in time and consider how we might inves-tigate these relationships in the archaeological past. Our intent is to tease outpast taskscapes and explore how they compare to those of today and in livingmemory. Based on our ethnographic discussion, we find that thinking of pasttaskscapes as gendered to be a particularly useful framing that allows us toevaluate 1) the role of labor, including the trade-offs involved between devotingmore time to one task than another, as well as 2) the sharing of techniquesbetween domains.

Tracing Shifts in Taskscapes in the Archaeological Record

Comparing craft and culinary practice in the archaeological record is key totracing the material remnants of continuities and changes in past taskscapes. Theprocess of cross-analyzing multiple kinds of data helps coax out some of theinteractivities between domains, and addresses changes in daily activities andgender roles over time as several previous studies show (e.g., Brumfiel 1991;Croucher 2007; Hastorf 1991; Robin 2006; Roddick 2013; Roddick and Hastorf2010). As an illustration, we compare briefly archaeobotanical and ceramic datafrom the village site of Makala Kataa, occupied in two periods: from ca. 1770s–1820s (Early Makala Phase) coinciding with Asante’s expansion, and from ca.1890s–1920s (Late Makala Phase), coinciding with the establishment of theBritish colony of the Gold Coast (Stahl 1999, 2001: 148–214, 2002; Terray1995; Wilks 1975).

Macrobotanical data collected at Makala Kataa suggest that pearl millet andsorghum were the staple grains in the Early Makala phase, being present in near-equal frequencies and across a wide array of contexts, with maize present only insmall amounts. A host of wild plants were also used, including leafy greens likePortulaca spp., shea butter, baobab, and kapok (Logan 2012: 262–269).Large grinding stones were common. The well-preserved kitchen contexts atEarly Makala’s Mound 5 show spatial organization much like the interior ofcompounds today, with wet and dry season cooking hearths ringed by grindingstones (Fig. 6; Stahl 2001: 169–171). During this occupation, grains appearto have been stored unprocessed at home, based on the presence of charredchunks of whole seed heads. A pot containing what may be potter’s tools (amaize cob and a convex sherd) surrounded by grindstones is suggestive of apotting area in the 8 W units (Fig. 6, but see Stahl 2001: 165), similar to theorganization of these activities today (Logan 2012: 262–269, and compareFig. 3 with Fig. 6).

The rapid abandonment of this kitchen during a conflagration that likely dates to the1820s (Stahl 1999: 44; 2001: 169–171, 187–188) heralded decades of violence

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and dislocation during which food was in short supply. Oral histories recount tales ofpeople eating wild foods from the bush and plucking cassava tubers from abandonedfarms, and archaeobotanical data from refuge sites confirm the use of new wild plantsalong with maize and pearl millet, though cassava is hard to trace as it does not preservewell (Logan 2012: 286–289).

Plant remains occur in limited quantities in Late Makala phase contexts (ca. 1890s–1920s), and suggest that people relied on maize and pearl millet but not sorghum. Thisshift to maize is important, as the latter has a much shorter growing period such that twocrops can be grown per year, potentially producing greater yields than sorghum or pearlmillet. Some of the same wild plants are still present such as Portulaca, tobacco, andpossible indigo (cf. Indigofera tinctoria), suggesting local dying of cloth. By 1931,acting District Commissioner A.C. Russell (1931) reported that Banda farmers weregrowing cassava, unspecified grains, and yams. The lack of charred remains maycoincide with a shift in food preparation, something hinted at by the occurrence oftwo new wood taxa, Diospyros sp. and Shirakiopsis elliptica (Sapium ellipticum), thatIrvine (1961) notes are frequently used to make mortars and are not used as firewood.The large grinding stones commonplace in Early Makala contexts (e.g., Fig. 6) arenotably absent from Late Makala contexts, further hinting at a shift in processingtechnology away from grains like pearl millet associated with grinding stones, andtowards yams, cassava, and maize, crops usually prepared in wooden mortars (Logan2012: 298–309). The lack of grinding stones may also relate to the gradual abandon-ment of the area to the nearby village of Makala that occurred after 1920 as part of acolonial village relocation scheme (Stahl 2001: 103–106).

Attention to the differences in ceramic form, decoration, and paste between Earlyand Late Makala phases and today provides further resolution on shifts in taskscapes.One of the most notable patterns is that vessel forms, decorative treatments, andgrammars became increasingly homogeneous over time. The archaeological ceramic

Fig. 6 Plant remains in Early Makala phase kitchen and compound at Makala Kataa, Mound 5

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assemblage from both phases yielded two major categories of vessels: bowls(nonconstricted) and jars (constricted), with different types identified within eachcategory. It should be noted that the distinction between constricted and nonconstrictedis an artificial tool for purposes of typological classification of archaeological ceramics.This distinction does not have any correspondence with the classifications and namingdone by informants for ethnographic vessels.

A major difference when comparing vessel use through time is the decline inthe use of bowls. Abundant and with a wide diversity of forms and sizes inboth archaeological phases, ceramic bowls have largely disappeared from con-temporary household assemblages. Larger, hemispherical bowls, similar to thekpokpoo (women’s eating bowl) and to the pεε (larger men’s eating bowl)appear in both archaeological contexts, while contemporarily they have beenreplaced in daily use by enamel pots that fulfill the same functions and bear thesame names as older clay bowls. The kotoŋdεε, a small pedestaled bowl, isvery common in the archaeological record particularly in the Early Makalaperiod. This form is currently used only during funeral ceremonies, but olderwomen were clear that in the past, this bowl type was used as a women’seating bowl, thus confirming the domestic use of similar forms in the archae-ological sites.

Early Makala midden contexts yielded more rims classified as bowls than jars, whilethe reverse was true of household contexts. This could be accounted for by the highermobility and rate of breakage of bowls. Of note is that domestic contexts at LateMakala yielded significantly more bowls. While this pattern may represent shifts infood preparation or consumption, it is probably best explained by the salvaging of jars—the more expensive and commonly reused vessels—when people relocated to the newvillage site nearby (Cruz 2003: 429–433).

The wide variety of carinated and pedestaled bowls present in Early Makalacontexts was not present in the later occupation (see Cruz 2003: 525–547; Stahlet al. 2008). In both archaeological phases, bowls with signs of sooting are veryfrequent, suggesting that they were used over the fire possibly to cook sauces. In1994, the signolo, a small carinated vessel with a round base and constricted neck,was widely produced in Dorbour and identified as a “soup cooking pot.” A similarform appears in the archaeological assemblages but in very low frequency, whichsupports an older potter’s contention that production of this form in large numbersbegan only recently. It is possible that with the decrease in the use of ceramic bowls,their additional cooking function for preparing sauces and cooking small quantities offood may have been replaced by the signolo, which explains their low presence in thearchaeological record and its increased production in the recent past. In other words, itmay be that the food prepared, namely sauces, did not changed substantively; rather,the container in which it is prepared changed due to decreased availability of a vesseltype.

The range of jar forms in both archaeological contexts is comparable to therange of ethnographic forms. Variability relates primarily to size rather thanmorphology. Sooting is characteristic on jars with an average rim diameter ofca. 21 cm, which makes it likely that this was the preferred form and size forcooking vessels, comparable to the cooking and boiling water jars identifiedethnographically.

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Maize cob roulette is the most common decorative technique in the Early Makalaassemblage, accounting for ca. 31 % of all the decorated body sherds. Twisted cordroulette was also significant, but accounted for only 11 % of the sherds (Cruz 2003:378–379, 518). Plain body sherds dominated in the Late Makala occupation, account-ing for 61–72 % of the total assemblage (Cruz 2003: 518). The decorative treatmentsof the vessels attest to the presence of maize in the early occupation. As discussed ingreater detail elsewhere (Logan 2012), maize had been present in the Banda area forsome centuries; however the use of maize cobs as a decorative implement appears forthe first time in this period. Their use may represent a technical change that helped savetime, comparable to the ethnographic example of using a plastic scrub mentionedabove. Notably, maize cob roulette was applied similarly to long-standing use of cordroulette, thereby yielding a finished product with culturally acceptable decorativegrammars (Cruz 2003: 379–381, 519). Early Makala contexts yielded 46 singledecorative treatments and 272 different combinations of treatments, while in contrast,Late Makala contexts yielded only 28 single decorative treatments and 64 combinations(Cruz 2003: 386–388). The use of maize cobs, along with the decline in the numberof decorative treatments and combinations of treatments that characterizes pottery ofthe span of occupation, seems consistent with a need to reduce labor input in craftproduction over time.

Differences in temper in the archaeological ceramic assemblages are consistent witha pattern of reduced effort in various steps in the operational sequences of potting.Bowls and small jars consumed in Early Makala times had especially fine temper,which may indicate that particular care was taken in the pounding or grinding andsieving of clay for some vessel types. This may relate to different regional productionstyles as these vessels made from a very fine and homogeneous paste were identifiedthrough INAA as produced in the west side of the Banda Hills (Cruz 2003: 533–544;Stahl et al. 2008). In both the Early and Late Makala phases, larger vessels,particularly jars, have coarser pastes, which may be a function of production techniquessince larger vessels need thicker walls and rims to keep their shape during manufacture,especially when the pot has to be turned on its rim to finish the base. However, this mayalso hint at a possible connection with the use of a wooden mortar to pound the clay,while the fine-grained and homogeneous paste of Early Makala bowls may haveresulted from grinding temper with a grinding stone.

In sum, the data from plant remains suggest a shift to maize by Late Makala timesand hint at a shift to wooden mortars over grinding stones, a technical change whichmay have impacted paste preparation. Ceramic data suggest that pottery was muchmore homogeneous by Late Makala times, and regional trade in ceramics contracted(Cruz 2003; Stahl et al. 2008). Faunal data show increased focus on opportunistic orgarden hunting in Late Makala times (see Stahl 1999: 66; 2001: 177–178, 207–208).But how does comparing these datasets contribute to our understanding ofgendered taskscapes during these phases? We suggest that they point to a shortage inavailable labor and possibly a shift in the gendered division of labor (Stahl and Cruz1998; see also McIntosh 1995 for a similar interpretation of archaeological ceramics atJenné-jeno).

Population density in Banda was very low in the late nineteenth to early twentiethcentury after decades of displacement associated with political violence, somethingsupported by both survey data (Smith 2008: 548) and archival documents. Colonial

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officials frequently remarked on the low population and the devastation of the area(Logan 2012: 298; Stahl 2001: 194). Pressure on food supplies was particularlyacute in the 1890s, as Banda had to provision soldiers of both Samori and then theBritish (Stahl 2001: 194). Low population density seems to have been exacerbatedby colonial demands for labor, as the Banda chief complained to the DistrictCommissioner in 1901 (ADM 56/1/415; Stahl 2001: 196; Stahl and Cruz 1998:216). According to at least one colonial period map (Cardinall 1931: 157), populationdensity remained depressed compared to the rest of the country well into the 1930s, andcontinues to be relatively low today despite the high productivity of agriculture andrelative availability of farmland in the region (Amanor and Pabi 2007).

Lower population levels likely had an impact on agriculture and craft production, andmay explain why quick-producing maize became more important and low-labor staplecrops like cassava were adopted at this time, if not before. A shift to cassava and maizecultivation was a technological change that impacted not just the amount of laborrequired to produce food, but may have also altered labor scheduling. Both crops arelatecomers to African agriculture, and lack the peak period labor mobilization and taskspecialization that indigenous African grains and yams do. Cassava can grow withoutraising mounds; does not need staking or much weeding; and can also be harvested atany time, resulting in higher productivity per unit of labor (Cordell 2003; Ohadike 1981).Maize is also scheduled differently to correspond to one of the two peaks in rainfall, andhas a 4-month growing season vs. the 6 months required for pearl millet or sorghum.Unlike indigenous grains, where tasks are segregated (i.e., men pulling up the stalks fromthe ground, women processing grains from head), there is little task-specific specializa-tion by gender for maize (Guyer 1984: 374). A shift toward New World crops, whichacross West Africa lack ritual or symbolic power and have been noted elsewhere as apossible marker of the renegotiation of the division of labor (Guyer 1984; Linares 1985),is a process very similar to the adoption of new technologies elsewhere (e.g., Bray 1997).

The attenuation in ceramic forms and decoration in Late Makala times suggests thatpotters may have been devoting less time to craft production. At the same time, INAAevidence indicates a contraction in regional trade across the Banda Hills (Cruz 2003;Stahl 2007; Stahl and Cruz 1998; Stahl et al. 2008), with ceramics being acquired fromfewer production centers, accounting for the disappearance from the archaeologicalrecord of specific vessel types. Furthermore, and possibly as a consequence of increas-ing need for cash, older women recall that potters started expanding their markets,traveling as far as Kintampo and Wenchi to trade their wares for cash. This was verydifferent from local trade in ceramics which in the early to mid-twentieth century reliedmostly on the consumers traveling to the potting centers when they needed to acquirevessels, bartering foodstuffs—mainly grains—for the containers (Cruz 2003: 259–263), a dynamic that may have been curtailed by low agricultural productivity or theredirection of surplus to colonial centers.

Viewing labor through a gendered lens, both colonial demands for labor and theincreasing need to access cash through labor migration would have disproportionatelydrawn men away from their homes and fields (Cruz 2003; Stahl and Cruz 1998: 216;Stahl 2001: 207–208). This means women and elderly men potentially would havetaken on a much greater share of responsibilities in running their households and feedingtheir families. In Late Makala times, we may be seeing women taking a more active rolein agricultural production—perhaps focusing on maize and/or cassava—much as they

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are today to mediate changing economic and environmental conditions. In Cameroon,Guyer (1978, 1980) also found an increase in female farming in association withincreasing colonial demands on men’s labor. In Ghana, men were required to serve asporters and other posts by colonial governments, and encouraged to migrate southwardsto earn cash as laborers on cocoa farms and in gold mines (Cruz 2003; Grier 1981; Hill1963). This emphasis simultaneously removed men from family labor obligations,contributed to a nonagricultural class that still needed to be fed, and firmly installedthe infrastructure of the market. Food was no longer just traded by barter with socialallies, but was required to supply growing populations of nonfarmers in colonial centers(Guyer 1978), a trade in which we know Banda women were involved (ADM 56/1/458;Logan 2012: 303). What this suggests is that in the early twentieth century, Bandafamilies were facing several pressures on production, including the periodic loss of malelabor, a need to supply colonial centers with food, and an increasing need to access cash.It seems likely that the demands of agricultural production often, but probably notalways, fell to women. In order to accommodate these new demands on their time,women (and probably men too) devoted less time to production of craft goods likepottery and cloth, shifted towards the production of crops requiring less labor (cassava)or that were more high yielding (maize), while relying also on opportunistic hunting ofwild animals. These shifts had fundamental impacts on the temporalities and socialdynamics of past populations, a process which continues today.

Conclusion

Attending to taskscapes by examining the interactivities between food, farming, andcraft practices provides one method by which to investigate the changing roles ofwomen and men in daily life, and how these daily tasks ‘scale up’ to broaderenvironmental, economic, and political changes. The difficulty, of course, is that it isimpossible to account for all the tasks people perform today and much less so in thepast. Guyer’s orientation towards “key tasks” is particularly useful, since it is often keytasks like agriculture that provide the temporal scaffolding for the division of labor andtime allocation throughout the day and the year. Yet this must remain an empiricalquestion for archaeologists: we cannot assume that the key tasks of today, or whoperformed them, are the same as in the past, nor can we assume that the tasks mostvisible archaeologically represent dominant activities of people in the past. We suggestthat cross-analyzing craft and culinary practices may provide one way forward, amethod which has particular implications for understanding culturally specific tempo-ralities, craft production, and gender.

First, rather than adhering to a strictly linear concept of time, Banda populationsunderstand temporality based on local cultural modalities, and experience and organizetasks according to these different conceptual modalities of time. Seasonal rhythms,framed by weather changes, impact the organization of agricultural and potting tasks,which also take into account ritual temporalities and prescriptions (e.g., sacred days).We have explored how we might combine an understanding of these seasonal tempo-ralities in tandem with bodily rhythms, and how the resulting tempo (Bourdieu 1977:6–7) cuts across tasks as diverse as cooking and manufacturing of ceramiccontainers. Such tempos represent the embodiment of tasks, skills, as well as social

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norms and relations of power (Foucault 1980; Herzfeld 2009). Through this compar-ison, we can see that rhythms of bodily movements, or corporeally based knowledge,may be more gender-specific than the seasonal temporalities.

The second implication is that craft production cannot be understood in isolation; theorganization of one productive activity affects all of the others, especially along seasonallines (Costin 1991; Sillar 2010). As ethnoarchaeological work by other authors in thisspecial issue demonstrates, food and craft practices are deeply entangled in social,economic, and ritual life. Part-time vs. full-time specialists may structure their livesand labor in very different ways, and along different temporalities. As a way tominimizehousehold risk, part-time specialists often schedule craft production around peaks indemand for agricultural labor (a key task) and use similar tools for agricultural work andmining clay (hoes), and food and clay preparation (e.g., Figs. 4 and 5), thus reducingexpenditure on the tools and labor required (Sillar 2010). As we have shown in the caseof Banda, craft specialists are quite attentive to changing markets, and can change,contract, or expand their operations as needed. In times of need, they may abandon theirart altogether in order to find and produce food. Moreover, this suggests that craftspecialists might be better conceived of not as stable, timeless forms, but instead as highlyflexible arrangements dependent on political economic circumstances (Stahl 2014).

Finally, gender is a critical variable in how labor and social relations are structured,but we cannot assume the gender roles of the present are the same as in the past(Brumfiel and Robin 2008; Pyburn 2004; Robin 2006; Stahl 1993). We suggest that agendered taskscape approach may allow us to investigate these dynamics over (chro-nological, linear) time, and our approach has relevance beyond the historical periodsthat were our focus. Simultaneous shifts in craft and culinary practices indicate eithersome degree of interactivity between them (e.g., similar agents involved) and/or alarger-scale environmental or political economic shift with wide reaching conse-quences. Greater attention to tasks such as cooking and housekeeping that are almostalways gendered would help trace past labor, social dynamics, and gendered relations,but also highlight women’s often undervalued practical and technical knowledge, notleast of which is the skill to simultaneously manage food, farm, and home.

Acknowledgments Research was funded by U.S. National Science Foundation Grants BCS 9410726 andBCS 0751350 to Ann Stahl, and an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant BCS 1041948 and Wenner-GrenDissertation Fieldwork Grant N010344 to Logan. We gratefully acknowledge the logistical and intellectualsupport of Ann Stahl, who introduced us both to Banda, and provided detailed feedback on this paper. We alsoacknowledge the women and men of Banda, in particular Enoch Mensah, who was instrumental to both of ourresearch projects, and the women of Dorbour, who tolerated not just one, but two brunis asking questions abouttheir daily lives. Cameron Gokee and Cynthia Robin (Northwestern University) provided invaluable commen-tary on the text and the many conceptual iterations of this paper. Andrew Roddick (McMaster University)pointed us to crucial sources on taskscapes. Gabrielle Hecht (University of Michigan) suggested that Maggicubes were “congealed cubes of women’s labor.” Research was permitted by the Ghana Museums andMonuments Board and the Banda Traditional Council, whose support we gratefully acknowledge.

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