terparts in tropical Africa, they used a swidden agriculture that did not
yield impressive results, and, since they accumulated as many cattle as
possible, their beasts were generally thin, produced little milk, and tended
to overgraze their pastures. But, as Ralph Austen points out, African agri-
cultural methods provided insurance "by natural restoration
of fertility
through fallow and a scattering of plots within cultivated areas," and "a
large and scattered herd is the best insurance against complete loss from
[natural] ...
disasters even if individual animals are thus less well-nour-
ished." Instead of maximizing production, African farmers minimized the
risks involved in farming with a preindustrial technology. 55
Mixed FarmingSociety
Unlike the hunters and herders, the mixed farmers built nonportable
huts of saplings or stone, depending on what was available. Their settle-
ments varied in size. The Nguni generally occupied small hamlets compris-
ing extended families and their dependents; most Sotho lived in villages
containing between fifty and four hundred people, including a dominant
extended family, several other families, and a few dependents. In the north-
west, near the limit of arable farming, numbers of villages coalesced into