Dani Sweet Potatoes

Dani Sweet Potatoes (19 min) follows the sophisticated process of sweet potato horticulture developed by the Dani. It follows the Dani sweet potato cycle from clearing off the old brush and weeds from a fallow field to planting, harvesting, cooking and eating. At that time the Dani had the simplest of tools - long pointed wooden poles used as digging sticks that are hardened in the fire and soaked in water - and they still used their stone-bladed adzes. (By now, most Dani use steel shovels, axes, and bush knives and make stone adzes only for the tourist trade.) Filmmaker: Karl Heider