An Introduction to the History of the Culture of Rice Essay

Rice is intimately in the culture as well as the food ways and economy of many societies.(www.riceweb.org p.1). For example, folklore tells us that when the Kachins of northern Myanmar (Burma) were sent forth from the center of the Earth, they were given the seeds of rice and were directed to a wondrous country where everything was perfect and where rice grew well. Also in Bali, it is believed that the Lord Vishnu caused the Earth to give birth to rice, and the God Indra taught the people how to raise it. In Chinese myths, by contrast, tells of rice being a gift of animals rather than of gods. China had been visited by an especially severe period of floods. When the land had finally drained, people came down from the hills where had taken refuge, only to discover that all the plants had been destroyed and there was little to eat. Due to hunting, animals become scarce. On a particular day, the people say a dog coming across a field, and hanging on the dogs tail were bunches of long yellow seeds. The people then planted the seeds and rice eventually grew. The origins of rice have been a major debate for some period of time now. The earliest settlements of those persons responsible for domestication were in areas offering a wide range of plant and animal associations within a limit geographical areas. Some sites offered a variety of food sources over a span of seasons to societies dependent on hunting and gathering for their food supply. These early settlements were near the edge of the uplands but on gently rolling topography and close to small rivers that provided a reliable water supply. The earliest agriculture may have been developed by accident when women settlement recognized that the mix of plant life growing around he midden was especially rich in edible forms. Early agriculture focused on plants that reproduced vegetatively, but the seeds of...