A number of researchers have suggested that polyculture is characteristic of native tropical forest swiddens and have adduced theory from community ecology to account for its adaptiveness. Ye'kwana and Yanomamö swidden cultivation is examined, and it is shown that polyculture is not practiced to any significant degree. Instead, the concept of polyvariety is introduced along with a number of other cultivation practices that more simply account for the adaptiveness of Ye'kwana and Yanomamö gardening. In addition, comparative data from other parts of the tropical world indicate that polyculture is no more common than monoculture and recent advances in ecological research indicate that the diversity-stability hypothesis that underpins adaptive arguments of polyculture is in need of drastic revision.
Key Words Swidden cultivation - Ye'kwana - Yanomamö - neotropics - adaptation
This article is based on a paper given at a symposium entitled 
Does the Swidden Ape the Jungle?
held at the December 1980 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C.