Plant Life and the Maya: Relationships and Conceptualizations
by Jordan Erdos

December/Diciembre 1999

In the area in which anthropology and cultural geography intersect, much has been written regarding the relationship between indigenous populations and natural resource use. An interest in indigenous knowledge systems has grown not only among anthropologists, but ecologists as well. Connections have been drawn between sustainable consumption of resources and native populations.

Working from evidence which maps the location of indigenous populations and areas of high biological diversity in the world, University of California at Berkeley geographer Bernard Nietschmann has postulated the "Rule of Indigenous Environments," which states that in those lands in which indigenous peoples are the owners, there remains an environment containing a rich biological diversity.

As concern for disappearing plant species and human populations continues to grow, there is one further threatened area belonging intrinsically to the afforementioned but often overlooked or ignored: the disappearing languages of the world. According to the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), almost 2,500 languages are immediately threatened by extinction.

If we are to concern ourselves with the growing loss of biological and cultural diversity in the world, we must also examine the role of language in indigenous knowledge systems. This paper seeks to explore an indigenous conceptualization of plant life rooted in the different Mayan languages. I will first address some examples of mythology, cosmology and lore associated with plant life in Mayan communities, to demonstrate the intrinsic links between indigenous culture and the conceptualization of agriculture and plant life. Next, I will assess how Mayan peoples and plants are connected through language. Then, I will focus upon Mayan plant nomenclature and manners in which names reflect cultural importance. Finally, I will briefly examine Mayan plant management in the wild, looking particularly at resource decisions based upon local knowledge.

Flowering Mountain Earth

Unifying vegetation, the human life cycle, kinship, modes of production, religious and political hierarchy, conceptions of time and celestial movment, the Tzutujil Maya of Santiago Atitlan (called Atitecos) employ the concept of Kotsej Juyu Ruchiliew, or "Flowering Mountain Earth." This Quichean term refers to the site at the center of the world which is generally represented as a maize plant or tree, similar to the Tzotzil conception of the "World Tree."

According to Atiteco myth, The existence of the Flowering Mountain Earth precedes that of the world as it is known today. Before there was a world, a lone tree stood in the center of all that existed. As the creation of the world approached, the tree was impregnated and its branches grew a single fruit of each thing known to humankind. In addition to physical objects such as rocks, it grew lightening and even segments of time.

As the tree bore more and more fruit, it was no longer able to support everything which grew upon it, and so the fruit fell, smashing open upon the ground and scattering seeds about. These seeds took root and grew, nurtured by the original tree and protected beneath its canopy, eventually crowding out the Father/Mother (Ti Tie Ti Tixel).

The Atitecos believe that as long as the Flowering Mountain Earth is fed, it will continue to provide sustenance. Through ritutal burning of copal and through prayer, the Atitecos are able to appease the ancestral spirit. Yucatec Maya likewise feed the guardians of the lands; if a farmer fails to ¢ík ?uk'ul, or give drink to the yun¢iló?ob', or lords, then he will encounter venomous snakes or chop his own leg while working the land.

Through the story of the Flowering Mountain Earth and related beliefs, one can see the intrinsic knowledge about plants contained within indigenous mythology. The World Tree, having dropped its fruits, remains useful as a protector of the seedlings which sprout at its feet, becoming a parental figure to all living things.

From this myth comes a central concept in Atiteco relgion: Jaloj-K'exoj, which is derived from the words jal and k'ex, both glossed as "change." Carlsen and Prechtel distinguish the two terms in that jal refers to change as manifested in the individual life cycle whereas k'ex refers to a generational change. The authors describe jal as "change at the 'husk'," and k'ex as occurring "at the 'seed'." They draw a connection to k'axaj, glossed as "spittle," which plays a crucial role in the Popul Vuh when the head of One Hunahpu, now a calabash, impregnates the young maiden by spitting in her hand. Thus, Jaloj-K'exoj represents one form of the Mayan conceptualization of agricultural cycles and ecology.

In the Tzotzil-speaking community of Chamula, agricultural cycles can be traced to the importance played by the sun, htotik, or "Our Father." Through a complex system which draws connections between the location of the sun and cardinal directions, agricultural seasons are borne. The sun is also credited with giving maize to humankind. The term shohobal, which refers to maize foods, can be glossed as "radiance" or "halo of the sun." This follows Chamula mythology, which attributes the origin of maize to the sun's groin.

The sun is not alone in being accredited with originating important Mayan food products. The Chamulans believe the moon, hme?tik, or "Our Mother," offered her breast milk in the form of potatoes and her necklace in the form of beans. Interestingly, when building the fencing in the creation of a new milpa in Zinacantán, researchers were told any kind of tree would suffice, provided "it is planted when the moon is full." Thus, while the sun is father of the maize, the moon, as mother, retains a role in its development.

Many of the sacred Mayan texts contain important references to plants and agriculture which continue to pertain to present day Mayan society. In the Chilam Balam, the jícama variety, cup, is "practically a symbol for famine," a quality still attributed to the root, which is often eaten in times of famine.

In the beginning of the Popul Vuh, the creators ask, "How should it be sown, how should it dawn?" In this question we can see a fundamental connection drawn between the creation of life and the preparation of agriculture, or as Tedlock explains: "the begetting and bearing of human beings; the sowing and sprouting of plants; and the setting and dawning (or rising) of heavenly bodies." All originate from the same Quichean term, lexic, meaning "to be derived from."

Perhaps the most illustrative area in which plants, humans and mythology intersect is in shamanic healing ritual. In the lore of Zinacantán, as in many Mayan cultures, a shaman first discovers his or her power through dreams in which he or she is presented with a bamboo staff and flowers. Once awakened to the calling, shamans continue to receive information about useful medicinal plants through dreams.

Flowers continue to play a vital role in the performance of a healing ceremony. A Zinacantec shaman can not cure without "flowers," an array of ten or so plants. In fact, the major curing ceremony is known as muk'ta nichim, great flower, and the minor ceremony is bik'it nichim, little flower. Following the ceremony the "flowers" may be placed inside a tree located next to the nearest shrine.

In the Zinacantec world, in which most objects found upon the earth have a soul, ch'ulel, the medicinal plants of a curing ceremony, are considered to have an especially strong soul. Thus, the Maya have a strengthened conceptualization of the connections which exist between human and plant, attributing souls to the latter because, "they know when to flower even though they have no father or mother."

During Yucatec curing ceremonies, the shaman calls on female spirits to "sweep" the earth of the patient's body, an action akin to that performed by a farmer sweeping an area in preparation for the milpa. Again there is a link between ritual and agriculture.

Human/Plant Co-existence

"We are the sprouts at your hands and feet. We are the branches at your trunk. We come in front of trees and stones. We are at your bark, at your fruit. We are your flowers. We are your tendrils. We are the ones who need your shade." In Atiteco, prayers begin with the affirmation that the populace are the fruits and flowers of the village.

Plant metaphors abound in Mayan ritual practice, and likewise, human attributes are often assigned to plants. Zinacantec dieties are addressed lanichimal ba, lanichimal sat, which Laughlin glosses as "Thy flowery visage, Thy flowery face", and "to rejoice" is xmuyubaj, xnichimaj, derived from mu, "fragrant," and "to flower."

Descriptive terminology of plant parts draws further comparison between humans and plants. In Tzeltal, a seed may be composed of y-al, meaning its child, surrounded by the endosperm s-bak'etal, its flesh. A tree's sap in Tzotzil may be referred to as xch'ich'el, its blood, or spojoval, its pus. A chak te', or tree ass, in Zinacantán is a large log, branches are arms (sk'ob), and the grain is its face (ssat). The Tzeltzal might say of the first leaf to appear above ground, y-unin s-ni?, "its young its nose."

In Tzutujil, a plant is said to sprout when xlexa, his face came out. In fact, the dawning of the sun, the sprouting of a seed, and the birth of a child are all expressed using xlexa. In the Zinacantec dialect of Tzotzil, however, the birth of animals and man, x'ayan, is distinguished from that of plants, xvok'. Nevertheless, human processes and body parts are employed to describe any number of characteristics of a tree or plant itself, its roots, its flowers, etc.

Likewise, there has been an incorporation of plant terminology in describing human actions. As a sprout may show its face, an infant may "sprout." Atiteco grandparents often call their grandchildren tzej jutae, meaning sprout. Conversely, as citizens grow older in Santiago Atitlan, they will sometimes be addressed as Nim Chie Nim Kam, glossed as "Big Tree Big Vine," a term of respect.

Most interesting in this human/plant lexical relationship is the personification of plant life. As has already been mentioned, inhabitants of Zinacantán attribute a soul, ch'ulel, both to plants and human beings. While some people believe all plants have souls, there are those who claim only useful plants have souls, or that weeds do not have good souls (ch'abal lek xch'ulel). Zinacantecs believe that if a person leaves his tool in the field or woods overnight, the weeds or trees will beat the tool so that the person is too tired to work the next day.

Human inhabitants of the Mayan world must not take plants for granted, ignoring the many souls that populate their environment. If a wanderer wishes to avoid receiving blisters from a poisonous plant she may have encountered, she must directly address that plant. To protect themselves from poison ivy, it is said some people will dance before the plant. In some instances, a Zinacantec may even order certain plants to grow or to fruit.

One of the more interesting attributes ascribed to plants is that of human emotion. In Tzotzil it is said of weeds which have not been cut, abol sba, it suffers, while those that are cut chak' sk'ak'al yo'on, get angry.

One particularly interesting expression, referring to a plant that does not grow during the dry season, is xch'ay yo'on ta korixmatik, which is glossed as "it is distracted by Lent." In this expression, one can see a peculiar intermixing of indigenous and Christian religious belief.

Finally, there is an expression used by the Zinacantecs which clearly demonstrates the complexity of plant and human interrelationships. It is said of a person who has failed to weed his milpa, yech istek'an xchob. The farmer has "just stood up his cornfield."

Plant Nomenclature and Recognition

In order to examine Maya plant management, it is useful to understand how the Maya have chosen to name and classify plant life. The development of the Mayan nomenclature helps shed light upon the uniqueness of traditional knowledge and demonstrates why ethnobotanists are continually stunned by the indigenous ability to distinguish between similar varieties of a single species for which there is no differentiation in Western binomial nomenclature.

To illustrate the different perspective employed by Mayan peoples, and demonstrate the importance of language in understanding how cultures vary, it is worth noting that, in Tzeltal, there is not actually a term which could be conceived as specifically meaning "plant." Rather, there are expressions used by Tzeltal speakers to differentiate between plant and animal life. For example, of plants it will be said, ma shnihik, they don't move or ma shbenik, they don't walk. Or perhaps a plant will be described as ?ay yisimik, it possesses roots.

One other particularly important manner of distinguishing between plants and animals is done linguistically. When referring to plants in Tzeltal, the numeral classifier tehk will be used, while animals occur with the numeral classifier koht and human beings with tul. Likewise, the prefix sh- occurs almost exclusively with plant life, i.e., shboht'il cenek', the scarlet runner bean.

While Tzeltal appears to lack a term for the generic "plant," in Tzotzil the term tz'i'lel can be glossed as such. But really, it is one of three categories of plant life, of which ak', vine, and te', tree, may be considered the other two. Tzeltal, on the other hand, categorizes plant life into four groups using the following primary lexemes: te?, tree; ?ak', vines; ?ak, grasses; and wamal, "broad-leafed, net-veined herbaceous plants." Interestingly, in Zinacantán, as well as Tenejapa, mushrooms and fungi have been found to be considered as fauna rather than flora, and therefore do not pertain to any of the categories.

Huastec, likewise, employs te' for tree, but the term also means a branch, pole, or piece of wood. In Huastec, the category for vine, ts'aah, also refers to lashing material. And the cover term for an herbaceous plant, ts'ohool, may indicate medicine derived from any plant source (tree, vine, bark, root, etc.). Here we can see the strong linguistic connections between the naming of plants and their uses within a culture.

Mayan nomenclature, then, consists of one, two, or three words, of which the ultimate may be the categorizer or primary lexeme: ak', te', etc. Additionally, there are unaffiliated generic taxa which do not fit into any of the categories. These, too, are labelled with primary lexemes, such as the Tzeltal ?ishim, corn, or cenek', bean.

Research has indicated that plants labeled by generic names which are simple lexemes have a greater cultural importance than those labeled by more complex lexemes. Additional research has demonstrated that children are more likely to learn the names of plants with generic names than those with more complex nomenclature. This would appear to indicate a connection between usefulness or cultural importance of certain plant species and simplification of the nomenclature.

In addition to the primary lexeme, plants may be identified with a secondary lexeme that may describe a plant's dominant attribute, such as color, shape, size, flavor, odor or texture. This corresponds closely with Western binomial nomenclature, which, for example, distinguishes black birches from white birches.

The term that distinguishes a secondary lexeme can shed light upon the origin of a plant in a culture and will often indicate that the plant is one that has been cultivated. Such is the case of sorghum and wheat, as named in Tzeltal. The two grains were introduced by the Spanish at the time of the conquest. The highland Maya, recognizing the grains to be similar to their own corn, proceeded to name them accordingly: wheat became known as kashlan ?ishim, Castilian corn, and sorghum became móro ?ishim, Moors' corn. Similarly, the Chuj name for rice, another introduced species, is kashlan ?ishim.

Foreign crops or species, then, may easily acquire a name within the Mayan plant nomenclature. But are wheat and sorghum actually considered to be corn? Although both may be listed when types of corn are categorized, neither is considered "genuine," a gloss for the Tzeltal bac'il (batz'i in Tzotzil).

An understanding of how the Maya determine which species are labeled genuine allows important insight into how the nomenclature has developed. While corn may be referred to as bac'il ?ishim, marking the generic corn so as to distinguish it from nongenuine ?ishim varieties such as wheat or sorghum, it is not necessary to use bac'il when referring only to corn. In other instances, however, the bac'il label may be obligatory, such as in the Tzeltal bac'il ?alcash, genuine orange, which contrasts with pahal ?alcash, sour orange or ?elemones ?alcash, limon orange.

In the preceding example, the secondary lexemes pahal and ?elemones offer descriptions of the type of orange; in the former, the taste is described while in the latter either the taste or appearance similar to a lemon is described. According to Berlin, Breedlove and Raven, if there is a particular semantic dimension that is expressed in a plant's name, such as pahal, it is precisely that dimension which is used to distinguish it from other varieties. Thus one would expect the pahal ?alcas to be perhaps the most sour of all oranges encountered in the highlands.

With the use of bac'il, however, it is not always clear what is being marked. As the earlier example demonstrates, bac'il may be used to differentiate between original and introduced species. There are numerous other manners, nonetheless, in which "genuine" may be employed as a marker. In some instances, the Tzeltal will use bac'il interchangeably with sakil, white. At other times, bac'il may be the largest variety of a plant species. In yet other instances, bac'il will mark the class that is most typical or displays the widest geographical distribution or that has the greatest cultural significance.

One final reason for employment of bac'il is to distinguish a plant from plants which may appear similar, but are in fact another species. In Tzotzil, the latter are labeled yit'ix, glossed as bastard or false. This is similar to use of the term "mock" in English. In other cases, the related plant may be indicated by taking the name of the "genuine" plant and placing it before a categorizer, such as the xantiya ak', Tzotzil for a wild vine (ak') resembling a watermelon (xantiya).

One final important manner by which a plant species may be marked is in relation to an animal. It is common for the Maya to have an animal possess a plant, such as the Zinacantec yuch'ul vo'bolom, jaguar's orchid. In Tzeltal one may find, for example, c'omate?c'o, rat's chayote or ?ishim ?ahaw, snake's corn. In Yucatec, cat-cuuc, squirrel's tree cucumber, illustrates the same process.

It is not exactly clear what relation the animal has to the plant. In some cases the use of an animal possessor may relate to a mythological reference. But it is easy to speculate that there may be some encrypted understanding of the relationship between plants and animals in an ecosystem.

According to Laughlin, plants such as these are often wild and less useful than the genuine forms. Thus, it becomes clear that through the process of language, the Maya have encoded the importance of plants to their culture.

Plant Management

It should be noted that just as the usefulness of certain plants may vary over time, so too may their common names change -- an important aspect of local knowledge. A report to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity illustrates the dynamic nature of indigneous knowledge systems:

What is "traditional" about traditional knowledge is not its antiquity, but the way it is acquired and used. In other words, the social process of learning and sharing knowledge, which is unique to each Indigenous culture, lies at the very heart of its "traditionality". Much of this knowledge is actually quite new, but it has a social meaning, and legal character, entirely unlike the knowledge indigenous people acquire from settlers and industrialized societies.

To conclude this paper, I have chosen to examine plant management as it is performed by Mayan societies. By employing manners in which resources may be utilized sustainably, the Maya, along with many other original peoples, have prevented, or at least have slowed down, the complete devastation of local ecosystems.

In order to examine Maya plant management, it is first necessary to understand the manner in which the Maya people perceive their natural surroundings. The Maya cosmological viewpoint is a complex, three-dimensional conceptualization involving cross sections of the universe and specific boundaries or points. Contained within the Maya universe are the elements, cardinal directions and locations, a distinction between inside and outside, and a vertical dimension.

William F. Hanks has written extensively about locative deictics; encoded in the Mayan languages are phrases which identify perceptual, spatial or temporal location. One of the most important spatial distinctions in Yucatec is that between k'aás, forest, and kàah, town or inhabited space. The former describes a perilous place, which falls outside of the protected inhabited space. Because of this dangerous, unpredictable character, when in the forest, Yucatec speakers will describe themselves as yàanal k'aásh, under (the) forest. This indicates the more threatening nature of the woods, which would seem to keep wanderers "under" its grasp.

The same sense of danger is found in Teenek culture, in which boundaries between the alte', vegetational zones outside of domestic land, and the eleeb, the protective area surrounding a family's house, are clearly distinguished. Once outside the eleeb, there is no guarantee of protection.

The forest, then, is seen through language as a place in which those unfamiliar with their surroundings must exercise extreme caution. This is recognized, once again, by the shamanic act of banishing evil spirits from a human body or domestic space: the spirits are cast ¢'uú? k'aásh, deep into the forest.

Nevertheless, the forest contains many important natural products and therefore must be managed. In the case of the Teenek, this involves the need to assess their resources. In Teenek culture, resource perception entails not only an assessment of physical and chemical attributes of a plant, but its spatial and temporal position in its vegetational environment as well. Thus, there is a great deal more to plant recognition than knowing the name of the plant or how it is used; deixis may play a role as well.

Most important to understanding how local knowledge may contribute to biodiversity is understanding how indigenous peoples make conscious decisions regarding the management of their resources. Shifting agriculture or swidden agriculture ensures that fields may be sown repeatedly, allowing recently-used plots to recuperate while other plots are exploited.

In addition to decisions regarding which plants are useful, wild plant management includes important decisions regarding which plants should be spared as weeds and which other competetive plants ought to be removed. It is common, for example, that subsistence farmers in the Yucatan will spare the chicle tree when clearing land. As a result, there is preponderance of chicle trees that have occupied former swidden lands.

Numerous decisions are made when determining how best to promote resource management. It is not simply a question of planting or sparing. When making resource decisions in the Huastec region, individual plants may be slashed (kwathaal), neglected (aalk'ith wa'ats, wa'ats ti alte', wa'ats alchik te', ma hu'taak'i wa'ats, "they are just there, anywhere, in the alte'"), spared (hilath), weeded around (ak'ith), protected (beletnath, k'anithach), transplanted (tsabt'ayath), or planted (t'ayath).

Deliberate decisions such as these, together with cultural mores which encourage resource management, help explain why, as Edward Higbee noted, "variation rather than uniformity of species is the rule." From this comes the concept of the "cultural landscape," recognized by United Nations as "the complex interrelationships between man (sic.) and nature in the construction, formation and evolution of landscapes."

Human beings share the earth with innumerable varieties of plants, animals and other living organisms. Through their presence, humans modify the land, working the earth to yield a continuing supply of resources. Increasing evidence pointing to the anthropomorphic face of nature deems it necessary to recognize and protect cultural landscapes. This entails not only the protection of biological diversity, but cultural diversity and, as this paper has set out to demonstrate, language diversity.

The Mayan relationship with plants is complex and involves the intertwining of cosmology, culture, history and language. Simply recognizing only the resulting natural landscape fails to account for these complex relationships. By learning how language is employed in the process, we may better identify the roots of success. Then we, too, may harvest a better understanding of our natural environment and what must be done to ensure that our cultural landscapes do not become barren wastelands.

References Cited

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Laboratory, March 1971.

Berlin, Brent, Dennis E. Breedlove and Peter H. Raven. Principles of Tzeltal Plant
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Breedlove, Dennis E. and Robert M. Laughlin. The Flowering of Man: A Tzotzil Botany
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Carlsen, Robert S. and Martin Prechtel. "The Flowering Dead: An Interpretation of
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Gossen, Gary H. "Temporal and Spatial Equivalents in Chamula Ritual Symbolism"
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Hanks, William F. Referential Practice: Language and Lived Space among the Maya.
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Higbee, Edward. "Agriculture in the Maya Homeland," Geographical Review (38, 3),
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Nietschmann, Bernard. "Allies or Enemies? Indigenous Nations and Protected Areas,"
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Posey, Darrell A. "Biological and Cultural Diversity -- the Inextricable, Linked by
Language and Politics," unpublished paper.

Roys, Ralph L. The Ethnobotany of the Maya. New Orleans: (Tulane University, 1931).

Tedlock, Dennis, translator. Popul Vuh. New York: (Simon & Schuster, 1985).

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