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The Role of Plants in Traditional Lacandon Culture

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Book cover The Forest of the Lacandon Maya

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Abstract

This Chapter describes and illustrates the role of plants in traditional Lacandon culture, and provides a preliminary sketch of the Lacandon botanical classification system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Baer and Baer (1952) say that the southern Lacandones do not strain it.

  2. 2.

    ahtsunte’, in Baer and Baer (1952).

  3. 3.

    Baer and Baer (1952).

  4. 4.

    sih-il <sih ‘give a gift’ -il NOM. Cf. siih [Yuc.] ‘donate’ (Bricker et al. 1998), siy [Itz.] ‘give’ (Hofling and Tesucún 1997).

  5. 5.

    Bruce (1968,1975) and McGee (2002) gloss this word as ‘sacred water’.

  6. 6.

    K’ayum Arturo Segundo (personal communication 2010).

  7. 7.

    Most of the Lacandon agro-forestry research has been carried out in the southern Lacandon community of Lacanha’ Chan Sayab. Presumably, “jurup che” is a southern Lacandon term, although the word is not found in Canger’s (1970) dictionary of San Quintín (a southern Lacandon community). The word hú’ub’, in Yucatec, refers to a fallow field less than three years old (Bricker et al. 1998: 113).

  8. 8.

    The long vowel shortens in this compound.

  9. 9.

    Other trees include Hampea stipitata, Sapium lateriflorum, Cecropia obtusifolia, and Piper auritum (Diemont 2006: 4–5).

  10. 10.

    Nations and Nigh (1980) say it is one month.

  11. 11.

    Term from Baer and Baer (1952).

  12. 12.

    See also Davis (1978: 114).

  13. 13.

    Copal nodules in the Yucatan display a similar arrangement (Stross 1997).

  14. 14.

    Meaning is uncertain. Compare huts’ [Yuc.]. ‘to approach, place near’ (Bricker et al. 1998: 113).

  15. 15.

    Mulinuh, from molino (Spanish), also designates the hand-cranked and electric corn grinders.

  16. 16.

    Baer and Baer (1952: 15) report that the beater is made from the wood of luwin (Ampelocera hottlei) in the southern Lacandon community.

  17. 17.

    Tozzer (1907: 61) and Nations (1989: 456) remark that the bows and arrows were presented to the deities during a boy’s puberty rite. However, this rite seems to have been abandoned.

  18. 18.

    The arrows made by the northern Lacandones are longer than those made by their southern counterparts (Nations 1989: 456, fn. 1).

  19. 19.

    KyP says there are nine and Tozzer (1907) says there are fifteen.

  20. 20.

    Called tuchul in Baer and Baer (1952).

  21. 21.

    See Davidson (1935).

  22. 22.

    Either by means of attribute reduction and “configurational recoding”. The first entails selecting a few of the most obvious features and ignoring the rest. The second entails chunking a number of features together to form a single attribute (Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin 1956: 46, in Andrade 1995: 93).

  23. 23.

    Plant in is broadest sense, viz. vegetation. Ordinarily, plant has a restricted meaning in English, typically denoting small forms (houseplants) and excluding trees. For more insight into this problematical category, see (Wierzbicka 1992).

  24. 24.

    The same is true for “animal”. Lacandones have no name for animal. The word bäk’ comes closest, however it refers almost exclusively to game animals. It also means meat, specifically red meat. Moreover, when asked to draw their idea of “animal”, Lacandon consultants produced an image with four legs, a tail, fur, and spots. This all suggests that bäk’ is a functional category, not a taxonomic one; and that the concept of animal is not a unique beginner but a life form on par with bird, fish, and snake.

  25. 25.

    See Atran (1987a, 1987b, 1987c), Keil (1989), Kripke (1972), Putnam (1975, 1977), and Schwartz (1978).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Suzanne Cook

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  1. Suzanne Cook
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4.1 Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Balche' Preparation 1 (MP4 574148 kb)

Balche' Preparation 2 (MP4 252968 kb)

Ut'anil Balche'—Secret of the Balche' (MP4 106081 kb)

Cooking Traditional Foods (MP4 257097 kb)

Cooking Pakyon (MP4 9025 kb)

Uk’aay Käkow—Song of the Cacao (MP4 39550 kb)

Uk’aay Huch’—Song for Grinding (MP4 170152 kb)

Clearing a New Milpa (MP4 18999 kb)

Milpa Harvest (MP4 209441 kb)

How to Build a House (MP4 32641 kb)

Tour of the God House (MP4 63619 kb)

Tulis K’ik’ (MP4 170962 kb)

(a) Copal 1 (MP4 145863 kb)

(b) Copal 2 (MP4 6976 kb)

Tour of the Ceremonial Kitchen (MP4 21725 kb)

Uk’aay Tok’ (MP4 44247 kb)

Making Arrows (MP4 322562 kb)

Seed Necklace (MP4 10622 kb)

AM describes the Ceremonial Rattle (MP4 19816 kb)

Uk’aay K’uch—Song for Spinning Thread (MP4 66803 kb)

Weaving on the Backstrap Loom (MP4 37765 kb)

Hammock (MP4 86954 kb)

Legend Making Natural Dyes (MP4 112226 kb)

KM Makes Annatto Paste (MP4 281165 kb)

Curing Strings (MP4 37341 kb)

(MP4 22224 kb)

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Cook, S. (2016). The Role of Plants in Traditional Lacandon Culture. In: The Forest of the Lacandon Maya. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9111-8_4

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