Grace of the Flood: Classification and Use of Wild Mushrooms among the Highland Maya of Chiapas

• Published in: Economic botany 2008-11, Vol.62 (3), p.437-470, Article 437
• Main Authors: Shepard, Glenn H. Jr, Arora, David, Lampman, Aaron
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amanita; Amanita hayalyuuy; Animals; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Classification; cultural environment; descriptions; ecology; Economic botany; Ethnobiology; ethnobotany; ethnomycology; fungal anatomy; Genera; Highlands; household income; languages; Life Sciences; marketing; Mayan culture; medicinal properties; Mesoamerica and South American; mushroom collecting; Mushrooms; Mycology; new species; nutritive value; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Ecology; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Plants; poisonous fungi; Rainy season; Special Mushroom Issue; species diversity; taxonomy; terminology; Towns; wild foods
• ISSN: 0013-0001; 1874-9364
• DOI: 10.1007/s12231-008-9044-5

The highland Maya of Chiapas in southern Mexico gather, consume, and sell a wide variety of mushrooms during the rainy season from June to November. The mushrooms are prized as a valuable source of nutrition and income, and a few species are used medicinally. No evidence exists for current or historical use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, though descriptions of mushroom intoxication suggest nonspecific knowledge about the presence of psychoactive properties in some mushrooms. Free-listing exercises elicited 50 or more mushroom names in each of the two main highland Mayan languages, Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Identification exercises using mushroom photographs permitted a preliminary assignment of mycological species, genera, or families to many of the local mushroom names collected in freelists. Field identification during the rainy reason further emphasized the concordance of many local names with distinctive mycological groups or taxa. Mushroom sketches made by informante revealed the detailed knowledge many of the highland Maya maintain about mushroom morphology, ecology, and diversity. Mayan mushroom classification provides additional evidence for several of the universally presumed principles of ethnobiological classification. However, in contrast to their classification of plants, the Mayan system of mushroom classification is mostly concerned with edible and other useful species. (One such species, previously unknown to science, is described here.) Most species with no cultural use are presumed by the highland Maya to be poisonous and are relegated to a wastebasket category known locally as "stupid" or "crazy" mushrooms.