Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversity landscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006) 689e711www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg

Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversitylandscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

Jacob van Etten

Technology and Agrarian Development Group and Centre for Geo-Information,

Wageningen University and Research Centre, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Abstract

Today’s domesticated plants not only embody past humanenature interactions, but also reflect socialhistory. Human seed exchange, replacement and loss are important forces in shaping crop diversity.This essay explores regional history in relation to the shaping of maize diversity in the western highlandsof Guatemala. This is an area of exceptional maize heterogeneity and a peripheral part of the region wheremaize was domesticated. Maize diversity seems to have developed through geographic isolation in networksof seed exchange that were generally very local in scope. However, recent studies on Mexican maize suggestotherwise. However, few studies have examined crop diversity or seed exchange from a historical perspec-tive. A closer examination of regional history suggests which processes might be important for shaping thepresent geographical distribution of maize diversity. Seeds were occasionally transported over longer dis-tances. As a consequence, maize diversity is geographically not characterised by sharp differences betweenfarming communities; the main differences are to be found in regional occurrences. This challenges anti-modern ideas of closed, local native ecologies. Consequently, the conservation of maize genetic resourcesis a challenge, but not entirely contradictory with its transforming socio-economic context.� 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Guatemala; Maize; Biodiversity; Regional history; Biogeography

Introduction

It is likely that the domestication of maize occurred around 7000 BC in the Balsas drainage,Oaxaca (Mexico), from Mexican annual teosinte, although competing hypotheses exist.1 In themillennia that followed this event, seed selecting agriculturalists dramatically changed the

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690 J. van Etten / Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006) 689e711

appearance of maize and developed dozens of maize races. The biological diversity embodied bythese races is of great value for the future of global food production. It forms a source of old andnew genes that assure continued crop evolution and production. Maize biodiversity also embodiesa cultural heritage. Certain crop types are connected to specific ecological and culinary uses. Themultifaceted value of global crop biodiversity is increasingly recognized in emerging policy, whichseeks to conserve crop germplasm both in situ and in seed banks, and enhances its value throughselection done by both farmers and scientists.

In all of this, geography has an important role to play. Some central claims in studies on di-versity in maize and other crops have an important geographical dimension. Many past studiesstate that rural communities in Guatemala and Mexico are relatively closed to seed materials com-ing from outside sources.2 This view reinforced the common association between native popula-tions and good conservation practices, which are described in terms of closed ecosystems ofhumans being in equilibrium with nature, often combined with some kind of antimodernism.3

However, now a broad range of empirical studies of native conservation practices deeply ques-tions such views, and proposes non-equilibrium models of ‘open’ systems, in which contingencyand uncertainty play an important role.4

Dominique Louette has proposed that farmer maize landraces are genetically ‘open’ on thebasis of her community study of Cuzalapa in Jalisco (Mexico).5 Louette found that substantialexchange and replacement of seed lots in the community took place, and fields exchanged genesbecause of moderate levels of cross-pollination. However, although farmer landraces might beopen to other landraces in the community, the community might be rather closed to regionalexchange of seeds. This and subsequent studies in other parts of Mexico did not directly ad-dress the question of seed moving in larger territorial units, and over longer periods of time.Work on the regional geography of maize biodiversity has focused on Chiapas and Oaxaca,Mexico.6 Perales, Benz and Brush hypothesized that maize biodiversity may be spatially asso-ciated with ethnolinguistic diversity in Chiapas. An isozyme analysis showed that the maizegrown by Tzotzils and Tzeltals was not consistently different from each other. However, phe-notypic differences were evident, including different broadness of adaptation to environments.On the basis of this, the authors suggest that place-specific selection is effective in maintainingphenotypic differences in maize diversity, in spite of gene flow between the populations. Pressoirand Berthaud reach similar conclusions in a study on communities in the Central Valleys ofOaxaca. However, direct evidence on regional seed exchange to further corroborate these find-ings is lacking.

The contribution of this article to the existing geographical knowledge on crop diversity is two-fold. First, it concentrates on an understudied area with regards to maize genetic diversity: thewestern highlands of Guatemala. Previous biological studies of the geographic distribution ofmaize diversity enable a rough comparison between Mexico and Guatemala. On the basis of thesestudies, it might be expected that genetic diversity in the highlands of Guatemala will show morelocalised patterns than in Mexico, which might be thought to justify a more detailed spatial anal-ysis for Guatemala.7

The second way in which the research reported in this article contributes to crop diversity stud-ies is by its focus on process. The lack of process-based evidence for regional distributions of di-versity is paralleled by a blind spot for geography and history in crop diversity studies. Comparedto the investigation of agricultural origins and domestication in geography, little attention has

691J. van Etten / Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006) 689e711

been paid to the historical aspects of the emergence of uneven geographical concentrations of bi-ological variation of cultigens. There is especially a ‘lack of inquiry into the economic and socialhistory of agricultural biodiversity’.8 A historical approach might be especially important, sincefor maize diversity, the Latin American archaeological record suggests spatial distributions inpre-Columbian and early colonial times radically different from present ones.9 Understanding re-gional crop diversity as an outcome of historical processes might also increase our insight in thefuture possibilities and needs of managing and conserving crop populations.

The article considers how scholars and scientists might envisage local and regional social pro-cesses over several centuries affecting the shaping of the maize diversity landscape in the westernhighlands of Guatemala. The geographer Carl O. Sauer was a pioneer of the use of controlledspeculation as a way to develop fruitful hypotheses concerning processes of diffusion in regionaland historical perspective.10 His work suggests that one way to test such hypotheses would be to‘map’ the likely consequences of the putative processes, and compare these mappings with actualgeographical distributions of phenomena. The approach thus assumes that current crop popula-tions are analysable as ‘living fossils’, offering testimony to past processes.

For the approach to work, however, it would also be necessary to identify and describe relevantprocesses and mechanisms. The recent, and rapidly expanding, ethnographic literature on farmerseed management is a rich source for candidate processes and mechanisms. The candidates wouldneed to be located within a historical-geographic context to generate predictions about outcomes.Methodologically, the aim would be to assume processes and mechanisms to be working withina given area and to work out likely temporal and spatial consequences; candidates could thenbe winnowed through quantitative testing against present geographical distributions of crop ge-netic diversity.

This article is a first step in a research sequence based on such a logic, directed at actual pat-terns of maize genetic diversity in western Guatemala, and their possible historical antecedents. Itfirst identifies some processes previously marked in the literature as relevant to seed-related inno-vation and crop diversity. Then, it reviews the available secondary literature for the different pe-riods in Guatemalan history, from the Postclassic period to the present, describing the generalsocio-economic context of each period and discussing the findings on the identified processes.More direct observations on maize changes, where these happen to be available from the second-ary literature, are placed in this context, and might be useful to illustrate the possible outcomes ofthe identified processes. This feeds into a broader discussion of the historical, regional, and com-munity components of present maize diversity landscapes. A key argument will be to substantiatethe possibility that historical events are potentially more important in shaping maize diversity ge-ographies than continuous seed exchange. The article concludes by outlining the possible rele-vance of this emphasis on an event-oriented history for debates about the future of maizediversity in highland Guatemala.

Imagining seed dynamics

Most documentation of maize seed dynamics (exchange, replacement, and loss of seeds) inGuatemala reaches only back to the first half of the twentieth century. Extrapolation and imag-ination will be necessary to explore the processes in earlier times. From the literature on


contemporary seed dynamics three human factors of influence on crop biogeography can besuggested.11

1. Seed selection: An important dimension of crop type preferences is related to ecology and tech-nology. Relative land and labour availability are important triggers for technological change,including seed-based technology.12

2. Disasters: Disruptive moments in history exact special attention. A small body of ethno-graphic literature deals with the effect of disasters on crop biodiversity.13 Political conflict,natural disasters, and epidemics lead to the loss of seeds and crop types and to the erosionof trust and social solidarity that underpin the exchange of seeds and knowledge.

3. Seed exchange: In the Mesoamerican culture area no specialised social institutions or networksfor farmer seed exchange exist, in contrast with for instance parts of Africa where seeds areexchanged as ritual gifts.14 Consequently, maize exchange in Guatemala tends to occur occa-sionally and along the lines of pre-existing social contacts, inside and outside local communi-ties. If social contacts (trade, marriage, political connections) across space are constant andfrequent, seed exchange is likely.

Postclassic Maya societies (until 1524)

Guatemala and SouthernMexico form the home of theMaya civilisation. Maya culture reachedits apogee during the Classic period, between 300 and 900 AD. The classicMaya cities were concen-trated in lowland environments. The highlands formed a peripheral area during the Classic period,and the more cosmopolitan culture of the lowland cities had only superficial reception in the area.

At the moment of Spanish intrusion into the region (1524), several polities controlled territoryin western Guatemala. One of the biggest polities was the K‘iche’ state, which included aroundone million inhabitants. The ecological home area of K‘iche’ culture was the central highland ba-sin. Around the central highland valleys, smaller groups were settled. Some of these polities, likethe Tz‘utujil on the south-western side of Lake Atitlan, were devoted to specialised irrigated ag-riculture, unlike the K‘iche’. Even more outlying were Maya groups, like the Ixil and the Mam,were subsistence producers with a less mundane culture (Fig. 1).

Archaeologist John W. Fox has elaborated in detail the idea that the social organisation of theK‘iche’ polity was based on the segmentary lineage system.15 This type of social organisation isassociated with expanding or predatory states. It is a flexible way of organising solidarity whenpopulations are growing and centralised power is difficult to uphold. The main unit of social or-ganisation is the lineage segment, based on the ‘mechanical’ solidarity of kinship. Segmentary lin-eage systems are able to erect a light-weight form of co-ordination when it is necessary. Seekingallies through kinship ties, closest kin first, otherwise loosely associated groups join forces againsta common enemy, without requiring a constant hierarchical infrastructure for mobilisation whensuch co-ordination is unnecessary. Consequently, segmentary lineage solidarity only occurs in sit-uations of (ecological) competition with other groups.

Tribute collection in kind was the main integrating economic principle within the domain ofeach polity. The cultivation of maize and other food crops took place mainly in the highlands,while cacao, a prestige item, was exclusively grown in the lowlands. The importance of political


Fig. 1. Ethnic groups in Guatemala today. The current distributions of these groups largely reflect their pre-Columbian distribution

(except Ladino and multiethnic areas). Data from FLACSO-Guatemala.


control over basic grain production for the K‘iche’ and Kaqchikel elites becomes clear in the factthat all central settlements are found in the highland maize production zone.16

The K‘iche’ polity and the Kaqchikel derivative one had a preference for the broad highland ba-sins because of its suitability for ‘generalized’ dry-land agriculture. They showed less interest in partsof the landscape where specialised hydraulic agriculture was possible. Lowland cacao productiononly interested them in the later stages of state formation. Through highland subsistence productionthey ascertained the independence of lineage segments, as eachwas able to attain self-sufficiency. Al-though highlandmaize productionwas generally reliable, once in awhile it failed.Maize productionin the lowlands supplemented the highland harvest, especially in moments of crisis.

Little is known about maize cultivation and maize exchange in Postclassic times, and much hasto be inferred. From the segmentary lineage model follows that trade and specialisation were rel-atively unimportant in the Postclassic Guatemalan highlands. This type of social organisation ‘de-velops among societies with a simple, neolithic [sic] mode of production and a correlativetendency to form small, autonomous economic and political groups’.17 According to Fox, cosmo-politan influences in the Maya culture area are probably not the outcome of trade but of migra-tory movements. Interregional trade in the Guatemalan highlands was limited to some prestigeitems, unlike the intensive trade along the Gulf coast. And in contrast with the existence of thewell-known Pochteca traders in the area under Aztec influence, in the Guatemalan highlands in-terregional trade specialisation was still in an incipient state when the Spanish conquerors arrived.

It may thus be concluded that for maize dynamics the late Postclassic era represented a ratherstatic situation. Seed exchange through trade can be expected, in any case, to be virtually non-exis-tent for a high volume, low value item like maize. However, other, political forms of social integra-tion might have provoked sparse but significant seed exchange, especially among the K‘iche’ andKaqchikel ethnic groups. This contrast between the latter and the peripheral Maya groups couldbe formulated as a geographic hypothesis to explain the current maize diversity distribution. How-ever, such occasional seed exchange might be unimportant for two reasons. First, seed change wasmost likely not motivated by any drive for agricultural intensification.Maize cultivation wasmainlypart of extensive subsistence agricultural systems. Second, in their expansion, the K‘iche’ and Kaq-chikel groups are thought to have taken over pre-existing social formations, only placing a light-weight political structure on top of what already existed. Adding to this consideration the ‘leapfrog’character of segmentary lineage migrations, it is improbable that the expanding political frontier ofthese states corresponds to a slowlydemographic and ecological expansion that caused the spreadingout of crop types. It is much more probable that the migrating groups simply took over the seeds ofthe groups that had established themselves in the area in earlier times.

Colonial society (1524e1821)

After the Spanish Conquest, Guatemala, devoid of major deposits of gold or silver, became au-tomatically a somewhat marginal part of Spanish America. The colony in Guatemala formed a rel-atively self-sufficient regime. It is telling that the colonial administration from the very beginninghad its central base in the highland maize production area. One decisive reason for this was thatsupply of basic grains to the capital was crucial for the colonial economy, in remarkable continu-ity with the pre-Columbian period.18


Also in other aspects, the Spanish occupation followedpre-Colombian patterns. Initially, the Span-ish colonial administration limited itself to adding a layer of centralised tribute collection on top of theexisting system. Native rulers (caciques, principales) fulfilled an intermediary function. They procuredthat their subjects delivered the demanded products and shared it with the Spanish. Later, the colonialadministrationwould atomise the tribute system bydefining separate tribute exigencies for each of thecommunities that previously had been under the control of a wider lineage hierarchy.19

The burden of colonial domination for the Indians was mitigated by several factors, especiallythe presence of the church.20 Unlike the natives under other European colonial powers, the Span-ish American Indians became subjects and vassals of the Crown of Castile with certain rights toprotection.21 The abolitionist New Laws (1542), implemented in Guatemala in 1549, forbade theholding of indigenous slaves.22 Another mitigating factor had to do with the conflicting interestsof administrators and traders. During the export cycles of the colonial period, state interests (trib-ute, urban supply) would form a check on the interests of the plantation economy (labour extrac-tion), as the first, more than the latter, required a vigorous rural economy.23

However, under colonial rule also incisive changes occurred. The native population diminishedsharply upon the Conquest. Epidemic diseases reached the Guatemalan highlands even before thefirst Spaniards did.24 Native population estimates decrease from 2,000,000 for 1520 to the all-timelow of 220,500 for 1770.25 Falling land pressures would form the precedent for the spread of new,less intensive forms of agriculture, like sheep herding.26

Also massive resettlement (congregacion) might have had an important impact. Priests and trib-ute collectors found the sparse settlement pattern of the indigenous population little conducive forevangelisation and tribute collection and decided to resettle the Indians massively in nucleated vil-lages. It is difficult to know in what degree these resettlements were disruptive for the native pop-ulation, especially because congregacion was the topic of a fierce debate between the religiousorders at the time of its implementation.27 However, it is clear that the Indians tended to resistcongregacion and often repopulated the countryside.28

Colonial domination did not invariably lead to ‘closed’ indigenous communities. Although thecommunities were generally endogamous, community boundaries were often permeable to outsideeconomic, cultural and political forces.29 In spite of local variation, there might be a broad dis-tinction between the communities of the core and periphery of Spanish colonial presence.30

One important way in which the indigenous communities articulated with the colonial economywas through commerce. Two circumstances stimulated trade. The first is the mentioned atomisa-tion of tribute units (from indigenous polities to colonial pueblos). As this development under-mined previously existing social integration across ecological floors through tribute, itstimulated the development of regional markets to regain symbiosis through trade.31 The otherfactor was the demand for foodstuffs and other items among the urban Spanish and Creole pop-ulation. The various export ‘business cycles’ were paralleled by increasing urban demand, stimu-lating production in the indigenous communities.

Trade specialisation occurred especially in the central K‘iche’ region, probably due to its highpopulation density and the resulting land shortages. Around the colonial capital, urban demandstimulated specialisation in crops and crafts among towns. In other areas, like the Lake Atitlanarea or Sacapulas, under close control by the friars, the agricultural economy developed intomore ‘involuted’ directions, while the Cuchumatanes mountains remained a refuge area where ag-ricultural expansion and subsistence cultivation were still possible.32


The typical mercantile goods (cacao, cotton cloth, indigo) were generally restricted to Spanishtraders, although K‘iche’ traders would gain an important share in the late colonial period.33

Throughout the colonial era, the Indians delivered with relative freedom inexpensive goods likemaize, vegetables and firewood, exempt from sales tax payment (alcabala).34

Trade in maize, however, was much localised. The capital city Santiago de los Caballeros, thegeographic point where maize demand was most concentrated, received all of it from within a ra-dius of 35 km, even when maize became scarce (Fig. 2).35 In areas more remote from the colonialcore area, bad communications constrained trade of maize.

In 1768, Santa Cruz del Quiche obtains a very bad harvest of maize, while on the northernslope of the Cuchumatanes, a few tens of leagues from there, but under the condition ofcrossing the river Chixoy and of traversing a pass of 3,000 meters high, the village of Nebajdrowns in its excess of cereals. The commentary of visiting archbishop Cortes y Larraz isperfectly lucid: ‘Nebaj has a very abundant harvest with no way out, because even if theywould leave it in vain, nobody would accept it, only because of the work of collecting it.’36

For the highland periphery, not trade but migration was a common solution to food shortages.The migrants either went to work on the commercial lowland plantations or grew a second cycleof maize in this region.37

What happened to maize genetic resources during the colonial period? Two dimensions of pos-sible change deserve attention: the disruptive effect of the Conquest on native maize culture andthe effects of the new economic order on maize exchange.

Anthropologist Ronald Nigh states, without giving any evidence, that for Mexico Eurocentricsuppression of native maize culture (favouring wheat) reduced maize diversity from possibly 200e300 races before the Conquest to 42 today, a reduction of 79e86%.38 However, no such suppres-sion seems evident for Guatemala. If any maize diversity was lost, it was mainly the result of thedramatic reduction in population of roughly 90% between 1520 and 1770. The impact of the ep-idemics must have affected agriculture and maize cultivation profoundly. The testimony of a co-lonial official in Soloma on a typhus epidemic in 1806 illustrates this point.

Having returned to their town the Indians who survived are without homes to live in, with-out resources to pay their expenses and tribute, and without corn to feed themselves andtheir families. If no measures are taken to assist these wretched people, they will withoutdoubt starve to death, because they did not plant corn in the places where they sought refugeand so have nothing to live on, both for this year and for the next, since it is now too late toplant their fields.39

The impact of disasters on maize genetic resources depends on the geography of disease and theprevious geographical distribution of the crop’s diversity. The epidemics did not strike all villagesequally. Also, if certain maize landraces were distributed over various villages, their chance of sur-vival was higher. The stirring up of rural society during the consecutive epidemics, the migrationthat followed, and the loss of seed stocks might all have stimulated exchange of seeds betweenpersons from different places. Given the dearth of data on historical maize diversity distributions,an assessment of the impact of the epidemics is difficult.

The other break with the past after the Conquest was the establishment of nucleated Indianvillages. However, it seems that the impact of the congregacion was not only negative. For maize


Fig. 2. Maize trade in colonial western Guatemala. Trade was intensive around the capital, Santiago, but between Nebaj and Santa

Cruz del Quiche, no trade was observed. Sources: see Note 35.


genetic resources, the joining of several lineages might have provided new opportunities for seedexchange and hybridisation.

The low trade volume and poor infrastructure likely constrained seed exchange during the co-lonial period. Probably, there was much continuity with pre-Columbian times. Nevertheless, it islikely that there were differences in the frequency of translocal seed exchange between the tradeoriented Central Valleys and the subsistence oriented highland periphery. Also, as the lowland en-vironments were the focus of migrations from the highlands, much seed exchange and broadergeographic distributions can be expected there.

Independence and the Conservatives (1821e1871)

In 1821 a period of more than two and a half centuries of Pax Hispanica ended. Independencemarked the beginning of a confused period of political conflict between Liberals and Conserva-tives. Initially, the Liberal party emerged victorious from the conflicts and governed Guatemalaafter 1831. The Liberals attempted to boost the economy with foreign investments, but their ex-periments began to founder in the late 1830s, popular uprisings followed, and the Conservatives,led by Rafael Carrera, took over government in 1841. The Conservatives were gentler towards theIndian population than the Liberals. Instead of relying on foreign investments, the Conservativesopted for a much more moderate export policy.

Although the export economy only slowly revived after 1840, for the Indian economy the exemp-tion of taxes and the relaxation of other colonial restrictions might have stimulated production andcommerce.40 Data to support this are scarce, however. Robert Carmack’s studies confirm the inten-sity of Indian commerce for Momostenango in the Conservative period. However, two additionalfacts strongly qualify the implications of these findings for the intensity of trade for the whole high-lands region. Momostenango is part of the K‘iche’ area, where trade tended to be a more frequentoccupation than in other parts of the highlands, already in the colonial period (see above). It mustalso be noticed that for this community ‘most of the tradewas local and did not significantly alter thepeasant condition of the vast majority of Indians. [.] The Indians increasingly turned to weaving,but it largely supplemented rather than replaced subsistence farming’.41

Oliver La Farge has argued that the Conservative period was a golden one for Maya culture,which acquired its typical vestiges documented by the ethnographers of the early twentieth cen-tury.42 As state and church lessened their presence, independent Indian community institutionsdeveloped. Also, in this period an indigenous form of religious syncretism took further shape,blending Spanish Catholicism with pre-Columbian beliefs and forms.

Beginning in the late colonial period, land pressures increased because of a recuperative trendin population numbers. Demographic growth after 1850 caused the ‘reruralisation’ of the mu-nicipio, as families of the colonial nucleated centre established aldeas in a centrifugal movementin search of land.43 Township solidarity, which had evolved with the social atomisation undercolonial rule and was reinforced through the retreat of church control, was an important ingre-dient of conflict. Most of the territorial conflicts occurred between individual towns, while con-flicts within the communities were resolved by the local community authorities.44 DavidMcCreery indicates the possibility that between communities ‘some conflicts over land didhave less to do with economic concerns than with the reinforcement of internal unity and


the routine boundary maintenance that is part of the constitution and reaffirmation of commu-nity identity’.45

For maize cultivation, the Independence period might be thought of as a relatively stable pe-riod. The economic orientation of the highland communities remained inward looking. Societydid not urbanise and specialise but rather ruralised. Population numbers increased, but the re-source base allowed for land reclamation. Even in some of the most land-scarce and commerciallyoriented areas, like Momostenango, trade remained largely local. The strong community identitymight have prevented the introduction of maize from ‘foreign’ communities. With no acute socialor demographic changes, and deepening local atomisation, the Independence period might haverepresented the ‘freezing’ of regional diversity landscapes.

Liberal reforms (1871e1944)

After a period of warfare, the Liberals took over from the Conservatives in 1871. The Liberalreforms were led by coffee planter Justo Rufino Barrios. After 1873, Barrios effectuated a series ofradical reforms that facilitated coffee cultivation. The Reforma was largely a class project. TheLiberals disrupted the traditional values that e despite class and ethnic differences e had ce-mented society during the Conservative period, but did little to convince the masses of thegood the new ideology would bring. More concerned with order and progress than with democ-racy, the coffee elite imposed itself and its economic ideas with force.

In an attempt to modernise the economy, the Liberal government removed the traditional pro-tection of Indian communities and their collective rights to resources, and initiated a large-scaleland titling project. Private property had to become the cornerstone of the economy, freeing landresources for sale. In a similar way, the government tried to free labour. In practice, this meantallowing and supporting forced recruitment and debt servitude. This meant that the labourerwas tied to a particular plantation through debt acquired by advanced payments, which hethen could not pay off over the course of one season. Although the labour arrangement was basedon a free contract, as the Liberals would argue, it bound the labourer to the coffee plantation inindefinite servitude, often for life.

As government officials set up office in the highlands, they blamed the Conservatives for thesorry state of the villages and the destruction of the heritage of colonial government.46 Ladinosin the western highlands became an instrument of control of the indigenous population, as mili-tary, office-holders of departmental and municipal government, and labour contractors.

The highland economy transformed. The marginal trade of the Conservative period was seri-ously curtailed, as labour was forcedly drawn to the coffee plantations.47 Also, pressures onland augmented. By the end of the Liberal period, many communities had insufficient land to sup-port themselves. Plantation labour had become necessary for their survival. Rural Indians becamemore and more integrated in the wider economy. However, with the growth of the coffee economynew kinds of trade emerged. Both the monetary income of the coffee labourers and the emergenceof the coffee growing elite created demand for trade items.

A clear sign of the integration of the highlands into the capitalist export economy was the deep-ening specialisation between highland locales. In a rough characterisation of the regional special-isation pattern, three zones can be distinguished.48 The heavily populated core zone


(Totonicapan) specialised in provisioning the new plantations with goods through trade, gainingrelatively little income from farming. The central zone (Chimaltenango, Quetzaltenango, southernQuiche, and Solola) specialised in basic food production to supply the lowland plantations and tocancel out the internal shortages caused by intra-zone specialisation in vegetable production. Theperiphery (Huehuetenango, northern San Marcos, and northern Quiche) supplied labour throughseasonal migration (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Economic subsystems in the western highlands of Guatemala (schematic map). These differences deepened during the Liberal

period, but originated before. Momostenango, a community with a long trading tradition, is part of the central area. Drawn after: C.A.

Smith, Beyond dependency theory: national and regional patterns of underdevelopment in Guatemala, American Ethnologist 5 (1979)

574e575.


Freedom to engage in long-distance trade was generally restricted to those close to the localsources of authority. In spite of the small number of persons who could engage in long-distancetrade, these traders would have a profound impact on community life. Due to their broader con-nections and outlook, they formed important sources of innovation.49 Trade augmented after1934, when debt servitude was abolished and replaced with a vagrancy law, which facilitated cap-ital accumulation among some coffee labourers.

Beginning in this period, documentation of maize seed dynamics is available. In his study ofMomostenango, Robert Carmack documents a particular maize seed innovation.50 A short dis-cussion of this case informs the interpretation of the historical data on resource dynamics.

In 1920, two traders who had resided in Quiche migrated back to their hometown, Momoste-nango (departamento Totonicapan). They introduced maize seeds and a new planting technique totry out. The new seed could be planted in March, earlier than usual planting which is done at thestart of the rainy season in May (probably the new seed was more tardy). This system of earlyplanting (jumba’ in K‘iche’) results in a higher overall productivity than the conventional system,called rechjab’, which consists in planting with the rains or just before the rains establish.

Jumba’ planting requires more than two times the labour of rechjab’ planting. Thus, the shift tojumba’ planting implied land use intensification, preceded by an increase in land shortages due topopulation growth. Land fertility levels in Momostenango had been declining up to the point thatmilpa intercropping with broad and common beans was no longer possible.51 Seed innovation be-came a way to mitigate land shortages, facilitated by the new cosmopolitan traders who provokedan influx of new ideas and seeds.52 These two circumstances would become even more importantafter 1944.

Revolutionising society (1944e1978)

During the presidency of Jorge Ubico, urban middle class discontent grew, resulting in civicdemonstrations in 1944. The resulting October Revolution initiated an exceptional period of de-mocracy in the nation’s political history. A highlight of the period was the massive agrarian reformlaunched by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Although democracy was soon smothered bya US-led coup (1954), rural perceptions had changed profoundly during this short period.

The revolution heralded times of economic progress for the highlands. Whereas the abolition ofdebt servitude by Ubico in 1934 had stimulated trade, the repeal of Ubico’s vagrancy law by therevolutionary government in 1945 made the trader’s occupation even more accessible. Conse-quently, long-distance trade became more important.

The new long-distance traders were important agents of change. In various places traders in-troduced Accion Catolica, a movement aimed at reviving Catholic orthodoxy, into their commu-nities.53 Orthodoxy was more compatible with their life as travelling traders and their morecosmopolitan outlook.

Jim Handy has argued that although the communities lost much of their traditional structures,there was much community identification during the agrarian reforms.54 Even so, during the rev-olutionary period, political consciousness augmented. Not only local parties were formed after1944, but also labour unions and local committees to assist the massive land reforms beginningin 1952. This would be the base for popular resistance in the coming period.


The CIA-assisted 1954 invasion tragically ended the first democratic experience in Guatemalaand initiated a period of more US interference in the region. Following the developments aroundCuba, Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress promoted a mix of democracy, social welfare policy andmilitary assistance in Latin America during the 1960s. Although the objective of democracy wasfar out of reach, the new policy created a stable climate that attracted foreign investment, andstimulated economic growth and diversification. The development of the Central American Com-mon Market also contributed to wider marketing possibilities of agricultural products.

The new, foreign clergy that came to Guatemala in this period was influenced by the more so-cial ecclesiastic policy of Vatican II and began to set up co-operatives, taking advantage of thenew economic climate. Being able to sell fertilisers at a lower price than the commercial houses,the co-operatives soon gained an important position in the Indian villages, and became vehicles ofsocial change. The introduction of industrial fertilisers during the 1960s was also part of a generaltendency of land use intensification. Natural fertility had dropped during a long period of landshortages, and agricultural innovation responded to this.

Ricardo Falla describes how religious change and economic development in the 1960s broughtalong a multiplicity in social and political domains in the Indian municipio (township) he studied.Different groups within the community began to derive symbolic and economic power from a va-riety of outside organisations, including development organisations and merchandise agencies.Traditional community arrangements shattered and smaller sub-municipio units emerged, each di-rectly articulating a sense of its own needs at regional and national level. Falla calls this process‘aldeizacion’ (aldea is the main sub-municipio unit).55

The state promoted development through the National Development Plan 1971e1975. ThisPlan emphasised agricultural sector development and led to the establishment of the agriculturaldevelopment bank BANDESA, the agricultural commercialisation institute INDECA, and theagricultural research institute ICTA. One of the effects of the new policy was that it reducedthe ‘margin of autonomy’ of the co-operatives, as the state encapsulated the co-operatives ina patroneclient network. The co-operatives were neither participatory towards their membersnor participating in governance.56

The opening of the communities favoured some community members more than others. Mer-chants, moneylenders, government officials, co-operative presidents, they all earned more than thepeasants from the new economy. Class divisions became pronounced, especially after the eco-nomic crisis of the 1970s.

By the mid-1970s the community was found divided among three groups: the costumbristas,the commercial sector now clearly delineated as the Indian bourgeoisie, and the radicalizedIndian campesinos, who no longer recognized either of the two groups as their naturalleaders. [.] The radicalized Indian campesinos leaned to the left, seeking convergencewith poor ladinos, organizing a mass movement that was situated outside the prevailinglimits of legality.57

This radicalised movement had part of its roots in Accion Catolica. When political channels forthe claims of the radical groups closed definitively, and state terror increased, many Indians joinedthe rebel forces.

Agricultural change in this period had effects on maize cultivation and diversity. Falla docu-ments the case of fertiliser introduction in San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiche.58 Previously


unproductive land could become productive with the use of fertilisers. The augmented acreage ofmaize, in turn, led to temporary labour shortages. As a result, labour-intensive jumba’ agriculturewas largely replaced by rechjab’ agriculture. The intensification process that had occurred earlier(see previous section on the introduction of jumba’ in Momostenango) was now partially reversed.

In Santiago Chimaltenango, a Mam speaking town, a similar process occurred.59 Here, dry sea-son plantings functioned not so much as a labour-intensive technology, but more as a hungerbreaker crop. Labour expenditures were lower for dry season than for wet season plantings.Like in the previous cases, different seeds were used for dry season and rainy season plantings.A seed called ‘aqal was suited for early planting, while aq wa’ seed was planted when the rainshad started.60 Fertilisers, when introduced, were mainly applied to aq wa’ maize, augmentingits acreage by decreasing fallow. Dry season ‘aqal plantings still underwent long fallowing periodsand decreased in relative importance.

The introduction of fertiliser itself also changed technological needs. Increased fertilisationmade that the tall, top heavy plants leaned over and fell (lodging), especially when strong windsblew. This motivated a change towards the use of seeds that produced more stable, lower plants.Beginning in the 1970s, the maize breeders of the new research institute, ICTA, were aware of theproblem and selected for low plant stature. However, the promotion and adoption of modern va-rieties, a slow process, was sparse. In a few occasions the institute taught maize seed selectionmethods to groups of farmers. Two successful cases of farmer mass selection for earliness andlow plant stature beginning in the pre-war years have been documented for western Guatemala.61

The so-called process of aldeizacion might also have had consequences for the distribution ofcrop diversity and agricultural knowledge. As communities became increasingly fragmented lo-cally, but more outward looking regionally, crop diversity distributions might become more dis-parate over short distances, yet intraregional differences might have lessened. Also localknowledge can be expected to become socially fragmented. Communities might have becomeless likely to know what the next community cultivated, while being very knowledgeable onwhat was available at the regional market.

Political violence (1979e1984)

While the highlands were previously considered as an area where Marxist revolution was un-likely, in the late 1970s the situation had changed. Given the geopolitical climate and historicalfears for Indian revolt in Guatemala, an explosive situation had developed. In 1979e1980 thearmy began a bloody counterinsurgency campaign. Initially, the army used inefficient, indiscrim-inate tactics. Young officers led a coup in 1982 to replace the inefficient and corrupt command,and formed a military corporatist state. The new command organised the most organised andbloodiest massacre campaign in the history of the country, using a scorched earth policy. Anarmy policy document from the period, Firmeza 83-1, explicitly ordains the destruction of liveli-hoods as a counterinsurgency strategy:

Their sowings must be destroyed to cut them off from their sources of supply and to obligethem to surrender due to hunger or to reveal themselves for their movements through theareas they visit and thus be able to fight them, with the objective of disorganising them.62


The number of persons killed during the armed conflict between 1978 and 1996 was roughlyestimated as 132,000, excluding ‘disappeared’ persons, and the numerous victims before this pe-riod.63 Many people fled from their homes. It has been suggested that in the most affected depar-tamentos some 80% of the population or 1.3 million persons left their home communities at leasttemporarily.64 Counterinsurgency policy had also an enduring impact on community social orga-nisation forming armed civilian self-defence patrols under close military control. These were oftenstill functioning in the 1990s and maintain some of their cohesion even today (2005), demandingcompensation from the national government.

Unfortunately, an assessment of the impact of the ‘undeclared’ civil war on crop resources inGuatemala must remain speculative. There exists a world-wide dearth of data on the impact ofarmed conflict on crop genetic resources.65 Also for Guatemala documentation is scarce. Theavailable data come from a small number of foreign social scientists. For communities in Coban,northern Guatemala, Wilson reports the loss of crop seeds during the armed conflict.66 However,the loss of maize seeds was not obvious, while vegetable seeds did appear to be lost. Maize was thefirst crop to be recovered. Steinberg and Taylor conducted a preliminary study in Huehuetenango,in the western highlands, comparing the lists of maize names recorded in 1937 by RaymondStadelman with farmers’ knowledge in 2001.67 The study concludes that a considerable loss ofknowledge of maize varieties seems to have taken place. The article supposes that this is a resultof biodiversity loss caused by the armed conflict. This is questionable, as in the intermediate yearsnot only political violence took place, but also the transformation of the traditional Indian com-munity. Especially the process of aldeizacion might have fragmented socially distributed cogni-tion. This fragmentation is perhaps what was in fact recorded, while the crop types persist.There is a need for more fine-tuned studies to sort out the effect of this historical transformationon maize diversity.

Democratic capitalism (1985 to present)

The army had developed a clearly nationalist identity after the 1982 coup. As such, the militarydistrusted the oligarchy, and saw the army as the only institution disciplined enough to managethe country. The army broadened its goals and included economic development and equality in itsvision for the nation. Consequently, the state became fully militarised.

The military victory of the army had become evident already in 1982. However, the armylacked clear criteria to put an end to the conflict. With the economy spiralling down, the militarybecame obliged to seek some kind of accommodation with the business elite. The clashes betweenmilitary and business elites were slowly resolved by adhering to democratic playing rules. RachelMcCleary points out that the Guatemalan case of democratisation contrasts with that of otherLatin American countries, as democracy in Guatemala was ‘imposed’ from above by elite fac-tions, not forced from below through leftist violence. In 1996, the government and the revolution-ary forces signed peace.68

An important transformation of the business elite during the first half of the 1980s precededthis accommodation. USAID’s policy to encourage agroexports since the late 1970s, the exportopenings to the US provided by the Caribbean Basin Initiative since 1984, and the trend towardsoutsourcing of western companies, had resulted in a new generation of business leaders. This


group of modern reformers was of crucial importance for the transition to a consolidated democ-racy after 1985. After the signing of peace in 1996, this new business elite continued to play animportant role in national politics, especially under the presidents Arzu (1996e2000) and Berger(2004 to present). It now seems that the corrupt, military-minded Portillo government (2000e2004) was only a temporary interruption of this trend.

The new ‘democratic capitalism’ imprints itself on the Guatemalan highland landscape ina very visible way. Many highland communities specialise in vegetable production for the NorthAmerican market. Small-scale farmers sell broccoli, vetch beans, and other ‘non-traditional’ freshproducts through co-operatives, intermediaries and contracts with exporting companies. The im-pact of non-traditional production has not been equal among communities. Some communitiesengage in the production and sale of the vegetables while other communities play a more passiverole, supplying labour and land. Also within communities, differences became more pronounced,especially as some began to sell lands and begin to rely more on off-farm work. This shift to off-farm sources of income was facilitated by a parallel change that has taken place in the rural mar-ket for labour. Textile assemblage (maquila) industries that produce for the world market financedwith foreign capital take advantage of the rural labour market. This has forged new social rela-tionships, as workers from various places meet each other in the factories, and migration betweencommunities occurs.69

The new export crops introduced over the last few decades incisively changed land and labouravailability for traditional crops. However, the new crops have only partly replaced milpa culti-vation. Many hold on to the milpa for food security, as in the past. One study has pointed out thatdedicating land to milpa cultivation serves as a labour saving strategy.70 As the new vegetables aremore labour-intensive than maize, planting milpa helps to diversify into off-farm occupations, likework in the maquila factories. The milpa is very apt for this situation, as maize is a flexible, rel-atively undemanding crop with a great capacity to absorb marginal resources. On the other hand,maize is now heavier fertilised to harvest more per unit of land. Varieties of short duration andlow stature are being adopted to allow sequential cropping and to prevent excessive plant heightand lodging (the bending and falling over of plants) that result from the heavy fertilisation regime.Full blown genetic erosion of the original maize varieties in Santiago Sacatepequez, one of themost economically progressive Indian highland communities, is prevented by the use of an oldervariety for corn-on-the-cob, for which the introduced varieties seem less suited.71 The new econ-omy obviously signifies a major change for local crop diversity e and this might translate in mas-sive genetic erosion if no measures are taken.

Discussion

Historically, the horizons of Guatemala’s highland society have been narrow; most daily socialinteractions were local in scope. However, a small portion of the activities involved trading be-tween communities. Also, several catastrophic events caused sudden massive migrations. Regionalinteraction is concentrated in these periods, and in the peaceful periods confined to a few personsor occasions. Seed dynamics might have followed this pattern; they might be mostly concentratedin eventful periods. Seed changes are not only formed by slow changes due to selection and localseed exchange, but also by the sudden discovery of good seed in another location, and seed


replacement due to sudden losses. Based on these observations, it might be argued that the rele-vance of event-based history for maize genetic distributions deserves further testing.

The historical perspective worked out in this article might also be read as a challenge to think-ing according to the modern-versus-native mould, in which crop diversity decreases linearly asmodernity advances. Change in local crop biodiversity is not only the result of the suppressionof Maya culture, as some argue. Seed innovations serve as endogenous strategies to cope withchange and intensify or disintensify land use according to the circumstances. Seed introductionsmay occur as spontaneous acts of innovation, as exemplified in the case of the 1920 seed introduc-tion to Momostenango. In this case, the freedom to trade was crucial to introduce seeds from else-where. Also in the mentioned cases of maize mass selection, the genuine local interest in cropimprovement becomes clear.

In spite of the contingent nature of evolutionary change in a non-equilibrium model, it wasshown that seed innovations take place in broader socio-economic context that might determinethe limits of social relationships across space. Trade, a visible and important expression of suchties between communities, was generally embedded in a political economy that was narrow inits geographical scope. This implies that most maize diversity units are to be found in a boundedarea of the highlands.

The regional trade hypothesis needs to be juxtaposed with the common association of the millen-nial milpa complex with ‘closed’ communities.Maize was not exclusively a subsistence crop that de-fied taxing or surplus extraction or slotted in a closed community defence strategy, as has beensuggested.72 In the colonial period and beyond,maize was traded relatively freely by Indian commu-nities and sold in the capital. When the historical opportunities were provided, such trade and asso-ciated seed innovations developed evenmore, during theLiberal period, and again during the exportopenings in the 1980s and 1990s. This suggests that instead of looking at communities in isolation,broader patterns within the western highlands should be the focus of the analysis.

Several comparisons can be suggested to further test the hypothesis of the role of regional tradeand tribute relationships in seed exchange. Within Guatemala, it is obvious that the peripheralCuchumatanes mountains are not only rich in biodiversity for its broken landscape (stimulatinggenetic diversification by spatial isolation), but also because it was a refuge zone for many ethnicgroups and because trade was less intensive in the area than in the more central parts of the west-ern highlands. Thus, it might be expected that the broad highland basins are not only to be rel-atively less wealthy in crop biodiversity, but also contain diversity units that have a less patchydistribution within the area due to more intensive exchange. Another spatial hypothesis mightbe that seed exchange along altitudinal transects has been intensive due to temporary migrationfrom the highlands to the piedmont and lowlands during many periods in history. This might havecaused seed exchange between depressions in the highland area and larger low areas. Quantitativespatial analysis on fresh genetic data is planned to more rigorously test several of the hypothesesdeveloped in this article.

Future perspectives

What role will maize biological diversity play in the new socio-economic and political regime ofthe Guatemalan highlands? If current economic trends continue, maize diversity is likely to


decline gradually over the next decades. An important human heritage would wash away. Whatmanagement interventions would help to remedy these trends? The antimodern perspective givesa grim picture of the options. If biological diversity is exclusively dependent on tradition, con-sumption patterns influenced by syncretic Maya-Catholic religion, premodern productionmethods, and closed communities, then genetic erosion is unavoidable as modernity advances.Only the maintenance of the ancient patterns based on motivations that are not directly economic,like ethnic pride, would provide a brake on the loss of crop biodiversity.

The pan-Maya movement, a Guatemalan cultural revival movement which has gained muchstrength during the 1990s, would be an obvious platform for such efforts. The movement’s exis-tence relies on the recent climate shaped by democracy and the new capitalism in Guatemala. Thepan-Maya movement consists mostly of sophisticated, urban Maya professionals, not wholly rep-resentative of the rural, poor Maya majority.73

The struggle for Maya cultural conservation will have few consequences for the crops and ag-ricultural methods of poor households. Traditionalism in itself is no default guarantee of the con-servation of traditional technology. Industrial fertilisers (which were introduced in the highlandsby religious innovators in the 1960s, as described above) were initially received with suspicion bythe traditionalists. However, within a few years, when the heyday of the predominantly ideolog-ical discussions was over, traditionalists slowly began to adopt the fertilisers as well.74 It is un-likely that Maya cultural revival activists can persuade poor Indian families to bear the costsof conserving maize varieties they would otherwise discard.

Following the interpretation presented above, the breaking down of the colonial corporateboundaries around local communities should not be interpreted exclusively as negative, becausetheir protective functions are now largely outstripped by the restrictions they imply given thenew economic opportunities. The biogeography of Guatemalan highland maize further suggeststhat the presently increasing interlocal exchange of maize variety seeds will not provoke thefade-out of crop biodiversity. Given the history of episodic exchange, most diversity is foundon the regional level (not on the local level) and exchange might in fact increase local diversity.The main challenge is to preserve maize culture as such against alternative land use opportunities.

Socio-economic changes in the area not only represent threats, but also opportunities. Historyteaches that integration into the national economy does not necessarily lead to the deteriorationof local resources. The departamento of Totonicapan, during centuries the commercial heart of thehighland region, has conserved some of the densest forest covers in the country. The reliance ofthe local economy on timber has historically stimulated the creation of local resource conserva-tion institutions.75 This fact suggests that it is more sustainable to foster conservation throughthe continued use of resources in a new economic context than the freezing of the use contextper se. Maize conservation in a modernised highland Indian community like Santiago Sacatepe-quez relies wholly on continued use of maize as a specialty product, as discussed above.

Use-based opportunities to conserve maize biodiversity should be amplified. The very advanceof ‘modernity’ should be exploited for this end. Regional or new products based on native maizebiodiversity could be inserted in commercial contexts. These could be transformed into less perish-able forms or convenience goods. Especially the rapidly growing acquisitive power of Guatemalanemigrant workers living in the US provides new channels for culturally specific products.

Since most rural highland households practice maize cultivation and processing, this form ofeconomic development builds to a large extent on locally available technological skills. Therefore,


it can be expected to be more equal in impact across communities, if compared with non-tradi-tional production. Innovation around plant genetic resources, processing and marketing is neededto make these changes possible. The documented seed innovations show that there is local interestto connect to.

Such a transformation of maize culture would be reminiscent of other elements in Maya culturethat reach beyond the borders of the local community. According to a broad Mesoamericanmythological tradition, maize seed was originally obtained from a place in the mountains, oftencalled Paxil.76 Traditions from various communities converge on this extracommunal origin ofmaize. In the future, these myths might gain new meaning.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Wageningen University and Research Centre throughthe Wageningen branch of the CERES Research School for Resource Studies for Human Devel-opment and through the C.T. de Wit Graduate School for Production Ecology and ResourceConservation. The maps were made with geo-data from the GIS Laboratory of the GuatemalanMinistry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA), and FLACSO-Guatemala. The authorthanks Paul Richards, Harro Maat, Jorge Lujan Munoz, the local history group at AVANSCO,and the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.

Notes

1. Y. Matsuoka, Y. Vigouroux, M.M. Goodman, J. Sanchez G., E. Buckler and J. Doebley, A single domestication

for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of theUnited States of America 99 (2002) 6080e6084. For a review of alternative perspectives, see G. Wilkes, Corn,strange and marvelous: but is a definitive origin known? in: C.W. Smith (Ed.), Corn: Origin, History, Technology,and Production, Hoboken, 2004, 3e63.

2. C.L. Johannessen, Domestication process of maize continues in Guatemala, Economic Botany 36 (1982) 84e99;C.L. Johannessen, M.R. Wilson and W.A. Davenport, The domestication of maize: process or event? GeographicalReview 60 (1970) 393e413; R. Stadelman, Maize cultivation in northwestern Guatemala, Carnegie Institution of

Washington Publications 523 (1940) 83e263.3. Clear traces of this view in M.K. Steinberg and M. Taylor, The impact of political turmoil on maize culture and

diversity in highland Guatemala, Mountain Research and Development 22 (2002) 344e351.

4. E.A. Smith and M. Wishnie, Conservation and subsistence in small-scale societies, Annual Review of Anthropology29 (2000) 493e524.

5. D. Louette, Traditional management of seed and genetic diversity: what is a landrace?, in: S.B. Brush (Ed.), Genes in

the Field. On-farm Conservation of Crop Diversity, Rome and Ottowa, 1999, 109e142.6. H.R. Perales, B.F. Benz and S.B. Brush, Maize diversity and ethnolinguistic diversity in Chiapas, Mexico, Proceed-

ings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (2005) 949e954; G. Pressoir andJ. Berthaud, Population structure and strong divergent selection shape phenotypic diversification in maize land-

races, Heredity 92 (2004) 95e101.7. W.D. Hanson, Intergradation among Latin American maize based on an analysis of chromosome knob frequencies,

Theoretical and Applied Genetics 68 (1984) 347e354.

8. K.S. Zimmerer, Agricultural biodiversity and peasant rights to subsistence in the central Andes during Inca rule,Journal of Historical Geography 19 (1993) 15e32, quotation from p. 15.

9. Most evidence for this point comes from maize depictions in the indigenous literature and from ceramic objects

containing decorative impressions from real maize ears. E. Anderson and J.J. Finan, Maize in the Yanhuitlan


Codex, Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 32 (1945) 361e368; M.E. Dunn, Ceramic evidence for the prehis-

toric distribution of maize in Mexico, American Antiquity 40 (1975) 305e314; M.E. Dunn, Ceramic depictions ofmaize: a basis for classification of prehistoric races, American Antiquity 44 (1979) 757e774. For a critique of thevisual method, see B.F. Benz, Reconstructing the racial phylogeny of Mexican maize: where do we stand?, in: S.

Johannessen and C.A. Hastorf (Eds), Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric World, Boulder, Colorado, 1994.10. For creative speculation by Sauer, see P. Haggett, Sauer’s ‘Origins and dispersals’: its implications for the geogra-

phy of disease, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 17 (1992) 387e398. For an assessment of hisdeductions on agricultural origins, see the contributions in K. Mathewson and M.S. Kenzer, Culture, Land and Leg-

acy. Perspectives on Carl O. Sauer and the Berkeley School of Geography, Baton Rouge, 2003.11. Another set of factors is formed by biophysical processes (volcano eruptions, hurricanes, climate change).12. Zimmerer has pointed out that labour shortages led to seed change in Peru. K.S. Zimmerer, Labor shortages and

crop diversity in the southern Peruvian Sierra, Geographical Review 81 (1991) 414e432. The link between techno-logical change and land and labour availability is analyzed in a large body of literature. D. Thorner, B. Kerblay andR.E.F. Smith (Eds), A.V. Chayanov and the Theory of Peasant Economy, Madison, 1986; E. Boserup, The Condi-

tions of Agricultural Growth, Chicago, 1965; Y. Hayami and V.W. Ruttan, Agricultural Development. An Interna-tional Perspective, Baltimore, 1985 (Second edition); B.L. Turner, II and S.B. Brush, Comparative Farming Systems,New York, 1987; J.I. Guyer and E.F. Lambin, Land use in an urban hinterland: ethnography and remote sensing inthe study of African intensification, American Anthropologist 95 (1993) 839e859; B.L. Turner II and A.M. Shajaat

Ali, Induced intensification: agricultural change in Bangladesh with implications for Malthus and Boserup, Pro-ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 93 (1996) 14984e14991.

13. P. Richards and G. Ruivenkamp, Seeds and Survival. Crop Genetic Resources in War and Reconstruction in Africa,

Rome, 1997; L. Sperling, The effect of civil war on Rwanda’s bean seed systems and unusual bean diversity, Bio-diversity and Conservation 10 (2001) 989e1009.

14. L.B. Badstue, M.R. Bellon, X. Juarez, I. Manuel and A.M. Solano, Social Relations and Seed Transactions among

Smallscale Maize Farmers in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, Mexico, 2002.15. J.W. Fox, Maya Postclassic State Formation. Segmentary Lineage Migration in Advancing Frontiers, Cambridge,

1987. The following sections draws extensively on Fox’ book; see also J.W. Fox and G.W. Cook, Constructing

Maya communities: ethnography for archaeology, Current Anthropology 37 (1996) 811e830. For segmentary line-age systems, see the work of Marshall D. Sahlins and Aidan Southall. M.D. Sahlins, The segmentary lineage: anorganization of predatory expansion, American Anthropologist 63 (1961) 322e345; A. Southall, The segmentarystate in Africa and Asia, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988) 52e82. For a more reserved evalu-

ation of the segmentary lineage view, see M. Popenoe de Hatch and M. Ivic de Monterroso, El Altiplano Nortedurante el Perıodo Postclasico, in: J. Lujan Munoz and M. Popenoe de Hatch (Eds), Historia general de Guatemala,Tomo I, Epoca precolombina, Guatemala, 1999, 241e264.

16. L.H. Feldman, A tumpline economy: production and distribution systems of early central-east Guatemala, PhD dis-sertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1971.

17. Sahlins, The segmentary lineage, quotation from p. 342.

18. A.C. van Oss, El regimen autosuficiente de Espana en Centro America, Mesoamerica 3 (1982) 67e89; Feldman, Atumpline economy.

19. E. Zamora Acosta, Los mayas de las tierras altas en el siglo XVI. Tradicion y cambio en Guatemala, Sevilla, 1985;J. Piel, Sajcabaja. Muerte y resurreccion de un pueblo de Guatemala, 1500e1970, Guatemala and Mexico, 1989.

20. A.C. van Oss, Catholic Colonialism. A Parish History of Guatemala, 1524e1821, Cambridge, 1986.21. P. Seed, ‘Are these not also men?’: the Indian’s humanity and capacity for Spanish civilisation, Journal of Latin

American Studies 25 (1993) 629e652.

22. C.H. Lutz, Historia sociodemografica de Santiago de Guatemala, 1541e1773, Antigua, Guatemala and SouthWoodstock, Vermont, 1984.

23. D. McCreery, Rural Guatemala, 1769e1940, Stanford, 1994.

24. W.G. Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala. A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatan Highlands1500e1821, Kingston and Montreal, 1985.

25. W.G. Lovell and C.H. Lutz, Conquest and population. Maya demography in historical perspective, Latin American

Research Review 29 (1994) 133e140.


26. T.M. Whitmore and B.L. Turner II, Landscapes of cultivation in Mesoamerica on the eve of the conquest, Annals

of the Association of American Geographers 82 (1992) 402e425.27. W.G. Lovell, Mayans, missionaries, evidence and truth: the polemics of native resettlement in sixteenth-century

Guatemala, Journal of Historical Geography 16 (1990) 277e294.

28. W.G. Lovell and W.R. Swezey, Indian migration and community formation: an analysis of congregacion in colonialGuatemala, in: D.J. Robinson (Ed.), Migration in Colonial Spanish America, Cambridge, 1990, 18e40.

29. C.A. Smith (Ed.), Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540e1988, Austin, 1990. Not all communities were endoga-mous during the period. For a number of trade oriented K‘iche’ communities around Quetzaltenango, high rates of

exogamy (20e62%) were recorded. G. Grandin, To end with all these evils. Ethnic transformation and communitymobilization in Guatemala’s western highlands, 1954e1980, Latin American Perspectives 24 (1997) 7e34.

30. C.H. Lutz and W.G. Lovell, Core and periphery in colonial Guatemala, in: Smith (Ed.), Guatemalan Indians and the

State, 35e51.31. Zamora Acosta, Los mayas de las tierras altas en el siglo XVI.32. T.T. Veblen, Forest preservation in the western highlands of Guatemala, Geographical Review 68 (1978) 417e434;

K. Mathewson, Irrigation Horticulture in Highland Guatemala: The Tablon System of Panajachel, Boulder, Colo-rado, 1984; Lutz, Historia sociodemografica de Santiago de Guatemala.

33. Lutz and Lovell, Core and periphery in colonial Guatemala.34. V. Solorzano Fernandez, Evolucion economica de Guatemala, Fourth Edition, Guatemala, 1997.

35. van Oss, El regimen autosuficiente de Espana en Centro America; J. Lujan Munoz, Agricultura, mercado y sociedaden el Corregimiento del Valle de Guatemala, 1670e1680, Guatemala, 1988. Lujan presents the replacement by wheatas a hypothetical cause for maize scarcity. This intuition is confirmed by the colonial chronicler Fuentes y Guzman

in his description of Comalapa. F.A. de Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Guatemala, 1933, 377.36. Piel, Sajcabaja, 220.37. F.W. McBryde, Cultural and Historical Geography of Southwest Guatemala, Washington, 1947.

38. Nigh gives no empirical evidence for this reduction in maize diversity. R. Nigh, In situ Conservation and Protectionof Native Mayan Crop in Chiapas, Mexico: A Common Property Resource Approach, San Cristobal de las Casas. Ms.

39. Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala, 169.

40. C.A. Smith, Local history in global context: social and economic transitions in western Guatemala, ComparativeStudies in Society and History 26 (1984) 193e228; C.A. Smith, Origins of the national question in Guatemala: a hy-pothesis, in: Smith (Ed.), Guatemalan Indians and the State, 72e95. Carol Smith has defended the thesis that duringthe Conservative period local community resistance inhibited the coffee boom. She proposes that during the period

evolving trade caused stratification and broke down village egalitarianism, weakening community defenses againstlabour exploitation, and giving way to the Liberal reforms in the 1870s. However, Smith’s trade thesis seems to bean artefact of her wish to emphasise the importance of the ‘local’, in defence of a locally grounded historiography.

41. R.M. Carmack, Rebels of Highland Guatemala. The Quiche-Mayas of Momostenango, Norman and London, 1995,quotation from p. 161.

42. O. La Farge, Maya ethnology: the sequence of cultures, in: C.L. Hay et al. (Eds), The Maya and their Neighbors,

New York, 1940, 281e291.43. Piel, Sajcabaja.44. S.H. Davis, La tierra de nuestros antepasados. Estudio de la herencia y la tenencia de la tierra en el altiplano de Gua-

temala, Antigua, Guatemala and South Woodstock, Vermont, 1997.

45. McCreery, Rural Guatemala, 150.46. J.M. Watanabe, Culturing identities, the state, and national consciousness in late nineteenth-century Guatemala,

Bulletin of Latin American Research 19 (2000) 321e340.

47. J. Swetnam, What else did Indians have to do with their time? Alternatives to labor migration in prerevolutionaryGuatemala, Economic Development and Cultural Change 38 (1989) 89e112.

48. C.A. Smith, Beyond dependency theory: national and regional patterns of underdevelopment in Guatemala, Amer-

ican Ethnologist 5 (1979) 574e617.49. R.M. Carmack, Historia social de los quiches, Guatemala, 1979; R. Falla, Quiche rebelde. Estudio de un movimiento

de conversion religiosa, rebelde a las creencias tradicionales, en San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiche (1948e1970), Gua-

temala, 1978.


50. Carmack, Rebels of highland Guatemala.

51. R. Falla, Hacia la revolucion verde: adopcion y dependencia del fertilizante quımico en un municipio del Quiche,Guatemala, Estudios Sociales 6 (1972) 16e51.

52. Also in 1920, a new type of seed was introduced into San Pedro La Laguna. This synchrony supports the idea that

broader societal changes influenced in local seed innovation. J. Butler and D.E. Arnold, La clasificacion tzutujil delmaız en San Pedro La Laguna, in: H.L. Neuenswander and D.E. Arnold (Eds), Estudios cognitivos del sur de Mes-oamerica, Dallas, 1977.

53. Falla, Quiche rebelde.

54. J. Handy, National policy, agrarian reform, and the corporate community during the Guatemalan revolution,1944e1954, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988) 698e724.

55. Falla, Quiche rebelde.

56. M.A. Reyes Illescas, Patrimonialismo y participacion. Del control del estado a la lucha de los pueblos, Guatemala1970e1998, Guatemala, 1998.

57. A. Arias, Changing Indian identity: Guatemala’s violent transition to modernity, in: Smith (Ed.), Guatemalan

Indians and the State, 230e257, quotation from p. 251.58. Falla, Hacia la revolucion verde.59. J.M. Watanabe, Cambios economicos en Santiago Chimaltenango, Guatemala, Mesoamerica 2 (1981) 20e41.60. Stadelman, Maize cultivation in northwestern Guatemala.

61. R. Ponciano, Seleccion masal estratificada, un metodo sencillo para mejorar los maıces del Altiplano, Guatemala,1982; M.R. Fuentes, Desarrollo de germoplasma de maız para el Altiplano de Guatemala, Agronomıa Mesoamer-icana 8 (1997) 8e19; J. van Etten, The selecting landscape. Farmer management of maize genetic resources in a Mayan

highland community in Guatemala, unpublished MSc thesis, Wageningen University, 2001; D. Lotter, 26 Years later:how has farming changed for one Mayan family? The New Farm (2003). URL: www.newfarm.org/international/guatemala.

62. Cited in Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico, Guatemala. Memoria del silencio. Tz‘inil na‘tab’al, Guatemala,1999, Tomo II, 220 (author’s translation).

63. Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico, Guatemala, Tomo XII, Anexo III.5.

64. Asociacion para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala, Polıtica institucional hacia el desplazado internoen Guatemala, Guatemala, 1990.

65. Sperling, The effect of civil war.66. R. Wilson, Maya Resurgence in Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ Experiences, Norman and London, 1995.

67. Steinberg and Taylor, The impact of political turmoil on maize culture.68. This and the following section draws on: R. McCleary, Imponiendo la democracia: las elites guatemaltecas y el fin del

conflicto armado, Guatemala, 1999.

69. L.R. Goldin, Procesos globales en el campo de Guatemala. Opciones economicas y transformaciones ideologicas, Gua-temala, 2003.

70. J. von Braun, D. Hotchkiss and M.D.C. Immink, Nontraditional Export Crops in Guatemala: Effects on Production,

Income, and Nutrition, Washington, 1989.71. Author’s interviews with farmers in Santiago Sacatepequez, 2002.72. S. Annis, God and Production in a Guatemalan Town, Austin, 1987.73. E.F. Fischer, Cultural Logics and Global Economies. Maya Identity in Thought and Practice, Austin, 2001.

74. Falla, Hacia la revolucion verde.75. Veblen, Forest preservation.76. C. Navarrete, Relatos mayas de tierras altas sobre el origen del maız: los caminos de Paxil, Guatemala, 2000.

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Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversity landscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

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