Indigenous Apiculture among the Popoluca of Veracruz

Abstract

AMERICAN ANTHROPOWGIST [N. s., 44, 1942 INDIGENOUS APICULTURE AMONG THE POPOLUCA OF VERACRUZ In an article published in 1929 the late Baron Erland Nordenskiold called attention to the general lack of knowledge of practices and beliefs pertaining to indigenous api­ culture in the New World, and summarized his data up to that time.! Twelve groups scattered from the Chaco to Jalisco are listed as practising, or having practised-for some of the references are from the 16th century-some type of indigenous bee culture. Apparently eight of them can be said truly to have domesticated the bee. Data pub­ lished since 1929 suggest that the status of indigenous bee-keeping among the New World Indians often verges on true domestication, but that the final step, the propaga­ tion of new colonies, is but rarely taken. The present paper describes apiculture among the Pop luca of Veracruz, where this is the case. Drawing upon Nordenskiold's data as well as that of later authors, the possible steps by which the New World bee may have been domesticated are discussed. I In the spring of 1940 when passing through the territory of the Popoluca of southern Veracruz I observed a number of hollow log colmenas suspended beneath the eaves of houses, and in another publication I briefly noted the custom of removing sections of trees occupied by the stingless bee from the forest to the home of the finder. 2 In the spring of 1941 I spent a longer period among the Popoluca, principally in the town of Soteapan, and found this practise to be quite common, though in terms of quantity of honey produced probably secondary in importance to the- keeping of the European bee. Though no record was kept of the villages in which colmenas were seen, I believe the practise is universal in the twenty or twenty-five villages and rancherias inhabited by the 10,000 Popoluca who live on the southern and eastern slopes of the Tuxtla mountains, and who comprise the Sierra group of Popoluca. In the towns of Texiste­ pee, Oluta and Sayula, where three distinct Popoluca idioms are spokerr, I did not see colmenas, and failed to ask specifically about them. Since there is relatively little wooded country surrounding these pueblos, there is little opportunity to discover bee trees, and, if known at all, the custom of keeping the indigenous bee must be very rare. I believe the practise is known, however, to the Aztec-speaking inhabitants of the towns of Mecayapan and Tatahuicapan, which are located in the mountains adjacent to the Sierra Popoluca territory. Among the Sierra Popoluca when a man discovers a tree inhabited by the native bee, the abeja real, he removes the hollow section, sprinkles water on the cut ends to ~nsure good production on the part of the bees, and takes the colmena to his home, where­ it is hung beneath the eaves of the house, or in any other shady spot, perhaps under the roof of a hog or chicken shelter. Here the honey is removed from one or both ends, and the holes, as large as the hollow itself, are sealed with clay in which grass has been mixed. March, April or May (the dry season) is best for subsequent openings of the colmena. Honey at other times of the year is said to be soft and watery. Before opening a hive, the owner observes continence for seven nights (seven is the mystic number of ! Erland Nordenskiold, L'Apiculture Indienne, (Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de Paris, Vol. 29 1929) pp. 169-182. 2 George M. Foster, Jr., Notes on tM Popoluca of Veracruz (Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Panamer­ icano de Geografla e Historia, Pub. Num. 51, 1940).