Abstract

SANTOS-FITA, Dídac et al. The Milpa Trough-trap as a Maya Traditional Hunting Strategy. Estud. cult. maya [online]. 2013, vol.42, pp.87-118. ISSN 0185-2574.

The Maya conceive hunting as an integrated activity within their productive system. In this study, we draw attention to the use of slash-and-burn agriculture to capture wild fauna. The milpa comedero-trampa (the "milpa trough-trap"), as we have named it, is described and delimited as a habitat management practice in which cultivating is only done to enable hunting, and not to obtain cultivated products. The technical components and social organization involved in this variant or subsystem of the milpa are characterized, including its reduced size (1-3 mecates), the absence of burning or its restriction, the secondary role of Zea mays, or their individual nature. In a milpa comedero-trampa agriculture and hunting form a technological link to obtain prey in a specialized space (different from the conventional ix kool or milpa convencional, as it is referred to here).

Keywords : hunting; milpa; habitat Management; Mayan culture; Yucatan Peninsula.

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