Lacandon People - Economy

Economy

The historic Lacandón were neither strictly hunter-gatherers nor swidden agriculturalists, but rather, they were both as they saw fit. Likewise, they were at one time either mobile or sedentary. The Lacandón would make clearings in the forest to raise crops and some livestock, but they would also hunt and fish, and gather roots and plants in the jungle. As such, they had no need for a structured economy, as they relied on their own homesteads as their source of sustenance. The more contact that the Lacandón had with other people, the more their economy morphed.

The historic Lacandón would at times trade with outsiders, but there is little to no documentation regarding this contact. What trade was documented showed that it was the most contact the Lacandón had with the outside world at the time. They traded animals, honey, bee’s wax, tobacco, cotton, and cacao for much-needed metal tools. As time progressed into the 19th and 20h centuries, the goods the Lacandón were given during trade became more advanced, such as firearms, kerosene, coffee, sugar, and clothing among other things. There is evidence that showed that some Lacandón kept regular trade with ranches in Chiapas, and through contact learned languages such as Spanish, Ch'ol, and Tzeltal Maya. This allowed the Lacandón to more easily understand Tzeltal Maya culture and Christianity.

To the Lacandón, trade with foreigners was the most vital, and once only way for them to come into contact with the outside world, and for them to obtain things that they themselves cannot produce. Throughout time one can see the advancement of technology reaching the Lacandón. The increased trade in the 19th century also influenced change in the Lacandón subsistence. They started raising chickens, cultivating oranges, plantains, sugar cane, and instead of hunting with bows and arrows, were hunting with rifles.

Some Lacandón would gain employment from Ladinos in logging camps, and others would receive payment from logging camps for rights to log in their jungle. By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the twentieth, tourists would come to the Lacandón villages and purchase material items like gourd bowls, bows, and arrowheads.

As other indigenous people were given land in the Lacandón Jungle, the common practice of subsistence farming was replaced by semi commercial agriculture of the new people that were given land in the area. This was further influenced by the national government’s encouragement of the development of commercial farming, and not the typical slash and burn practices that were historically common in the area. In addition to that, rapid deforestation of the Lacandón Jungle due to cattle grazing led the Lacandón to move from their dispersed settlements to more centralized communities, thus shifting their economic practices. In the early 1970s, oil developments in Tabasco put money into Chiapas, and allowed for the Mexican government to set up a Rain forest reserve, preventing areas of the Lacandón Jungle from being used by logging companies. However, after gaining control of the local extension of the Florida-based logging company Weiss Fricker Mahogany Company, the Mexican government organization Nacional Financiera, S.A. (NAFINSA), which controlled the revenue generated by logging in the Lacandón Jungle. A state-controlled company, the Compañia Forestal de la Lacandon S.A., was created to contract Lacandón communities for logging rights of their land. Unfortunately, NAFINSA controlled most of the royalties made by the company, 70%, as opposed to the 30% that the Lacandón communities received.

Following the oil price crash in the early 1980s, the value of the peso dropped dramatically, which made international tourism even more attractive. Though this affected the economy of the Lacandón adversely, it presented an opportunity for them to gain. Lacandón men would dedicate a good amount of their free time towards manufacturing arts and crafts, and then selling their goods to tourists in the larger towns in Chiapas, like Palenque. In 1980, a road was built to connect Palenque with the Lacandón community of Nahá. This allowed tourist traffic to flow into Lacandón communities, and the Lacandón merchant selling material goods no longer had to travel for days, but rather set up his shop along the road, and could carry more items with the advent of vehicular travel in the area.

One of the biggest items sold to tourists are hunting kits - bows and arrows. Men making these bows and arrows transitioned from acquiring the materials from the jungle themselves, to just buying the materials and focused strictly on the production of the bows and arrows. These are usually sold at the Maya ruins at Palenque and range in sizes - from full adult sizes to child-sized toys kits.

The historical Lacandón needed to rely on only themselves. But as they came into contact with other people, and Mexico became a more unified state, their economy shifted towards a more dependent one, thriving on increased trade with other local people and eventually were introduced with international trade.