or 
CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—McBRYDE v0 
Sources of labor consist primarily of Indians of 
the Highlands, permanent finca residents (colonos 
or rancheros) on the one hand, and temporary mi- 
grants (temporadistas, cuadrilleros, or jornaleros)*® 
on the other, the latter generally accounting for the 
larger number of finca hands (map 12). Their labor 
is measured in terms of clearing by the cuerda (about 
Jt; acre) and picking by the guintal (101 lb.) being 
paid in 1936 usually 12 to 15 cents a day (25 cents 
for skilled labor). The harvest is mainly between 
October and December. During the rest of the year, 
constant clearing of weeds and second growth is re- 
quired. The municipio of Chicacao (p. 92) is illus- 
trative of the manner in which Highlanders have 
settled in the coffee belt, and from this, as from map 
12, some idea may be had as to the provenience of 
coffee laborers, and the distances to which they 
migrate. 
Coffee fincas are owned principally by foreign 
planters (Germans, English, and some Americans, 
who control most of the larger ones, such as Moca, 
Chocola, and Pacayal) and native non-Indian Guate- 
maltecans. Indian finqueros are to be found in cer- 
tain sections, as near Pueblo Nuevo, where one 
Indian alcalde is said (1936) to own a plantation 
of 2 caballerias (2,000 cuerdas, or about 400 acres), 
and several others have, on an average, 25-30 
cuerdas. The coffee produced on all these is sold 
to larger fincas for processing and resale as café 
en oro (unroasted “bean”), 
Landscape transformations resulting from 
coffee plantations.—Just as cacao cultivation has 
brought about changes in the composition of natural 
vegetation in the Lowlands (p. 34), so in the pied- 
mont, coffee culture, despite its relative recency, 
has resulted in a distinct alteration of the original 
plant cover. There can be little doubt that, long 
before the Conquest, occupation by agricultural man 
transformed in some measure the nature of nearly 
all the forested regions of Central America, so that 
truly virgin forests no longer exist.5! Such tem- 
°0 On some fincas, e.g. Mocd, there are more permanent than migrant 
laborers (683, mostly from Chichicastenango, as against 317); at 
Chocola there are, on the other hand, more temporadistas (880 as com- 
pared with 633). 
51 Nomadic hoe culturists have undoubtedly penetrated every forested 
area at some time, burning and planting, then shifting to burn and 
plant again. Cook (1909, p. 20) cites as evidence of a “secondary 
character of supposedly primeval forests” in eastern Guatemala, the 
digging up by Indians of pitchy roots of pines, for use as torches from 
the floor of luxuriant tropical forests which have long since over- 
shadowed the pioneer conifers and driven them out. I have also seen 
this done on a number of occasions in some of the highest and most 
remote forests of Chiapas, including the great, uninhabited Tzendales. 
porary fields of maize, beans, and squash were even- 
tually abandoned, allowing the forest clearings to go 
back to their natural vegetation cover, after a few 
years of “mining” the superficial wealth of the rich 
humus layer and destroying the forest litter through 
continued burnings. But not so in the planting of 
cacao and coffee. These plantations demand not only 
permanent clearings around the trees, but shade, 
especially in the case of cacao, which must be pro- 
tected also from winds. This has involved the estab- 
lishment of certain special shade plants, as well as 
the elimination of less desirable types. The best- 
suited and most widely known tree for cacao shade 
is the “madre de cacao” (lit., “mother of cacao,” 
Gliricidia sepium), sometimes called also “madera 
negra.”°? Pataxte and cuxin (see pp. 34, 148) havea 
significance for cacao shade, however, that is secon- 
dary to the madre. The latter is of some value for 
coffee as well, though cuxin and chalum (Inga sp.) 
seem to be the most widely planted shade trees 
throughout the coffee belt of the Pacific versant. The 
abundance of these trees has accordingly been arti- 
ficially increased. All of the above-mentioned, except 
pataxte, are of the family Leguminosae,°*? probably 
not tall enough to meet the competition of the high 
monsoon forest without the aid of man. 
The result has been, then, in the coffee lands 
of the boca costa, extensive areas of thin, artificial 
woodlands covering the ridges between numerous, 
heavily forested ravines and steep stream courses 
(ply Sixe)'. 
Another important shade tree in the higher coffee 
fincas, particularly those on the shores of Lake 
Atitlan, is the gravilea (silk oak, Grevillea robusta; 
pl. 19, 6); having the disadvantage of extreme 
brittleness and vulnerability to strong winds. When 
coffee seedlings are first set out, each is usually 
sheltered by a small banana plant, which shoots up 
rapidly and affords protection from the sun until the 
slower growing, permanent shade trees, such as the 
madre and cuxin, reach an appreciable size, usually 
a matter of several years. Hence, the aspect of the 
plant cover in a coffee grove depends largely upon 
the stage of maturity of the coffee plants. 
BANANAS 
Following the disastrous hurricane and flood of 
October 1935, which destroyed great areas of banana 
'2It was reported at San Antonio Suchitepequez that candles and 
soap are made from this tree and the flowers are eaten. 
53 The genus Inga is mimosaceous; Gliricidia is fabaceous. 
