CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—McBRYDE 129 
region. Beans and squashes are next in importance. 
The milpa, or cornfield, is deeply and carefully hoed 
and in some regions plowed, notably in and near the 
Cuchumatanes Mountains. Fertilizer is often used, 
in the Highlands almost exclusively, with shifting 
sheep pens providing most manure in the higher 
mountains where soils are leached. One harvest in 
the Highlands, two or more in the Lowlands, and 
all coming at different seasons, contribute to an im- 
portant interzonal corn exchange. Some of the most 
important New World cultivated plants were domes- 
ticated or improved in western Guatemala. Wheat, 
broadbeans, and European vegetables are important 
introduced crops in the Highlands, from high lati- 
tude Old World regions; coffee, rice, and sugarcane 
are the chief Lowland exotics from the Old World 
Tropics and sub-Tropics. Coffee grown mainly along 
the volcanic piedmont, began to replace cacao, ancient 
Maya and Aztec “money”, as the chief plantation 
crop about 1850. In its cultivation, clearing of the 
monsoon forest and replacement of shade trees has 
transformed the vegetation in much of the inner Low- 
lands. Great population shifts have taken place also ; 
foreign planters have come in, and thousands of 
Indians have moved, some permanently, some season- 
ally, from their Highland homes. Vegetable culture, 
one of the major local enterprises in commercial 
agriculture, is confined almost entirely to three areas 
in the Highlands. Though this is an Indian occu- 
pation, the Indians themselves have acquired a taste 
for little other than onions and garlic; they grow 
vegetables to sell primarily to Ladinos. Lowland 
agriculture is generally desultory, and most of the 
many useful trees are little cultivated. Chickpeas 
constitute an important Lenten specialty, produced 
almost solely in one locality, San Pedro on Lake 
Atitlan. 
The chief domesticated animals are cattle, mules, 
sheep and a few goats, and pigs. Cattle bred in the 
dry Departments of eastern Guatemala are driven to 
the Lowlands of the Pacific southwest. There they 
are raised and sold, the bulls for slaughter mainly in 
the Highlands, where cows are kept chiefly for milk. 
Sheep, numerous above 2,000 m. (6,562 ft.), are little 
eaten. Wool is their most important product, and 
many flocks consist principally of black sheep. Pigs 
bred largely in the Highlands by small-scale farmers, 
are raised for the most part in the Lowlands, where 
there are more seeds, greens, fruits, and corn to feed 
growing animals. Iguanas are the most important 
wild animals eaten. They are marketed alive, mostly 
654162—47——10 
during Lent, as they are not considered flesh (at that 
time of year the females are more easily caught while 
on the ground to lay eggs). Much salt fish is then 
eaten also, brought from the Pacific coast of Guate- 
mala and Mexico. Most of the meat consumed is un- 
sorted beef and pork; but meat is considered a luxury 
reserved mainly for festive occasions, and constitutes 
probably less than 5 percent of the total diet. 
House types show a close relationship to the 
natural environment. In the hot Lowlands, walls 
are of vertical canes, poles, or boards, widely spaced 
for ventilation. Better houses and buildings are made 
of adobe. Above about 1,500 m. (4,921 ft.) eleva- 
tion, where it is cool, adobe brick and wattle-and-daub 
walls predominate. Adobe, usually whitewashed and 
tinted, is the wall material for house and courtyard in 
the towns, where tile roofs are the rule. Thatch, of 
the best material locally available, is the roof type 
for rural dwellings from the Pacific shore to the 
mountains. There are no chimneys, and large win- 
dows are seen only in Ladino houses. 
Ladino dress is essentially European, of simple 
peasant style except among the modern well-to-do 
plantation (finca) owners and town dwellers. Such 
exceptions would be considered Ladinos only in the 
census, for the well-dressed aristocracy are “‘Guate- 
maltecos.” Indians, on the other hand, have a wealth 
of colorful, individualistic costumes, varying from 
one municipio to the next in areas where villages 
are isolated from one another and women weave 
much of their own clothing. There is less variation 
in easily traversed regions, where men nearly all 
dress alike in blue denim. Women retain more of 
their traditional costumes than men, just as they 
learn less Spanish, for they do not travel as widely. 
In the Highlands especially, crafts and industries 
are varied and localized. This is true in the making 
of pottery, basketry, metates, lime, textiles, hats, mats, 
leather, furniture, charcoal, and many other products. 
To a large degree, special occupations are located 
within easy access to raw materials, as in the case 
of wool weaving, metates, lime, pottery, calabashes, 
and others. In many cases, however, they are based 
largely upon tradition. Weaving is the most highly 
developed of the crafts, and the one which offers the 
best medium for artistic self-expression. Few indus- 
trial pursuits are carried on in the Lowlands; there 
are not so many Indians or raw materials. 
With agriculture and crafts extremely specialized 
and diversified from place to place, owing largely to 
great local environmental and traditional differences 
