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 Discussion 

 From the perspective of this study, gardens are important for two reasons: One, gardens 

 provide a source of food to game animals. In Chapter 5, the frequency and abundance of garden crops 

 in the stomach contents of game animals were quantified. Those results will be discussed below with 

 respect to the information presented in this chapter. Two, gardens provide a place where many game 

 animals are taken by Maya hunters. In Chapter 3, the number and kinds of game hunted in gardens 

 were presented. Those results also will be discussed below with respect to the garden information 

 presented here. First, however, the specific results about gardens will be discussed. 



Gardeners 



To the Maya, growing a garden is an ethnic identifier, separating them from all other people 

 (Bums, 1983). While some people consider com farming a peasant occupation, to the Maya, planting 

 a garden is a reaffirmation of what it means to be Maya. The results of this study indicate that in 

 small, rural villages, most adult Maya men still cultivate gardens, but the practice and cultural 

 importance of gardening by the Maya may be decreasing. 



During the early 1900s, prior to the modem era in the Yucatan Peninsula, essentially every able- 

 bodied, adult male planted a garden (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1962; Villa Rojas, 1987). Now, 

 however, the proportion of people planting gardens is less than before. For example. Murphy (1990) 

 reported that at Seiior, Quintana Roo (a small Maya village about 50 km north of X-Hazil Sur), only 

 about 83% of the adult men planted gardens. At X-Hazil Sur, about 80-85% of the adult men and 

 widows, called ejidatarios, planted gardens. This decrease from 100% in the proportion of people 

 planting gardens during modem times is consistent with a general decline in planting throughout the 

 state of Quintana Roo as the Maya diversify their repertoire of subsistence activities to include other 

 economic enterprises, such as timber harvest and the growing of citrus fruits for commercial sale 

 (Sullivan, 1987). 



