Madre Maiz, an ancient resilience strategy practiced by Mayan groups in times of food scarcity
Authors: Bermudez Odilia I , Barrios Adolfo Rivas , Martinez Anibal , de Fulladolsa Patricia Palma 
Published: November 2023

Background

In Mesoamerica, ancient and contemporaneous Mayan people have used maize (zea mays) as the center of their food culture. Insufficient availability of maize for consumption, mainly as tortillas, compromises food and nutrition security of Mayans. To protect maize in such events, Mayan groups developed resiliency strategies for protecting this staple food. One of these strategies consisted in mixing maize with local, wild plants known as “Madre Maiz” or Mother Maize.

Objective

To describe findings of an ethnobotanical research conducted in Guatemala and aimed at documenting the concept of Madre Maiz as a resilience strategy practiced since the early Mayan in Mesoamerica.

Methods

As a component of a larger research project, we visited rural communities and conducted qualitative interviews with 15 local informants from Mam, Kekchi and Kaqchikel Mayan groups from the Guatemalan Provinces of Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango, Peten and Alta Verapaz. In addition to traditional food preparation recipes, we gathered details about different plants considered “Madre Maiz” and collected samples of one of them for nutrient analysis, a fossil tree fern (Marattiaceae family) which buds are known as “casco de mula” (mule's hoof). For the other foods also identified as Madre Maiz, nutrient composition data were obtained from a regional nutrient database.

Results

From the qualitative interviews conducted with the Mayan informants, we identified six foods considered as Madre Maiz: cassava (Manihot esculenta), taro (Colocasia esculenta), plantain (Musa spp), ramon or breadnut seeds (Artocarpus communis), white yam (Dioscorea rotundata) and casco de mula. All food items identified as Madre Maiz were used by mixing them with maize in different proportions, depending on the severity of the food crisis, as explained by our informants. They were cooked together following the traditional nixtamalization process to produce the “masa” (dough) needed to make tortillas. Nutrient analysis of the Madre Maiz foods revealed that they were starchy products, high in fiber, low in proteins and in total fats. Total energy fluctuated between 217 vs. 40 Kcal for breadnut and casco de mula, respectively. Casco de mula and white yam were higher in water content (88% and 82%, respectively) than the other products, with breadnut having only 45% of water. All informants related personal episodes of crisis when they used Madre Maiz, and indicated that tortillas made with Madre Maiz were highly palatable.

Conclusion

Corn tortillas are one of the most important staples for ancient and contemporaneous Mayan people. Therefore, having them on daily basis, even if the masa is mixed with other starchy foods (Madre Maiz), is a protective strategy applied in times of crises. This strategy have been in place for centuries, confirming that these indigenous population have been confronting periodic food crisis since ancient times, and they have been able to cope with those crisis with resilience mechanisms while protecting their most sacred food, the maize. Unfortunately, some wild plants (e.g. casco de mula) are disappearing along with their forests.