Mixtepec Zapotec Ethnobiological Classification: A Preliminary Sketch and Theoretical Commentary

Abstract

Despite 470 years of contact with Spanish-speaking colonial powers, members of the Zapotec-speaking community of San Juan Mixtepec in the Sierra de Miahuatlan, Oaxaca, Mexico, have conserved largely intact an extensive body of knowledge about their natural environment. We have recorded to date 868 named plant taxa (of which 520 are "folk generics") and 443 of animals (of which 256 are "folk generics"). Eighteen percent of generic plant name elements are Spanish loans, which compares favourably with other conservative systems of traditional biological knowledge in southern Mexico. Mixtepec Zapotec animal classification appears to be relatively less developed than the botanical. We describe the Mixtepec Zapotec classification of oaks (Quercus spp., Fagaceae) to illustrate how precise this classification may be. Mixtepec Zapotec botanical life-form names are routinely prefixed to the names for the generic and specific taxa they include.