A number of Latin American countries experiencing population pressure in highland areas also contain underpopulated tropical lowland regions. Northern Guatemala is one such low-density region of particular interest because it contained a sizeable population supported by slash-and-burn agriculture at the height of the Maya civilization a thousand years ago. Resettlement of the region is proceeding apace through government and private sponsored colonization programs and through spontaneous migration of Kekchi Indians from neighboring Alta Verapaz. For months during 1964-1965 William Carter observed one settlement of the latter migrants, located just east of Lake Isabel, and the resultant publication of his findings provides crucial insights into the feasibility of such relocation as a solution to highland population pressure.
The ability of the Kekchi cultivators to adjust traditional farming methods to the new environment is amply documented ; less fully explored are the accommodations made in the areas of social organization, social control, and belief patterns. For example, Carter describes forms of reciprocal and cooperative labor and assesses their importance, but he fails to consider how such patterns resemble or depart from previous highland culture patterns. Apart from noting the survival of the cofradía tradition and calendrical rituals associated with maize agriculture, he provides few comparisons with highland antecedents for the reader interested in the adjustments which such relocation must entail. Clearly diet does not adjust rapidly, for the colonists have continued to rely upon beans, although they have been unable to grow them successfully and must purchase virtually all they consume. Of special interest is the utilization of the legume, velvet bean, for purposes of grass control and green manuring. Since green manuring is not common practice in many highland areas, it would be useful to known whether Alta Verapaz is an exception or whether this knowledge was acquired after resettlement.
The principal objective of the book is to document the productivity of the land and the expenditure of time required to cultivate it using traditional slash-and-burn methods. Comprehensive analyses of soil types were undertaken and interpreted in terms of native classification, wherein nutrient content is but one of several variables (e.g., drainage and root content) affecting choice and productivity of land.
Unfortunately the periods of observation did not coincide with harvest periods, and consequently data on yields are based on the memory of informants and do not permit correlation with the wide range of soil conditions delimited in the study.
It is evident from this study and from others referred to in the book that traditional slash-and-burn maize agriculture can support a much higher population density than the region has contained in recent centuries. It is also suggested that, given large-scale private and government investment in intensive farming and grazing, the region could produce for foreign and domestic markets in greater quantity than under subsistence cultivation. Intensive agriculture depends on the highland labor, however, and for the Kekchi colonists the attractiveness of the lowlands lies in the ownership of land and autonomy in working it within their own tradition.
