WILD vanilla orchid vines
FLOWERING in November

Posted December 07, 2020

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Buds and unopened flowers of wild vanilla orchid vines, November 30, 2020, Tapon Creek nature reserve of FUNDAECO, photograph by park ranger Lucas Cuz with telephone camera provided by FLAAR (USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica (Guatemala).

Park ranger Lucas Cuz found and photographed wild vanilla orchid vine flowering the last day of November. There are wild vanilla orchid vines all over the Municipio de Livingston. We find wild vanilla orchid vines on most field trips: some in wetland swamps, others on karst hills.

We have never seen a wild vanilla vine flowering because they flower only once a year in the early morning; one day per year per flower! So we are literally rushing out to Municipio de Livingston to dedicate three days there (two days back and forth driving to the dock at Puerto Barrios; no cars can reach the nature reserves of Rio Sarstun or Tapon Creek).

This is a “once in a life opportunity” so off we go today. We appreciate the cooperation of the Alcalde of the Municipio de Livingston, Daniel Pinto, and his team. If by chance all the orchids bloomed last week, then at least we know where we will spend November 2021! Waiting for the same orchids to bloom again.

If we do stand in front of orchids in bloom this week in 2020, it will be the nicest Christmas present ever. We sincerely appreciate the Garcia family providing their house in Buena Vista as our place to stay near Tapon Creek nature reserve of FUNDAECO.

Only once we have photos of the fully opened flower will we estimate the species of wild orchid. And we will consult with Fredy Archila on this once we have the photos.

Classic Maya Music and 4^th-9^th century Musical Instruments

Posted October 30, 2020

I am especially curious to learn what trees were used to make the drums and the trumpets of the Classic Maya. To start we are learning how many sizes and shapes of trumpets there were. By coincidence Yucatec Maya linguist David Bolles kindly sent me a copy of his architect-archaeologist father’s book that has a nice drawing of a trumpet from a mural at Chichen Itza. I show this here.

Trumpet in use, normally (but not always) by advancing warriors going into battle. Chichen Itza, Las Monjas, Room 17, sketch by architect John Bolles, working for the Carnegie Institution of Washington project. This drawing is on page 44 of The Art Work of John S. Bolles and Mary P. Bolles. Permission to use the drawing from David Bolles. You can download this from DavidsBooks.org, Download PDF

We now have a web page to further introduce trumpets and the various plants that have parts large enough to make a 2-meter long trumpet.

Books on Yucatec Maya language,
linguistics, Chilam Balam and more

Posted October 27, 2020

David Bolles is one of the leading linguists and ethnohistorian scholars for books such as the Chilam Balam and all colonial period Yucatec Maya dictionaries. These publications are downloadable, but the main site is switching to a new domain: http://davidsbooks.org/

It is well worthwhile to visit this website to learn more about the Maya of Yucatan Peninsula.

I knew David’s father, architectural/archaeologist John S. Bolles (of the Carnegie Institution of Washington). John Bolles worked as an architect in the same Detroit firm as my architect father, George Hellmuth. Another coincidence, in my father’s architecture class at Washington University was William Lincoln, who mapped Yaxha for the CIW (decades before FLAAR started the project with Miguel Orrego to map the entire site of Yaxha (and improve the map of Nakum and Topoxte Island)).

Architect Bolles came with a FLAAR field trip to visit El Mirador several decades before this came a popular tourist destination.

But back to the main subject: we recommend visiting the Yucatec Maya linguistic and Chilam Balam book website, http://davidsbooks.org/. Also shows the family history of David Bolles and how he learned Yucatec Maya courtesy of his wife, Alejandra.

Waterbirds are frequently featured
in Classic Maya Art

Posted September 14, 2020

Wading birds and other waterbirds are the birds most often seen in Classic Maya art of Peten, Guatemala, Copan Ruinas, Honduras, Palenque and other sites in Mexico. Yes, the anciRuinas, occasional vultures and other birds. But waterbirds are by far the most noticeable.

I had a chapter on waterbirds and another chapter on water lily flowers in my PhD dissertation many decades ago. Now I am keen to find more species of waterbirds around Lake Yaxha and Rio Ixtinto, and other species in the Caribbean area of Rio Dulce. There are also lots of waterbirds in the lagoons and wetland marshes and mangrove swamps inland from the Pacific Ocean coast (but this is far from the Maya city states of Peten, Belize, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Copan Ruinas etc.). Lake Atitlan is another place we have photographed waterbirds in past years. Plus Rio la Pasion, Arroyo Petexbatun, Laguna Petexbatun, etc.

One of our goals is to have high resolution close-up views of each species of waterbirds. Resident species are easiest since we find them any month that we do a field trip. It will help iconographers, epigraphers, archaeologists to more accurately identify the species in Early Classic and Late Classic Maya art if there are literally photo albums available for each individual species. So we start with the brown pelican (not many white pelicans in the northern half of Guatemala). But year by year we hope to cover all wading birds, shore birds, and other waterbird species to assist students, professors, and show people around the world that Guatemala is a great place to come to see these birds yourselves and do your own photography. ent Maya also show hummingbirds, occasionally toucans, lots of scarlet macaws at Copan

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Yaxha (PNYNN) how to get here from Belize, Mexico, Honduras

Posted September 8, 2020

The Guatemala City airport will be open (hopefully) in about 10 days. Gradually the national parks will open. So we at FLAAR Mesoamerica would like to help by describing how to get to Yaxha from Guatemala City, from Copan Ruinas (Honduras), from Palenque and Yaxchilan (Chiapas, Mexico) and from Chichen Itza and Uxmal ruins in Yucatan, Mexico, plus how to reach the Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo (PNYNN) from Belize (less than an hour from the Peten-Belize border).

This is just part of the map; the entire map is on this link.

Institute of Maya Studies, monthly publication

Posted September 03, 2020

We recommend you subscribe to receive the IMS Explorer digital magazine on Maya studies each month. Sign up to become a member of this educational institute in Florida.

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Here are the front covers of two recent issues as examples (which include Part 1 and Part 2 of an article by Nicholas Hellmuth on edible fruits of Gonolobus, a vine native to Peten, Izabal, Alta Verapaz and other areas of the Maya Lowlands and Maya Highlands).

The subscription information is one page before the final one.

Their web site is www.InstituteofMayaStudies.org. Their Webmaster is Keith Merwin at: webmaster@instituteofmayastudies.org

I have been reading this 8 educational pages of newsletter every month for many years.

Potatoes, Pineapples, and Peanuts
Did the Classic Maya eat any of these?

Posted August 30, 2020

Pineapples were seen by Christopher Columbus in the islands of the Caribbean, but I am not yet fully convinced that pineapples were raised by the Olmec, Maya, or Aztec (if it was in the Tenochtitlan market of the Aztecs then it is prehispanic… so why did the Spaniards not see it in Aztec markets?).
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Pineapples are listed as pre-Columbian food by several individuals. One Mayanist suggested pineapples were visible in Olmec-related hieroglyphs. I recommend caution. I estimate pineapples may not have arrived until the Spanish introduced them very quickly from the Caribbean islands or Costa Rica.

As a child I picked peanuts on our family farm. And when I was an archaeology student working in Peru I learned that peanuts and also potatoes were originally from Peru (and elsewhere in South America).

But today, while reading, I learned that a WILD potato relative Solanum cardiophyllum ssp. ehrenbergii can be found in Guatemala. This is edible. So the Maya, at least of the Highlands, did potentially have “a potato” to eat before today’s potato of Peru and Chile became popular around the world.

Sweet potatoes (camote is the word in Guatemala, Ipomoea batatas) are native to Mesoamerica (and found in Polynesia). The leaves are also edible (Mary Dyer, webpage) but are not sold in supermarkets. Sweet potatoes are excellent if you wish a healthy diet.

In conclusion, potatoes (“Irish potatoes”) come originally from South America. Only sweet potatoes and a wild relative of potatoes are native to Mayan areas. Peanuts I need to accomplish more research on but they seem to be from South America.

Learning about native flora and fauna helps
learn about the Classic Maya world

Posted August 20, 2020

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The Laughing Falcon is featured in the Popol Vuh. A raptor that eats a snake that has eaten a frog or toad that swallowed the flea carrying the message from the Grandmother.

The same bird is called a Snake Hawk, because it’s primary diet is snakes. The Principal Bird Deity in Classic Maya Art is usually presented (especially in Early Classic ceramic scenes) in frontal view carrying a snake. Thus in my PhD dissertation decades ago I suggested that Herpetotheres cachinnans could be a model for the Principal Bird Deity. But for sure Herpetotheres cachinnans is a model for the raptor in the Popol Vuh.

This same photo shows an arboreal cactus, Selenicereus testudo crawling up the dead branch. This cactus can be seen climbing tree trunks, up in the treetops, and on fallen tree limbs all over Topoxte Island, Yaxha, Nakum, and Naranjo, in the Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum, Naranjo.

The Laughing Falcon/Snake Hawk is also available for birders at PNYNN. So as soon as flights resume to Guatemala, we recommend this park as a destination if you wish to learn about temple pyramids, palaces, acropolises, ballcourts, but also about the plants and birds of Maya civilization. The fruit of many arboreal cacti here are edible (wild pitaya). And these fruits are much esteemed by arboreal animals such as the micoleon (kinkajou).

Best to hire a registered guide (available at the Santa Elena/Flores airport and at the entrance to Yaxha park).

How did the Classic Maya use a Tasistal area 2000 years ago?

Posted May 20, 2020

There are areas with solid masses of tasiste palm, Acoelorrhaphe wrightii in Belize and in several areas of Peten. The four reports below are the first photographic documentation of any tasistal in Peten with high resolution photos and with panorama views. Plus the first with photos from above.

We documented Tasiste palms in all three seasonally inundated savannas in Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo courtesy of the co-administrators and with the assistance of park rangers of PNYNN. But in a grassland savanna (or fern savanna) tasiste palms are widely scattered. In a tasistal these palms are solid; literally so solid that often you can’t walk between them.

Julian Mariona, owner of the family friendly Hotel Ecologico Posada Caribe showed us the Tasistal Arroyo Petexbatun in October 2019, when he learned that we were interested in atypical and unexplored biodiverse ecosystems. So we returned twice to do additional photography. On one of these visits he told us there was a second comparable tasistal a few kilometers away, so we returned there in early 2020.

Download Tasistal Arroyo Petexbatun, photos from ground level part I	Download Tasistal Arroyo Petexbatun, drone photos part II
Download Tasistal Arroyo Faisan, photos from ground level part I	Download Tasistal Arroyo Faisan, drone photos part II
Rio Petexbatun and Lake Petexbatun area Municipio de Sayaxche, Peten, Guatemala

I first came to Peten circa 1993, as a backpacker. I worked at Tikal for a solid 12 months as a student intern in 1965, and lived multiple-months per year for several years while mapping Yaxha together with Miguel Orrego and helpful students. But in my over half a century in Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Peten, and Belize, no one had taken me to a tasistal ecosystem. So now that I have seen two of these tasistals, I would like to share the photographs with the world. I hope that students at the universities of Guatemala will be inspired to do their thesis or dissertation on flora, fauna, ecology, geology, of these tasistal areas. We hope professors and researchers will now know of these still pristine areas (because in a few years they will all be cut down for cattle ranches or African palm oil plantations).

Municipio de Livingston ecosystems, PowerPoint is now available in English

Posted May 13, 2020

This is to download the 6MB version	This is to download the 27MB version

Unfortunately Zoom could handle only 100 people at a time, so the presentation was sold out quickly. Now, in the link for May 6, the entire presentation is now available as a download for you.