POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
FIGURE 5-24
Mayan Codex and art representing Xunan Kab (Melipona beecheii).
A) Ah Muzen-Cab, God protector of bees and the crops.
© Luis A. Medina. Museo Palacio Cantón, Merida, Yucatán. Reproduced with
permission.
B) Ah Mucen Kab by removing honey
from a nest of stingless bees. Codice
104 Maya Itzá of Mayapán.
© Juan C. C. Medina. Reproduced with
permission.
C) Parts of the Mayan Codex and the
bee (Melipona beecheii)
317
CASE EXAMPLE 5-16
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF BEES AS A MODEL FOR HUMAN SOCIETY AMONG PRE-COLUMBIAN MAYA PEOPLE
Location: Mesoamerica
Mayan peoples
5. BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, POLLINATORS AND
THEIR SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES
Evidence of the economic and religious importance of the
bee Melipona beecheii (Xunan-Kab) is seen in the various
manifestations of Mayan art that have reached us. The most
important is the codex of Madrid, one of the three surviving
Maya codices, in which stylized images of Xunan Kab bees
and their guardian gods are represented in various scenes
probably associated with the harvest of the honey and colony
multiplication (pages 103-112). Some of these deities are Ah-
Mucen-Kab (the descending honey god), Noh Yum Kab, Hobnil,
Balam-Kab and Moc-Chí (Figure 5.30 A and B). All of them
are represented with a mixture of anthropomorphic and bee-like
features, sometimes involving characteristics of other sacred
animals like the jaguar (de Jong, 1999; Quezada-Euán et al.,
2001) (Figure 5.30 C). The Mayan Miatschahales (philosophers)
used stingless bee (Melipona beecheii), as a model for adequate
social organization as well as ecological and political ethics.
Thus, several values and strategies are explicitly modelled on
Melipona beecheii´s social organization. Among these are:
cooperation and solidarity; adaptation to changes that occur
outside the colony; optimization of the use of natural resources
for the well-being of the group over individual well-being;
avoidance of over-exploitation of natural resources; control
of population size to adapt to variable conditions; prediction
of droughts; and food security measures (López-Maldonado,
2010; López-Maldonado and Athayde, 2015).