Sociocultural Importance of Dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) in Maya Subsistence Hunting: Revelations From Their Participation in the Traditional Group Hunting ( Batida ) in Yucatan

• Published in: Tropical Conservation Science
• Main Authors: Plata, Elías, Montiel, Salvador, Fraga, Julia, Evia, Carlos
• Other Authors: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2019
• Subjects: Nature and Landscape Conservation; Ecology; Canis lupus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940082919830829; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1940082919830829; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/1940082919830829

Historically, dogs have played a prominent role in subsistence hunting. In the contemporary Mayab, the group hunting or batidaprovides multiple sociocultural benefits for those who practice it, in addition to wild meat. Here, we analyze the social perception of dogs used in batidaas part of the cosmovision of Maya peasant-hunters in a rural community of Campeche, Mexico. We conducted semistructured interviews with 36 local batidahunters who owned a total of 51 dogs. Batidadogs provide different benefits (meat and social prestige for Maya peasant-hunters) depending on their roles as maestros(leader dogs) or secretarios(support dogs) and the type of prey captured. Hunting dogs go beyond their utilitarian value as a hunting technology and play an important role in the sociocultural dynamic of the batida, one of the main wildlife practices mediating the relationships between peasant communities and their natural surroundings in the Yucatan Peninsula.