The Community that Eats the Canopy of the Premontane Wet Forest

Abstract

Alter establishing that the ‘güetar’ indigen culture, settled in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, was –besides being displaced and dislocated-used by the Spanish conquerors for the domain of other peripheral peoples over which the ‘güetars’ had control, two areas of ‘güetar’ settlement survivors of  extermination,  Zapatón  and  Quitirrisí,  are ecogeographically and ethnographically described. It’s argued that this culture always knew that the nutrient wealth is not in the ground but in the forest canopy, that’s why their farming was focalized in it through genetic manipulation, domestication of certain species and the development of vegetative farming practices like itinerant farming of field burning and grave, of ploughing and systems of policulture, in which the high protein and mineral content of canopy vegetation is used as it falls to the ground and decomposes after field burning. Finally, 66 botanical species used by the ‘güetars’ are accounted.