Process and dynamics of traditional selling wild edible mushrooms in tropical Mexico

BACKGROUND: More than twelve temperate-inhabitant Mexican ethnic groups are considered to be mycophilic and to have extensive traditional mycological knowledge. In contrast, inhabitants of tropical lands have been studied only superficially and their mycological knowledge is less well known. In this paper, we report the results of an ethnomycological research in markets of a wide area of the Mexican tropics. Our aims were to describe the dynamics related to the traditional selling process of wild mushrooms and to determine the tendencies of informants toward mushrooms (mycophily vs. mycophoby). METHODS: We visited 25 markets of 12 different settlements in the states of Oaxaca, Tabasco and Veracruz and collected information by participant observation as well as by 291 non-structured and semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: Mushroom selling was observed in four towns in Oaxaca and in two in Tabasco. Women represented 81.82% of sellers, while indigenous people (Chinantecos, Chontales, Ch'oles and Zoques) comprised 68.18%. Mushroom commercialization took place in secondary mobile markets and only in peasant stands. Mushroom collectors gather the resource in places with secondary vegetation, farmed areas and cattle fields. Because of land tenure restrictions mushroom sellers did not normally collect mushrooms themselves. In Oaxaca, we observed economic dynamics not based on capitalism, such as exchange, reciprocity and barter. CONCLUSION: The sale of some wild edible mushrooms, the large amounts of commercialization of Schizophyllum commune, the complicated intermediary process, as well as the insertion of mushrooms into different informal economic practices are all evidence of an existent mycophily in a sector of the population of this region of the Mexican tropics. Among our informants, urban mestizo people were mycophobic, rural mestizo people were non-mycophilic and indigenous people were true mycophilic.