Cocoa, Salt, and Maya Trade Goods

The Maya economy was carried by a network of trade routes that moved staple foods, prestige goods, and ritual substances across hundreds of kilometers of forest, river, and coast. Two commodities were central to both daily life and elite ceremony: cacao (Theobroma cacao) and salt. To them were added honey, obsidian, jade, pyrite, quetzal feathers, cotton textiles, copper bells (after the Postclassic), and a wide range of forest products. The trade that moved these goods shaped the History of the Maya Civilization, financed the Maya Society, Politics, and Daily Life of the elite, and fed the ritual feasting described in What Was on the Maya Menu During Festivals?. The general economic context is given in Maya Trade, Markets, and Economy and in the broader Maya Agriculture, Food, and Cuisine.

The Maya kitchen that received these goods and turned them into food and drink is the subject of Maya Cuisine: Food, Drink, and Preparation, and the question of who first domesticated cacao is debated in Did the Maya Really Invent Chocolate?.

Cacao: currency, drink, and ritual substance

Cacao was the most prestigious plant product of the Maya world. The tree (Theobroma cacao) is a small, cauliflorous tree of the Malvaceae, native to the wet lowlands of Central America and the Amazon basin. It requires shade, rainfall of 1,500 to 2,500 millimeters per year, and deep, well-drained soil. The Maya grew it in dense agroforestry settings, often in the pet kot (forest garden) under taller ramón (Brosimum alicastrum) and mamey (Pouteria sapota) trees, and along the rivers of the Pacific piedmont and the Caribbean coast.

Cacao had three principal uses. It was a drink, an elite daily and ceremonial beverage prepared by pouring hot water repeatedly between vessels to produce a froth. It was a currency: the 16th-century Yukatek sources record that a rabbit cost 100 cacao beans, a turkey hen 200, and a slave 2,500. And it was a ritual substance, poured on the ground as a libation to the ancestors and offered to the gods, with the highest foam being the mark of a well-prepared offering.

The iconography of cacao in the Late Classic is dense. Painted vases frequently show lords and ladies drinking from cylinder-vessels; the accompanying texts often give the vessel type as yutal (the term for a cacao-drinking cup) and the foam as wayij. The Madrid Codex shows a long god-fish or a sky-band carrying cacao pods, and the K’iche’ highlands and the Yucatec lowlands both have abundant references to cacao in late colonial and modern ritual use.

The principal Maya variety of cacao was the Criollo type, considered the world’s finest flavor cacao. Criollo is a lowland variety with pale, almost white, seeds inside thin-walled pods, and it is closely associated with Mesoamerican rather than South American populations. A second cultivated form, Trinitario, arose in the Caribbean and is a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero. The long-running debate over which Maya culture first domesticated cacao is treated in Did the Maya Really Invent Chocolate?.

Cacao’s position in elite feasting cannot be overstated. A 16th-century account of the Yukatek Maya reported that, at the end of a major feast, a vase of cacao was set before the principal lord, who drank a single ceremonial cup and distributed the rest of the foam to the most honored guests. The foam — the wayij — was the central aesthetic and symbolic element of the drink, and it is repeatedly emphasized in the painted vases of the Late Classic.

Salt: the indispensable mineral

Salt is essential to human life, and the Maya produced it in surprising quantities. The principal sources were the coastal flats of the Gulf coast (the modern states of Yucatán and Campeche) and the Caribbean coast of Belize, where seawater or brackish spring water was channeled into shallow pans and allowed to evaporate. Two sites dominate the historical record: Sacapuc and Chontal (modern Telchac Puerto) on the Yucatán north coast, and Zia and Emal on the east coast. The classic colonial-era description of salt production at Sacapuc describes a network of raised earth pans (p’ak’ul), each several meters wide, into which seawater was poured and allowed to evaporate. The salt was scraped up, packed in palm-leaf baskets, and shipped inland.

The salt of the Maya coast was not a fine-grained rock salt. It was a coarse, mineral-rich product with substantial impurities of calcium, magnesium, and potassium, and with a strong flavor that is widely preferred for the recado-style cooking of Yucatán. The salt’s mineral content also made it useful as a source of electrolytes in a hot, lowland climate.

Salt had a critical role in the Maya kitchen. The nixtamalization process by which maize is made into masa uses calcium hydroxide, but the home cook typically also adds salt, both for flavor and to support the osmoregulation of a maize-staple diet. Salt was also a critical ingredient in the curing of meat, the production of fish sauce, and the preservation of chilmolli and chamoy-style condiments.

The salt of the Maya coast was traded inland, often by canoe up the Hondo, the Usumacinta, the Motagua, and the Grijalva. Salt routes converged on the great inland markets of Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Tikal, and the Petexbatún. Salt was, along with cacao, one of the principal currencies of the long-distance trade, and a major source of elite wealth.

Honey, the stingless bee, and balché

The Maya produced honey on a commercial scale. The principal species was the stingless Melipona bee (Melipona beecheii of the Yucatán, M. yucatanica, Scaptotrigona pectoral of the highland), kept in hollow-log hives called jobones suspended in the family garden. Two harvests a year produced a watery, intensely aromatic honey that was used as a sweetener, a medicine, and the base of balché, the mildly fermented mead that was the canonical drink of community feasts and rain ceremonies.

Honey was also a trade good, packed in ceramic jars and shipped along the same routes that carried salt. The wax of the stingless bee was used in the lost-wax casting of small copper and gold ornaments in the Postclassic period, and the wax was traded inland along the same routes that carried cacao and salt.

Obsidian, jade, pyrite, and the highland goods

The Maya highlands were the source of most of the lithic, mineral, and animal products that defined prestige in the lowland courts.

Obsidian is a volcanic glass used for blades, scrapers, projectile points, and eccentrics. The principal Maya sources were the highland Guatemala volcanoes of El Chayal, San Martín Jilotepeque, and Ixtepeque, and the Mexican sources of Pachuca (in modern Hidalgo) and El Tajos. Obsidian is virtually absent from the lowlands in primary outcrops, so the supply depended on a long-distance trade that ran from the highland mines to the lowland markets.

Jade (jadeite, a sodium-rich pyroxene) was the supreme precious stone of the ancient Maya, more valued than gold. The principal Maya source was the Motagua Valley of Guatemala, where jadeite boulders are found in the river alluvium and in landslide debris. The Motagua jadeite was the source of most Classic-period Maya jades, including the famous carved plaques, masks, ear spools, and beads that are found in the tombs of the great rulers. The jade was carved by lapidary specialists using abrasive sand and string saws, sometimes with the aid of hematite and quartzite.

Pyrite and hematite were mined in the same highland sources and worked into mirrors. Pyrite mirrors were set in wooden or bone backings and used for divination; they appear in the Maya Religion, Mythology, and Cosmology in descriptions of the ajaw consulting the mirror.

Quetzal feathers were the most expensive of the bird-product prestige goods. The resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) was the source of the long, brilliant green tail feathers of the male, prized throughout Mesoamerica and the subject of long-distance trade from the highland cloud forests of Chiapas and Guatemala. The trade in quetzal feathers continued into the Postclassic and into the colonial period, when it was used as a tribute item and as a personal adornment.

Cotton was grown in the lower-lying areas of the Maya lowlands and on the Pacific piedmont. The principal species was the native Gossypium hirsutum var. punctatum. Cotton textiles were a major trade good, and cotton was the basis of the colorful headdresses and loincloths seen in the Bonampak murals. The spinning and weaving of cotton is treated in Maya Clothing, Adornment, and Appearance and in the modern continuation of Maya textile arts in Maya Textiles: Weaving and Huipil.

The trade routes

The Maya trade routes were not a single network but several overlapping systems, each organized around a specific commodity and a specific geography. The principal routes were:

The Gulf coast salt and cacao route — from the salt pans of Sacapuc and Chontal inland to the cenote ring of the northern Yucatán, and from the lower Usumacinta to the Petén interior.
The Caribbean coast route — from the salt pans of Zia and Emal to the river systems of the New and Hondo, and from there into the Petén and the Mopan valley.
The Highland-to-lowland obsidian and jade route — from El Chayal, San Martín Jilotepeque, and the Motagua Valley down the Usumacinta and the Motagua del Caribe to the lowland cities.
The Pacific piedmont cacao route — from the Soconusco and the piedmont of Chiapas up into the highlands of Guatemala, and from there to the Yucatán by river and canoe.
The Central Mexican trade — obsidian from Pachuca and El Tajos, copper bells from the West Mexican shaft-tomb tradition, and other items, exchanged with the Maya lowland cities across the Gulf coast and the Caribbean.

The transport of these goods depended on the canoe and on human porters. The Maya had no draft animals, no wheeled vehicles (although small wheeled toys appear in some contexts), and no pack-animals in the Old World sense. Canoes, often carved from a single cedar or mahogany log, could carry up to several tons of cargo on calm rivers and along the protected coast. Porters carried goods on land, in net bags suspended from a tumpline across the forehead, and were organized in caravans that might be 30 to 60 people strong.

Markets and currencies

The Maya had markets, often on a periodic schedule. Diego de Landa, in his Relación de Yucatán, described markets in the major towns of the Yucatán, with formal plazas set aside for exchange, a class of specialist merchants, and a body of customary law. Markets also met at lowland centers such as Tikal and Caracol, where archaeological surveys have identified plaza-side pavements that may be the platforms of vendor stalls.

The principal medium of exchange in the higher-value transactions was cacao, and the principal medium of exchange in the lower-value transactions was a system of standardized cloth lengths and quality grades. Smaller transactions were settled with stone and shell beads, especially the greenstone beads of jade and the Spondylus shell from the Ecuadorian coast. The longer-distance trade used cacao and salt as the principal currencies, and the elite accumulated both as a form of stored wealth.

The principal interest of the system is that it allowed the elite to fund public works, ritual feasts, and the standing army described in Warfare, Captives, and Human Sacrifice without a formal system of coinage. The state stored cacao, salt, and cloth in central storehouses and redistributed them in the periodic feasts that bound the Maya Society, Politics, and Daily Life of the Classic period.

The trade economy in the political life of the cities

The trade in cacao, salt, and the other high-value goods was not a separate economic sector but a principal means by which the elite of the Major Maya Cities and Archaeological Sites financed their political and ritual life. The Site of Tikal, for example, was the head of an extensive trade network that brought obsidian, jade, and cacao from the highland and Pacific sources into the Petén. The Site of Cancuén, a Late Classic capital on the Pasion River in the southern Petén, was a major entrepôt of obsidian and cacao trade. The Site of Copan controlled the trade of the highland Honduran and Guatemalan Motagua jadeite. The Site of Cancuén was sacked c. 800 CE, possibly in a war over the trade.

The Postclassic period intensified the trade in cacao, salt, and cotton. The capital of Site of Chichen Itza was at the heart of a network that reached to the Caribbean (the circum-Caribbean trade in Spondylus and gold), to central Mexico (the turquoise and obsidian trade), and to the Pacific piedmont. The role of trade in the political history of the Postclassic is treated in Postclassic Period: Transformation and Change and in Is Chichen Itza Maya or Toltec?.

Conclusion

Cacao, salt, and honey were the principal food-based trade goods of the ancient Maya, supplemented by obsidian, jade, cotton, feathers, and a wide range of forest and coastal products. The trade in these goods was organized by canoe and porter, anchored in periodic markets, and financed by a system of currencies in which cacao beans played the role of coin. The trade shaped the political life of the Major Maya Cities and Archaeological Sites, underwrote the elite feasts described in What Was on the Maya Menu During Festivals?, and is the principal subject of the Maya Trade, Markets, and Economy page. The same trade routes are mapped, in detail, on the Maya Science, Mathematics, and Astronomy page on the iconographic record of the painted vases.

Sources

Fedick, S. L., ed. (1996). The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use. University of Utah Press. — link
Beach, T. et al. (2017). Ancient Maya wetland fields in Belize: Measuring, modelling and managing ancient tropical environments. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13, 476–487. — link
Wilkinson, T. J. et al. (2006). Classic Maya Water Management at Tikal, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 33 (10), 1362–1384. — link
Re Cruz, A. (1996). The Two Milpas of Chan Kom: A Study of Seasonal and Year-round Labor Force Organization in a Mayan Community. University of Texas Press. — link
Cancian, F. (1972). Change and Uncertainty in a Peasant Economy: The Maya Corn Farmers of Zinacantán. Stanford University Press. — link