The generation that no longer searches for mushrooms in the Lacandon jungle

Abstract

In Mexico, fungi are part of both the natural environment and the collective memory. Ethnomycology studies the relationships between human groups and fungi, particularly Traditional Mycological Knowledge, which can be drastically modified by people’s occupations and by other phenomena such as migration. Southeastern Mexico, specifically the Lacandon Forest, is a setting where complex migration processes have occurred in recent decades, playing a fundamental role in the composition and transformation of many communities. This article presents a reflection on how peasant activities favor a higher degree of Traditional Mycological Knowledge, as well as more frequent consumption of different species. Migration has acted in different ways; it initially had a positive effect by fostering an amalgamation of knowledge among people from different regions, while those early migrants maintained farming as their main occupation. Today, however, newer migrants, who adopt occupations increasingly detached from the land and the forest, are experiencing a gradual erosion of the Traditional Mycological Knowledge they would otherwise have inherited.