INTRODUCTION
The purposes of this study are to document the distribution of black-boned, black-meated chickens (BB-BMC) in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, to identify past and present uses of the chickens, and to illustrate possible linkages between preb-Colombian, Meso-American, and Oriental practices associated with the BB-BMC. The BB-BMC are currently found from northern Mexico southward into Central America, although the number of genetically pure, fully expressed melanotic chickens is small. The realization that the uses of the BB-BMC among the K'ekchí Maya are similar to the uses of this same chicken by the ancient Chinese leads me to suggest the likelihood of early and significant contact between the Orient and the Middle American Mayan realm (Johannessen 1981, 427-434; Johannessen 1982, 73-89; Johannessen, Fogg, and Fogg 1985,493-95). The medicinal treatments involving the BB-BMC in the Maya-dominated regions of Mexico and Guatemala are similar to the ancient belief systems found in old Chinese "medicinal" texts but differ considerably from the practices of other New World indigenous peoples (Johannessen 1981, 427-34).

The peoples of the Maya language groups apparently used in the past the BB-BMC in brujería or witchcraft, but those data are much more difficult to obtain than is information on curing the peoples' maladies. Belief in brujería was present, but I could not effectively gather data on it.

METHODOLOGY
The methods used were relatively simple and non-statistical. We conducted interviews in Spanish, although at times we used Spanish interpreters to communicate with the Indians in their native languages. We conducted "open-ended" interviews that caused the respondents to describe the use rather than to give "yes" or "no" answers to whether or how they use BB-BMC medicinally. We developed a set of pertinent questions to which we wanted answers, and information was recorded on plain notebook paper rather than on questionnaires. We continued to expand in this way the possibilities for responses and did not have a full "cookbook" of ideas until near the end of the trip.

I observed directly whether the local peoples had any black face-comb-Iegged chickens in their yards and stopped to talk with those who did. People in the "curing arts" were also frequently sought as informants. Herb sellers, curanderos or healers, medical doctors, priests, elderly people, and school teachers provided good information.

Nearly everyone we spoke with was sampled for knowledge of these beliefs and, in general, contacts were made easily. Folk medicine is frequently everyone's job in rural communities. We accepted information even if the respondents were not curanderos. The country folk seldom tried to mislead us. The same complex systems were described again and again with no leading questions from us that could have suggested an answer.

The Indian cultures sampled included the following: Tarahumar, Huastecan, Otomí, Tlascalan, Totonac, Zapotec, Mixé, Tehuan, Yucatec or May, Chol, K'ekch'aai, lxiI, Quiché, Tzutuhil, Chortí, and Cachiquel. Several of the non-Mayan groups did not use the BB-BMC medicinally, although some who did not use it had heard of its use at other times or places.

RESEARCH FINDINGS
Highly mixed and hybridized BB-BMC were found in Mexico from Matamoros southward along the Gulf of Mexico to Belize and through Central Mexico to the Pacific Coast of Guatemala at least as far as the Honduran region near Copán (Figure 1). I was also told of the existence of BB-BMC among the Indians in the Costa Rican tropical zone. Within these regions I found a few BB-BMC of relatively [end p. 43]

pure form; the rest are highly mixed --eighth, quarter, and half breeds predominated. I was told repeatedly that a generation ago melanotic chickens were much more common but, with a recent series of diseases that killed high percentages of barnyard chickens, the only chicks available for replacement have been of commercial breeds. Missionaries, commercial hatcheries, and agricultural extension agents have changed the percentages of the breeds now living. Despite this, some BB-BMC still exist.

Figure 1 portrays the distribution and uses of the BB-BMC among these Indian (and, in some cases, mestizo) groups in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The meaning of the numbers presented in Figure 1 is given in Table 1 for each digit location and in Table 2 for subdivisions of each heading of Table 1 and Figure 1. These nine indices, plotted systematically, use up to nine subheadings under the positional location of numerals given in Table 1. Figure 1 has more than one digit in several of the positional locations for the numerals. That denotes the several uses when more than one use was recorded for a given category of use at a site.

I have endeavored to order the subheadings under each of these sites with the most arbitrary and complex traits receiving the highest numbers. Several of the profane uses of BB-BMC are ubiquitous. Meat and eggs of white-boned chicken (WBC) are eaten almost everywhere now, although the extent of the willingness of people with incipient kwashiorkor to sell chicken meat when they ought to be craving protein may indicate a deeper underlying feeling toward the use of the chicken as meat for themselves than we-or they-are willing to admit. [end p. 44]

[end p. 45]

[end p. 46] Increasing complexity of the posted, numerical trait characteristics on Figure 1 implies greater presence and diversity of BB-BMC use. Other research indicates that these uses are frequently recorded in the literature on Chinese belief systems. Most significant, perhaps, is the finding that many of the most complex beliefs about the BB-BMC are found in the Huasteca of Mexico and are less well known in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and southwestern Guatemala, then show up again across the base of the Yucatan peninsula from the Chol to the K'ekchí in Alta Verapaz and spread to the Copán area of Honduras among the Chortí; that is, they are most pronounced in the Mayan dominated regions.

Beliefs that half a BB-BMC placed on the bottom of each foot, while the chicken is still quivering after being cut in half, will cure pulmonary attack or asthma would appear to be fairly arbitrary as is the belief that, if placed on the side of the head, the two halves of the BB-BMC will cure high fevers. The use of blood, meat, or eggs of BB-BMC on pressure points in highly ritualistic ways to counter the evil eye, evil winds, ghosts, fright, and ghost fright are improbable enough that it is likely that they were carefully taught; even the symptoms of the illnesses are the same when compared to the Chinese (Johannessen 1982, 79-83).

All these treatments normally are carried out with various incenses (especially copal pom), candles, and incantations by the Maya. I have little direct knowledge of Chinese techniques except that, as a general rule, the Chinese do use incense and candles. The use of ancillary traits of herbs, alcohol, or other decoctions to counter ghosts, fright, spooks in the house, or evil eye or evil winds is certainly widespread and is normally accompanied by incantation and prayers. These are habitually performed when treating with BB-BMC, although incantations and certain herbs alone may be utilized by those more acculturated folk who use no chicken sacrifice as a way of treating or curing.

The fact that these sacrificial practices deal so consistently with cures for the supernatural allows us to claim a high level of arbitrariness for them. This, in turn, makes independent inventions of the trait less likely when comparable traits are found elsewhere, for instance in East and Southeast Asia.

The above traits are relatively easily found in the Chinese literature. In addition to Johannessen's and Fogg's (1982, 73-89) reported translations from the Chinese, another translation of Chinese use of BB-BMC can be found in Groot (1901,965-70).

An amplification of this diffusionary model is possible as a result of the finding of a Catholic priest in Santiago Tuxtla that BB-BMC are still sacrificed and buried in front of, or under the pole of, the voladores at the time of the Fliers Ceremony of Papantla, Veracruz.

John Barr Tompkins, formerly of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, studied the volador ceremony and has permitted the use of his unpublished manuscript material stored at the University of Oregon library. Tompkins has found four additional citations of the sacrifice of chicken of some unknown type before or under the volador pole. He has, in addition, found many published references to the burial ofBB-BMC in India, among [end p. 47] the Gond peoples, and in Southeast Asia, at the base of or under poles erected for communication with the heavens in ceremonial rites that are symmbolically comparable to those of the voladores of Middle America.

Among the Huastec, another Mayan language group, the use of the BB-BMC in curing is very similar to that of the K'ekchí and that of the Chinese. It is within the Huasteca region, additionally, that the main use of chicken feathers has been discovered. More field work is needed to fully investigate their practices.

The 800 km separation of the Huastecs of the eastern part of San Luis Potosí state, Mexico, from the remaining Mayan language groups centered in Guatemala took place approximately 2,500 years prior to the arrival of the Spaniards (Wolf 1959,38; Coe 1966, 32; Thompson 1966, 28). People in the intervening area have little knowledge of the sophisticated use of BB-BMC in curing, whereas the Huastecs and some other Mayan language groups know of and use BB-BMC with the same intricacy employed by the southern Chinese. By using this ancient, documented separation of one group from another, we have a probable measure of the minimum age of the presence of the chicken in the Americas.

Critics of my hypothesis of pre-Columbian pressence of BB-BMC suggest that BB-BMC was introduced in the sixteenth century by the Spanish-Manila trade. I find it impossible that Spanish ship captains could have allowed Chinese curers with BB-BMC aboard their ships during the time of the Inquisition and in direct violation of the Crown's edicts that only Catholics in good standing could enter New Spain-and Spanish America. Even if the captain would have, his superstitious crews would not have sailed knowingly with BB-BMCs on board. It is also difficult to imagine that after Spanish colonization the proposed introduction of the BB-BMC would have taken place only among the Mayan language groups. It is logical, on the other hand, that if the early Mayans had it, and they separated into two groups, both groups would maintain the same curing ceremony.

A large number of distinct names for the melanotic type of chicken exist (Table 3, Figure 2). The commmon name in the Indian languages for chickens generally is unrelated to any European words and roots. The implication from this evidence is, there- [end p. 48] fore, that the chicken was present in the Americas long before the Spanish occupation.

In the past the findings relating to pre-Columbian New World chickens-WBC and BBC-by Castelló (1924,111-18) and Latcham (1922,1-199) were denegrated because the North American reesearchers, such as E. D. Merrill (1954, 164-384), thought they had destroyed the positions of Castello and Latcham by showing that blue egg-laying chickens were found to occur occasionally in the United States poultry industry. Apparently these critics neglected to read the original Spanish or to read the footnotes to Spanish documents that supply proof of the presence of chickens at the time of Spanish contact. Castelló (1924, 111-18) and Latcham (1922, 1-199) both point out that when the Spaniards first contacted Indians in South America, the Indians frequently brought chickens as gifts.

In addition to discussing the Amazon, Paraná, and Andean river systems, the Castelló and Latcham references show that Asiatic chickens were present on Easter Island at the first, second, and third known European contacts. Since chroniclers such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1966, vol. 1, 148, 150,154,159, 160-61, 164, 180, 181, 200) claimed that the Indians of New Spain also had chickens, I am led by this research to question the widely held view that the Spaniards were the first to introduce chickens into the New World.

Roys (1965, 25~26) noted that the Yucatecan Mayan word for asthma is coc and the asthma bird is coco or coc He also translates the Mayan word Kuk as quetzal in incantations for curing "red ulcers" and, in addition, noted that Kuk may equal "shoot," "sprout," or "Quetzal," whereas Kukulcan equals Cuculchan and may be related to coco-chan, which is Trogon-serpent (Roys 1965, 136). The similarity of sound between coc (Mayan) and Kuk (Asian), both of which have a relation to the cure of asthma in these cultures, provides a lead that should be further investigated. Regarding the incantations for eruptions, fever, and seizures, Roys (1965, 36) translated the following from the Mayan:

"These are the birds, these are the birds of tidings (mut), of eruption." Interest centers on the word mut, which is a part of the name for the BB-BMC used in the Chol language areas. I feel that these later tenuous bits of information add to the earlier evidence that chickens were in the New World when Europeans arrived in 1492.

CONCLUSIONS
The Oriental BB-BMC is widespread in Mexico and Guatemala (and South America, also). It is utilized as the core totem in the treatment of diseases atttributed to supernatural causes. These diseases have similar descriptions in both Chinese and Mayan culltures. Ancillary techniques or treatments accompanying the use of the BB-BMC curing of these same diseases are similar among traditional Maya and Oriental peoples.

Of the people speaking Mayan-derived languages who have the most intricate medicinal application of BB-BMC, the Huastecs are separated by 800 km from the contiguous Chol, K'ekchí, and Chortí. The intervening and adjacent Indian cultures between the Mayan-speaking Huastecs and the Chol and K'ekchí do not have nearly as complex beliefs in the utility of the BB-BMC. The separation of the Huastecs from the other Mayas took place approximately 3,000 years ago, and I postulate that they had the BB-BMC at that time.

Six basic Indian names and eleven variations on these are found in the region (Table 3). Several of the latter derive from some combination of the Mayan words for black, but the number of basic names unrelated to color and the complexity of the names are sufficiently high to suggest considerable antiquity for the black-boned, black-meated chickens of Mexico and Guatemala.

NOTE
1. As principal investigator, I received, with May Fogg and Wayne Fogg, a grant from the National Geographic Foundation for field investigation, during August and September, 1976, of the distribution and use of the BB-BMC in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. In the summer of 1977 National Geographic Foundation again funded my study and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon provided financial assistance which allowed me to continue this research in Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Easter Island, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Equador.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the many people in the field who gave of their time and knowledge so that this study could be made. I appreciate the insights and assistance that Martha Burns provided as a field anthropologist with the group while in Guatemala, Belize, and Yucatan Peninsula. Professor Edwin Beal helped me drive the group's truck to Guatemala; we are grateful for his patience, good humor, and understanding. The Graduate School of the University of Oregon assisted with a small grant to get us started; the National Geographic Institute of Guatemala provided maps. The National Geographic Society made possible the research with their financial support. For this and all other help we express our gratitude.

REFERENCES CITED
Castelló, S. 1924. The Gallus inauris and the hen which lays blue eggs. Second World's Poultry Congress and Exhibition, Barcelona, Spain, May 1924, 111-118.

Coe, M. D. 1966. The Maya. New York, N.Y.: Frederick A. Praeger.

Díaz del Castillo, B. 1966. Historia verdadera de la conquista de La Nueva Españ, vol. 1 of 3. Mexico, D.F.: Imprenta Aldina.

Groot, J. J. M. de. 1964 [1901]. The religious system of China (reproduction), vol. 5, book 2, 965-970. Taipei, Taiwan: Literature House.

Johannessen, C. L. 1981. Folk medicine uses of melanotic asiatic chickens as evidence of early diffusion to the New World. Social Science and Medicine 150:427-34.

__________. 1982. Melanotic chicken use and Chinese traits in Guatemala. Revista de Historia de América 93:73-89.

Johannessen, C. L., W. Fogg, and M. C. Fogg. 1984. Distribution and medicinal use of the black-boned and black-meated chicken in Mexico, Guatemala, and South America, National Geographic Society Research Reports, 1976 Projects, 493-95.

Latcham, R. 1922. Los animales domésticos de la América Pre-Colombiana. Museo del Etnología y Antropología de Chile, Santiago, Chile, Publ. 3, 1-199.

__________. 1924. Prehistoria Chilena. Santiago, Chile: Oficina del Libro.

Merrill, E. D. 1954. The botany of Cook's voyages. Chronica Botanica 14(5/6): 164-384.

Roys, R. L. 1965. Ritual of the Bacabs. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Thompson, J. E. S. 1966. The rise and fall of Maya civilization. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Wolf, E. R. 1959. Sons of the shaking earth. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.