112
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
Chipaya of the Bolivian Altiplano speak languages with affinities to proto-Maya,
Johannessen included these two areas in his itinerary “to test the hypothesis that
speakers of languages derived from Maya have more homologous uses for the
melanotic chickens than their non-Mayan neighbours”. Johannessen studied the
geographical distribution of American tribes in North and South America that use
the melanotic chicken to heal a variety of psychic and physical conditions in ways
comparable with the K’ekchi of Guatemala and with ancient and modern southern
Chinese traditional practice.
His conclusions establish a clear pattern of diffusion in America for the Chinese
medical complex associated with the melanotic chicken:
The Chinese literature and modern practice describe the ethnomedical treatments for specific maladies through the use of BB-BMC. Among modern Maya of Mesoamerica (Chorti,
K’ekchi, Chol) the same infirmities are cured with effectively the same application of
BB-BMC feathers, blood, organs, meat, halves as poultices, etc. Six to seven hundred kilometres to the north of the Chol, the Huastecas (with a Maya language) utilize a large portion
of the Mayan-Chinese ritual. The Chipaya 4000 km to the south are the most Maya-like of
the South American groups I interviewed. Since they are said to have a proto-Maya derived
language, their use of the BB-BMC fits a diffusion model. The additional filtering provided
by another 2000 km has removed most Maya features from the ethnomedical system of
the Mapuches (or Araucanians) of southern Chile, who also speak a proto-Maya derived
language.
The cultures intervening between the Chipaya, the Maya and the Husastecans do not use the
distinctive BB-BMC in the Chinese-Maya medical mode. I postulate a long time period during which the Southern Chinese or at least South Asian arts of folk medicine diffused. They
were incorporated into the Maya tradition and maintained best near the zone of primary
contact and reduced in intensity the farther Mayan speakers migrated from their culture
hearth (p. 433).
As long as a cultural complex associated with a chicken with clear morphological characteristics, such as the melanotic chicken, remains important, the breed
and its defining characteristics are likely to be preserved through line breeding.
Johannessen’s study suggests that Maya speakers clearly played a part in preserving
both the morphological characteristics of the Asiatic melanotic chicken in America
and in preserving the Chinese shamanistic/medical system that was originally diffused with the chicken and gave the imported chicken value. Johannessen tells us
that “one of the few Chinese and Maya-like traits found throughout Polynesia and
Andean South America, where and when the melanotic chicken can be obtained”
was making a soup from a melanotic chicken and feeding it to a miscarrying
woman or a woman exhausted by childbirth or lacking milk [14]. That this practice of making such a healing soup has been recorded in Polynesia suggests the
possibility that the Chinese shamanistic/medical system that the Maya speakers
still preserve in Mesoamerica may once have been known and practised by Spice
Islanders and that it may have been introduced to southern California with a melanotic chicken lineage by either first- or second-wave explorers or traders following
the Kuro Shio route. The presence of melanotic chickens in Mexico, which borders southern California (the likely Kuro Shio landfall), and the preservation of
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
Chipaya of the Bolivian Altiplano speak languages with affinities to proto-Maya,
Johannessen included these two areas in his itinerary “to test the hypothesis that
speakers of languages derived from Maya have more homologous uses for the
melanotic chickens than their non-Mayan neighbours”. Johannessen studied the
geographical distribution of American tribes in North and South America that use
the melanotic chicken to heal a variety of psychic and physical conditions in ways
comparable with the K’ekchi of Guatemala and with ancient and modern southern
Chinese traditional practice.
His conclusions establish a clear pattern of diffusion in America for the Chinese
medical complex associated with the melanotic chicken:
The Chinese literature and modern practice describe the ethnomedical treatments for specific maladies through the use of BB-BMC. Among modern Maya of Mesoamerica (Chorti,
K’ekchi, Chol) the same infirmities are cured with effectively the same application of
BB-BMC feathers, blood, organs, meat, halves as poultices, etc. Six to seven hundred kilometres to the north of the Chol, the Huastecas (with a Maya language) utilize a large portion
of the Mayan-Chinese ritual. The Chipaya 4000 km to the south are the most Maya-like of
the South American groups I interviewed. Since they are said to have a proto-Maya derived
language, their use of the BB-BMC fits a diffusion model. The additional filtering provided
by another 2000 km has removed most Maya features from the ethnomedical system of
the Mapuches (or Araucanians) of southern Chile, who also speak a proto-Maya derived
language.
The cultures intervening between the Chipaya, the Maya and the Husastecans do not use the
distinctive BB-BMC in the Chinese-Maya medical mode. I postulate a long time period during which the Southern Chinese or at least South Asian arts of folk medicine diffused. They
were incorporated into the Maya tradition and maintained best near the zone of primary
contact and reduced in intensity the farther Mayan speakers migrated from their culture
hearth (p. 433).
As long as a cultural complex associated with a chicken with clear morphological characteristics, such as the melanotic chicken, remains important, the breed
and its defining characteristics are likely to be preserved through line breeding.
Johannessen’s study suggests that Maya speakers clearly played a part in preserving
both the morphological characteristics of the Asiatic melanotic chicken in America
and in preserving the Chinese shamanistic/medical system that was originally diffused with the chicken and gave the imported chicken value. Johannessen tells us
that “one of the few Chinese and Maya-like traits found throughout Polynesia and
Andean South America, where and when the melanotic chicken can be obtained”
was making a soup from a melanotic chicken and feeding it to a miscarrying
woman or a woman exhausted by childbirth or lacking milk [14]. That this practice of making such a healing soup has been recorded in Polynesia suggests the
possibility that the Chinese shamanistic/medical system that the Maya speakers
still preserve in Mesoamerica may once have been known and practised by Spice
Islanders and that it may have been introduced to southern California with a melanotic chicken lineage by either first- or second-wave explorers or traders following
the Kuro Shio route. The presence of melanotic chickens in Mexico, which borders southern California (the likely Kuro Shio landfall), and the preservation of