According to John Sorenson, every army in the world [or group of people on the move] has had to find culturally and ecologically effective ways to cope with the problem of shelter in the field. As long as there are armies, there must be cross-cultural equivalents of "tents." The only questions in relation to a specific culture have to do with form, materials, and names.
According to the Motul dictionary, a classic sixteenth-century work that scholars automatically turn to for supplementary light on pre-Spanish Yucatec Maya language and culture, the definition for the Maya word pazel is "choza o tienda en el campo, o casilla pequena de paja" (hut or tent for use in the field, or small straw booth).
Mesoamerican farmers have long and widely used a similar type of hut. For example, the Zoques of Santa Maria Chimalapa in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec still construct "very small chozas of palm fronds and grass, almost level with the ground, where they sleep during the days when they work in the fields" away from home. [John L. Sorenson, "Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe! in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, Num. 1, pp. 334-335] [See the commentary on 2 Nephi 5:7; Mosiah 2:6; Alma 2:20; Alma 46:31; Mormon 6:4]