The pastoralists have various possibilities for selling caterpillar fungus, which can be sold fresh or dried. Fresh caterpillar fungus is sold by piece, in small amounts: a few dozen fungi travel to the market wrapped in a plastic bag – the number depends on the locality, time, and luck of the digger. Fresh caterpillar fungus is sold in the same form as it was extracted from the ground: covered with a layer of soil, which keeps it moist and protects it from breaking. Selling it this way has advantages. It saves people the effort of cleaning and drying the fungus at home. This job will be done by traders and their assistants: groups of them, often women, sit in the shops and on the street, cleaning the fungus and guarding it as it is spread out in the sun to dry. It is also easy to find a buyer for small amounts of fresh fungi. Finally, even if selling the fungus fresh only brings in a small income, it is a fast income, coming almost immediately after the fungus is found.

A quick sale of fresh caterpillar fungus is believed to indicate that the seller needs money: ‘Poor people sell yartsa fresh’, as many pastoralists say. This association meant my informants were hesitant to admit that they did it too. But selling caterpillar fungus fresh does not have to signal poverty. Malinowski and De la Fuente, in their study of rural markets in Mexico, show that the villagers bring only small quantities of their products to the market: they sell precisely as much as they need to survive until the next market (1982: 186, Sulek 1986: 69). Selling caterpillar fungus fresh does not bring pastoralists big money but sufficient income for a time. It does not have to indicate lack of money in general, but lack of cash at home and could be a result of particular preferences in managing the household finances. Even well-off families sell some fungus fresh to avoid withdrawing money from the bank. The banks are located in the remote county town, while the market is on the pastoralist's doorstep, in the township. The market functions as an ‘always ready, always available and amenable bank’ for anyone who needs cash (Malinowski and De la Fuente 1982: 186).