36 ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL 



for constructing his dwelling, but in case of his leaving, he must allow his house 

 to remain without any compensation. This agreement is made for one year, and 

 has to be renewed every year. The land wliich the peon desires to cultivate is 

 also leased but for one year. Exceptionally he gets it for two or three successive 

 years. The rent for the land he pays in produce, which amovmts to about one-sixth 

 of the crop. Besides paying the rent the settler is obliged to perform all the work 

 which the landlord requires; for this he gets six reals a week. This amount 

 seemed to me less than a laborer gets in the villages; and although the rent for a 

 lot in a village is only one-sixth of that paid on a Jiacienda, the men prefer to settle 

 on a hacienda on account of the greater fertility of the soil. 



The owners of plantations who do not possess extensive lands, secure their help 

 by advancing the wages of a month or a quarter of a year to the laborer. This 

 money is spent a long time before the expiration of the term, and the laborer asks 

 and receives other advances, in which manner it happens that he not only never 

 gets free of debt, but keeps increasing it as long as he gets credit; which he al- 

 ways can have if he is tolerably industrious. The farmers lose, at times, money 

 paid in that way, although the laborer can be forced by law to pay his debts thus 

 contracted in work. Such losses are counted as expenses of working the planta- 

 tion, and mostly considered as having been paid by the gains received from the 

 work of the laborer. The advanced wages are mostly spent in drinking and for 

 the benefit of the cliurch. All the laborers belong to various brotherhoods {co~ 

 fradla), organized in honor of various saints. Their sole object is the celebration 

 of the feast of the respective saint. For this purpose a member of the brotherhood 

 is selected as mayordomo for that occasion, wJio, as such, has to defray all the 

 expenses of the festivity, which consist in paying for the mass read and other 

 priestly ceremonies performed, and for the drink consumed during this festival. 

 I know of an instance of a laborer in Santa Lucia Cosumalwhuapa spending the 

 whole advance of wages for a quarter of a year, except two dollars, immediately, 

 as a mayordomo of a cofradiaCs feast. In San Salvador tlie man whom I hired as 

 a servant and to whom I advanced one month's wages, spent the whole in three 

 days' drinking in honor of his village patron, before entering his service. I was 

 informed tliat the farmers were compelled to make such advances, being unable to 

 get laborers under other conditions. 



Drinking is the most prevalent vice all over tropical America which I visited. 

 It is, however, less dominant in purely agricultural communities than in those 

 which make their living principally by industrial pursuits, like the manufacture 

 of hats, etc. In San Pedro Pustala for example, the inhabitants of wliich are 

 almost exclusively engaged in the manufacture of hats, I found almost every house 

 to be a chichera. 



In the mineral district of the department of Santa Ana, Avhich I visited, were 

 likewise found indications of an ancient population; as in the hamlet San Juan 

 and the village Metapan. It is not quite a century that this village has occupied 

 its present site; formerly it was nearer the shore of the small lake of the same 

 name. In this village, as in most other places, many incredible stories were nar- 

 rated to me. One of these is to the effect that a large city is at the bottom of the 



