482 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
for the bride price is a part of the property of the clan of the mother, 
and by the same token a kind of economic security for the children to 
be born of the union. Perhaps greater male authority was first super- 
imposed upon the original matrilineal structure with the adoption of 
a pastoral economy, in order to achieve more efficient handling of herds 
of livestock; at the same time membership in the maternal clan was 
preserved as security against protracted droughts when part or all of 
the stock could be accommodated at the waterhole of some distant 
clansman. 
Once the pastoral way of life was established it was powerfully 
reinforced by the cultural factors of bride purchase and polygamy, 
for the payment of a groom for his bride is traditionally made in 
cattle. Although cash—preferably in bolivars—is becoming more 
and more important in many transactions of life, cattle are still the 
basis of wealth for most Guajiros, and the families of both bride 
and groom are happier if the bride price is paid in cattle. Until 
this concept has changed it will be difficult to do much about over- 
grazing in vast sectors of the Peninsula. Overgrazing sets in mo- 
tion a chain reaction, for it spells an ultimate decrease in the carry- 
ing capacity of the land for livestock, and consequently for those 
whose livelihood depends on their herds, and thus the end result 
often is migration from the Peninsula of both human beings and 
their animals. Such migrants often find it more to their liking 
to enter gradually the area of Latin culture, and are therefore happy 
to settle in a place like La Gloria where the process of acculturation 
is operative at degrees of speed that can be somewhat controlled by 
the principals. Observations made in the settlement of La Gloria 
show that not only in its matrilineal structure, but in many other 
important aspects as well, the Guajiro social organization continues 
to be receptive to cultural influences from outside. Conclusions 
reached in the study of acculturation of the Guajiros might be valid 
for investigators of cultures and subcultures elsewhere. 
La Gloria is the last—or the first—outpost of the Guajira, a tiny 
settlement on the fringe of the great desert. It is here in La Gloria 
that the process of acculturation can be most clearly observed, for 
those who live here look one way to the Guajira desert and the 
other to the asphalt highway that leads to “civilization.” Geograph- 
ically and culturally they front both cultures. La Gloria lies 100 
kilometers north of Maracaibo, only 3 kilometers beyond the end of 
the macadam road that goes from Maracaibo to Paraguaipoa, which 
is a regional center and the site of the big Monday Guajiro market. 
It is a mere caserio, a diminutive group of houses set among the 
white dunes that have been formed by sand blown inland by the ever- 
active trade winds from the beach of the Gulf of Maracaibo as much 
as 4 or 5 kilometers. 
