ACCULTURATION IN THE GUAJIRA—CRIST 493 
is significant that heavy drinking is done exclusively by the men. 
In the face of the niggardly, inhospitable Guajiro physical environ- 
ment, it is not surprising that some, a prey to frustrations, would 
hope to drown their worries in alcohol. Perhaps Guajiro men feel, 
like men in many other societies, that the ability to imbibe large 
quantities of alcohol is a mark of manly strength and valor. What- 
ever the reasons, in many of the small caserios or individual houses 
the menfolk will stay drunk for days or even weeks. However, to 
the observer it seems that there is less addiction to alcohol in La 
Gloria than among the unaccultured Guajiros, in spite of certain 
inevitable tensions brought about by the disturbances in the cus- 
tomary patterns of living implied by the assumption of a sedentary 
way of life by aseminomadic people. 
It is possible that in the process of being incorporated in the 
national economy, Guajiros become keenly aware of the importance 
of clear-headedness in commercial transactions. To be sure, fiestas 
are still popular and the men still enjoy a good drunk, but there 
seems to be a tendency to cut down the amount of time spent in ritual 
drinking. 
In La Gloria, as elsewhere in the Guajira, the diseases that cause 
the high rate of infant mortality are intestinal infections of all kinds, 
due largely to the complete lack of what is known as infant care. 
In a house with sand or dirt floors, small children, living as they do 
in close proximity to pigs and chickens and putting in their mouths 
what they can find, are naturally subject to such ills as stomach aches, 
vomiting, diarrhea, and intestinal fevers. 
Faith in the old-time magic of the piache, or witch doctor—usually 
an old woman—appears to be one of the first items to be lost in the 
process of acculturation ; the “medicine” of the witch doctor, however 
strong, is often such as to make for the rapid aggravation of the dis- 
ease rather than for its cure. However, cases are not rare of Guajiros 
who, accultured to the extent of using trained doctors and modern 
medicines and techniques when ill, would be found at the same time 
to be consulting a witch doctor—just to be on the safe side. Indeed, 
the results of the introduction of modern medicine are not always 
as felicitous as might be expected or as happy as could be desired. 
For one thing, modern preventive measures are neglected in favor 
of modern curative medicines—and the more powerful the better. 
Injections are all the rage in La Gloria as elsewhere. Itinerant ped- 
dlers of injections carry on their “ministrations” openly even in the 
streets of the large metropolitan center of Maracaibo; hence it is 
not to be wondered at that those who are groping toward the light, 
away from the darkness of cures by magic of the Guajiro culture, 
should seize on this new magic of modern medicine. Thus persons 
with no knowledge of asepsis—much less of curative medicine—give 
