GULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—McBRYDE 41 
somewhat smaller scale at San Antonio, Cuyotenango, 
Chicacao, and other less populous towns. Some- 
times the great lizards are carried in trade up into 
the Highlands (pls. 12, ¢; 13, a). The markets of 
El Salvador are generally well supplied with live 
iguanas during the Lenten season. 
CAYMANS 
(Caiman sp., a close relative of the North American 
alligator) 
It was said all through the Lowlands that until 
recent years cayman hunting had been a major in- 
dustry, carried on mainly at night with torches and 
gigs. The year 1932 or 1933 was suggested as about 
the time when hunting laws went into effect to pro- 
tect caymans in the Department of Suchitepequez. 
Roast cayman still appears not uncommonly in the 
markets, however, at times reaching the Highlands.®® 
There seems to be a great demand for it at the present 
time, especially during Lent. Mrs. Maudslay wrote 
of this fondness for cayman meat on the part of Zara- 
goza Indians, quoting a probably exaggerated local 
report to the effect that vendors had “to be locked 
up in the ‘carcel’ for protection and sell the meat 
through the prison bars” (Maudslay, 1899, p. 41). 
Smoked garfish impaled upon large sections of 
cane are commonly sold in Lowland markets. At 
Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa, in January 1941, I saw 
eight Indian women in: the market selling smoked 
wild boar, and _ tepeizcuinte (probably 
Cuniculus paca). Three others were selling live 
iguanas. 
venison, 
HOUSES 
(Map 14) 
HOUSE PLANS: DWELLINGS 
No attempt was made to undertake any but the 
simplest observations regarding house construction 
and architecture. These aspects of habitations were 
carefully studied in 1934 by Wauchope, whose de- 
tailed descriptions and excellent illustrations ap- 
peared in print in 1938.°7 Since his purpose was 
manifestly ‘to facilitate interpretation of ancient 
dwelling sites,” however, the scope of his observation 
was of necessity somewhat limited. In view of this 
fact, and of the difference in viewpoint between the 
geographer and the archeologist, it seemed expedient 
to attempt a broader survey, emphasizing the highly 
variable and often environmentally conditioned fac- 
tor of materials of construction, especially for walls 
and roof, noting at the same time characteristic floor 
plans, thatch crests, and other outstanding features. 
House types in Southwest Guatemala vary 
primarily in terms of materials of construction, de- 
pendent essentially upon the environment. There 
is little fundamental difference in form, or even in 
floor plan, for nearly all are rectangular (the A-frame 
type being possibly of European introduction). 
There are two types of rectangular houses: the 
A-irame type and the king-post variety, which 
Wauchope (1938, p. 26) has suggested as being the 
56 In Solola (1932) I have seen smoked cayman for sale in the plaza 
(pl. 14, d), and was told that it came from near Tahuesco. The chief 
source of the delicacy in Quezaltenango (1936) was said to be the 
lagoons and marshes in the vicinity of Coatunco (?). 
57 Wauchope, 1938. This is the only detailed study of modern Guate- 
mala houses thus far undertaken, for other than a very restricted area 
(e.g., Kekchi, Sapper, 1905). 
older of the two. The apparently older-style, square 
houses, with pot-capped, pyramidal, grass-thatched 
roofs, are seen only in the more primitive, isolated 
Lake Atitlan villages and certain of their Lowland 
colonial offshoots (map 14). 
Wauchope concluded that, in Guatemala— 
The square house may be older than the rectangular. An 
informant at San Lucas Toliman said that the square house 
and the rectangular house with its ridgepole supported by a 
single king-rod at each end (pl. 7, d) are both older forms 
than the rectangular house with its ridge-piece carried by 
A-frames or rafters. He said that the last-named type came 
in about thirty years ago, in imitation of rectangular houses 
on plantations of the West Coast. If this is true, the oc- 
currence of the square house could be used as a measure 
of the relative primitiveness of towns in Guatemala.™ 
A comparison of the present-day aspect of San 
Antonio Palopo with its 1894 characteristics, as 
shown in the photographs published by the Maudslays 
(1889, pp. 52, 53), affords some confirmation of 
Wauchope’s report; for square houses, apparently 
the “primitive” type, actually predominated in 1894.°* 
Even the rectangular houses were not very elongated. 
In 1936 the latter type was prevalent, with pyramid 
roofs extremely rare, and there were even a consid- 
58 Wauchope, 1938, p. 26. The appearance of the pyramid roof and 
round or square types in the various codices may be cited as evidence 
of their antiquity in Mexico. (See Mendoza Codex, reproduced in 
Wauchope, 1938, p. 170: and, for pyramid roof, Codices Nuttal and 
Borgia, reproduced in Linné, 1938, p. 19.) 
5® Besides the photographs there is the statement of Mrs. Maudslay 
(1899, p. 51): ‘The walls of the queer-looking square houses are 
built of rough stones, held together by a framework of undressed sticks 
none of the Indian houses are plastered or white-washed . . .” 
