60 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 4 
the water was spread over the flat surface to im- 
pregnate the soil with salt. The sun and dry air 
of this desiccated valley rapidly evaporated the water 
from the brine (especially during the dry season) 
and salt was crystallized, coating the soil as with 
snow. The saline surface crust was scraped up and 
put upon a clay filter, and fresh water leached 
through, several times if necessary. Then the brine 
was boiled “in series of small terra cotta vessels,” 
with fire burning continuously through the day. The 
salt, which was scraped from the vessels by hand, 
was characterized as “dirty and impure,” and the 
method as a primitive one which probably dates to 
pre-Conquest time. The French authors saw no 
possibility of improving the method, despite the 
many efforts made, because of the “backwardness 
of the Indians.” 
Modern Sacapulas salt is sold in clean-looking 
white cakes. There has apparently been little 
change in the method of making it. The salt- 
encrusted surface of the same little river plain (pl. 
42, ¢) mentioned by Dollfus and Mont-Serrat is 
scraped with broad hoes into little mounds of saline 
earth, which is carried in deep baskets on human 
backs to vats where water is poured over it and 
filtered through a layer of fine clay laid on palm mats. 
The brine is boiled in the same “small terra cotta 
vessels.” When quite thick, it is poured into flat, 
circular molds about 3 inches in diameter, to dry into 
white cakes (pl. 42, f). The saltmakers said that 
plots of the salt playa were privately owned. 
Salt has played an important role in Central 
America since pre-Columbian times as a medium of 
exchange for small-scale purchases, a significance 
which has persisted almost until the present time. 
Ponce’s companion wrote (vol. 2, p. 120) “. 
Spaniards come from many regions to buy [salt], 
and for this there is in Atoyaque a market every 
five days, and the chief article sold in it is salt.” 
Mendizabal (1929, p. 190) quotes from the Relacion 
de Mestitlén: “Salt is small currency for minor 
purchases among the Indians” (see also Blom, 
1932). Numerous reports of old residents in Guate- 
mala today concur in the use of salt for small cur- 
rency until as recently as about 1890 (McBryde, 
1933, p. 124). 
LIME 
The distribution of limestone outcrops and lime- 
burning centers is considered in a later section 
(p. 73 and map 18). San Francisco el Alto 
was the only locality in which field notes were ob- 
tained regarding lime production. These were not 
from first-hand observation, however, but from an 
intelligent Indian informant (Adrian Chavez). Lime 
burning in this municipio is the special industry of 
the canton Paxixil, where almost all residents are 
engaged in this activity. The limestone, much of 
which has a greenish cast, outcrops near the Conti- 
nental Divide just north of the village. It is quar- 
ried by means of picks, and broken up with 5-pound 
sledges. The quarry is communally owned. About 
one-half of the residents of canton Paxixil own kilns, 
adjacent to their dwellings. Built of stone slabs 
about 10 inches thick, the structures are hemispheri- 
cal, about 6 feet high and 8 feet in diameter, with a 
smoke hole in the top, 2 feet or more wide, and 
an opening of about the same size at the side, for 
putting in limestone and firewood (chiefly oak). 
Burning is continuous for 4 days and nights, various 
workers taking shifts at a kiln. 
There were also said to be six or eight communal 
kilns, like the privately owned ones, but larger (about 
12 ft. in diameter). A group of four or five families, 
often related, uses one kiln, each family bringing a 
share of the raw materials and taking out a propor- 
tional share of the finished product. 
The vendors of lime, according to my informant, 
are poorer residents of the same canton, a distinct 
group; on rare occasions a maker of lime sells it 
direct to the consumer, by special order. San Fran- 
cisco lime, like that made in other Guatemala centers, 
is sold by weight, in lump form. In the Cuchumatanes 
region, granular lime (air-slaked?) and spherical 
balls of lime are sometimes sold (p. 73). 
The most widespread use of lime, for which the 
greater part of it is sold, is in making an aqueous 
solution (limewater)’ in which corn is boiled and 
softened. The hominy thus obtained, called nix- 
tamal, an Aztec name, is then easily ground on the 
stone for making tortillas, tamales, posole, or other 
derivatives of masa (ground maize paste). In mor- 
tar, whitewash, and plaster a great amount of lime 
is also consumed, and sometimes excessively acid soils 
are treated with it. On one occasion, just south of 
Chichicastenango, in 1932, I saw a field which had 
been generously sprinkled with lime. 
METATES (GRINDING STONES) 
Essential in every Guatemala household is at least 
one set of stones for grinding corn.°? The basal 
®2 Most towns now have at least one motor-driven mill where many 
Indians bring corn to be ground, on the days when they come to market. 
Town dwellers visit them more frequently. 
