94 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 4 
Cutzan.—San Pedro Cutzan is unique in being a 
modern Lowland colony of Highland Indians who 
own lands both in the mountains and in the Low- 
lands, as in pre-Conquest times. It is peopled by 
Indians of San Pedro la Laguna, though it is in- 
cluded within the Chicacao municipio. Here, at an 
elevation of 400 m., an hour’s walk south of the 
pueblo of Chicacao, a group of Indians from San 
Pedro la Laguna have established a colony of about 
850 inhabitants (local estimate, 1936), the second 
largest center in the municipio. The 1930 census 
indicates a population of 100, but this was probably 
for only a portion of the settlement. Cutzan appears 
on the Intercontinental Railway Commission map 
made in 1891, and it was probably established after 
1850. 
Houses, identical with those of the mother village, 
except for the split-cecropia board walls instead of 
adobe brick, are widely dispersed along more than a 
mile of road, beside a meandering stream fed by 
many winding tributaries. The village has an area 
of 2% sq. km. (nearly 1 sq. mile). Here the allu- 
vial piedmont is dissected into rolling inter- 
stream ridges 50 m. (164 ft.) high, covered with 
smooth grassy slopes and scattered trees (pl. 2, f, 7). 
Each homestead, with the dwelling usually about 50 
to 100 m. from the nearest neighbor, includes from 
VY to 1 manzana (about 10,000 sq. m., equivalent of 
a city block) of land planted to clumps of coffee and 
cacao} trees, and sometimes: interspersed are 
jicaro (calabash tree), achiote, bananas, papayas, 
oranges, coconuts, guavas, and a few breadfruits 
serving mainly for shade and ornament. There are 
small gardens of squash, several varieties of beans 
and chiles, tomatoes, pineapples, sweet manioc, sugar- 
cane, and certain edible and medicinal herbs, notably 
ruda (rue, Ruta sp., see Standley, 1931, pp. 326- 
327; Standley and Calderén, 1925, p. 123), pito 
(Erythrina fubrinervia, a remedy for insomnia, see 
Standley and Calderén 1925, p. 111), and kixtan 
(?). Guisqiiiles (chayotes) are planted in little en- 
closures, as in the Highlands. There are maguey 
in small quantity (made locally into rope) and cotton, 
which is spun here, some being taken also to San 
Pedro. 
The planting is done, however, chiefly on Jand that 
is rented from fincas to the south, below the coffee 
belt, in the vicinity of Nahualate and eastward along 
143 Squirrels were said to be very destructive to cacao here; they were 
blamed for destroying about half the cacao and pataxte, usually eating 
only half or more of the beans of each pod, after gnawing a hole in it. 
the railroad to Santa Elena. This takes them into 
another municipio, that of Santa Barbara. These 
lands, according to local inhabitants, are generally 
paid for in maize+** to which they are primarily 
planted. There are also some rice and perhaps a few 
cuerdas of tomatoes, beans, sweetpotatoes, cassava, 
and cotton. 
Most families have one or two horses or mules 
(the latter are much fewer) and three or four head 
of cattle, for all of which there is ample good grazing 
land. There is only one local meat market, most of 
the cattle being bought by Highland butchers, who 
come down from Solola, Atitlan, Panajachel, Santa 
Lucia Utatlan, and a few from Chicacao and San 
Pedro la Laguna. : 
Some engage in fishing, particularly in the rapid 
rocky Rio Cutzan, flowing along the western limit 
of the settlement, and the Tarro 14° Creek on the east, 
which is joined by the Siete Vueltas, winding east- 
ward among the scattered houses. Small fish, 
shrimp, and crabs are caught, with the aid of hand 
nets 20 inches in diameter, for the rapids (pl. 4, b), 
and some cast-nets for pool fishing. Occasionally 
seines are used, but never fish poison as in Eastern 
Guatemala. For the large shrimp 14° split-bamboo 
funnels are set out in a row, mouth upstream, during 
the night. They are made much like those used for 
fishing in Lake Atitlan villages and resemble those 
similarly used for catching fresh-water shrimp along 
the coast of Peru. About a yard long by 10 inches 
in diameter, they are placed, mouth upstream, in a 
row of 8 or 10 attached to a horizontal pole, with a 
vertical pole fence across the stream around them. 
These are set out all night, and the shrimp are taken 
out in the morning. 
The inhabitants of Cutzan are indistinguishable 
from the Lake Pedranos. They are closely related 
by blood and marriage to the Indians of San Pedro 
on the Lake; in fact, many said that they had houses 
in both places and spent some time in each. The 
products of the two are in large measure comple- 
mentary, corn being harvested at different seasons 
144 Half a netload or about 40 pounds of maize ears for a cuerda 
(about 1/5 acre) of land per season. This is equivalent to about one- 
fifth of the harvest. 
445 This stream is named “Toros” on the Intercontinental Railway 
Commission map (1898, Corps I, map 2). 
46 These are fresh-water shrimp of the genus Macrobrachium 
that are caught in greatest abundance during the first torrents of the 
rainy season. They apparently are found all along the Pacific slope of 
Central America, as Indians in El Salvador (Dolores Apulo, a village 
on Lake Ilopango) said they also caught them, here again, mainly in 
swollen streams. Shrimp of this genus are known to attain an over-all 
length of well over a foot. 
