102 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 4 
Historical precedent.—All are said by Lothrop 
(1933, p. 100) to be pre-Conquest towns, including 
San Pedro and San Juan, but if this is so the last 
two named were probably not situated as they are 
today. Vazquez in the 18th century refers to the 
former as “San Pedro de la Laguna.” }°° Neither 
one has an Indian name. No mention of San Juan 
appears in the several 16th-century tribute lists and 
manuscripts which I have examined, and the ‘earliest 
reference to San Pedro which has come to my at- 
tention is the 1579. account of Capotitlan (Anon., 
Ms. 1579, p. 23, f. 116). San Juan is cited by 
Fuentes y Guzman (1932-33, vol. 2, opposite p. 60), 
whose map of the Lake (ca. 1685) shows them both. 
Cerro de Oro (pl. 46, f), a small aldea of Santiago, 
which has been omitted from much of this discussion, 
is made up largely of recent immigrants from Pat- 
zicia. They retain most of the cultural characteristics 
of their former home locality, and their costume in- 
cludes elements typical of both places (pl. 7, 7). 
NORTH SHORE VILLAGES 
Just as there is an environmental similarity among 
the south shore villages, so those of the north side 
have many common elements in the physical setting 
(map>20;-pis. 45, b,c, ¢,¢; f} 40; a,.D;.¢)=, In 
several respects there is a marked contrast between 
the two shores: the southern villages generally have 
an abundance of fertile land, but not of running 
water, because of the volcanic cones, down which 
streams flow only during the rainy season; the 
northern ones are very poor in arable land, but nu- 
merous mountain streams tumble from the cliffs at 
their backs, and flow by the villages to the Lake. 
There is a physical division and distinction be- 
tween the northeastern and northwestern Lake 
settlements; Panajachel, lying between the two 
groups, is fundamentally different from them all, and 
falls mainly into the garden-culture area of Solola. 
Though all but San Antonio have very little agricul- 
tural land, and all but Santa Catarina get their water 
from streams piped to pilas,°’ there is a major 
158 V4zquez, 1937-38, p. 171; see also p. 104, ftn. 162. 
3187 A pila is a watering place (pl. 38, e), usually supplied through an 
iron pipe, which-is directed, in the more advanced settlements, into a 
cement tank, frequently ornamented with more or less artistic statuary. 
The most primitive system of all I saw was at San Marcos (la Laguna), 
where the conduit consists of maguey (agave) flower stalks, cut in half 
and bound end to end. I was told there were some 900 of these stalks, 
making a 2-kilometer watercourse, which must be renewed annually. 
The old pila and iron pipe were assertedly stopped up 4 years previ- 
ously. A spring was diverted through a pipe of bamboo, in the Lowland 
village of San Pedro Cutzdn. (For discussion of the Solola water- 
supply system, see McBryde, 1933, pp. 65-66; also map 21.) 
difference in the matter of isolation. This factor is 
seen in the northwest shore villages to a degree not 
exceeded anywhere in Guatemala, if their horizontal 
proximity to neighboring settlements is also con- 
sidered. Often they are only a league (2% miles, or 
4 km.) removed, on the map, from a market town 
(e.g., Santa Cruz to Solola, San Marcos and San 
Pablo to Santa Clara and Santa Lucia, etc.). Yet 
high, precipitous ridges rise as much as 800 to 1,000 
m. in between. This does not prevent the Indians 
from attending those plazas weekly and in consider- 
able numbers, but it does tend to discourage free 
intercommunication.1°S High promontories separate 
the shore villages one from the other, each secluded 
in its own arroyo (pl. 45, b-e). 
East of Santa Cruz, cliffs are especially high, 
where it appears that fault blocks slumped into the 
caldera. The ridge of Santa Cruz village itself is 
probably a fault block of this sort (pl. 45, e). 
Farther east, the deep gorge of the Rio Quixcap 
(pl. 45, f), which floods during the rainy season, 
presents such a barrier that the land route between 
Santa Cruz and Panajachel goes by way of Solola, 
following the road from San José. Southeast of 
San Pedro village the trail ends on the steep slopes 
of voleano San Pedro. Those, then, are the two big 
interruptions in land communication. A circuitous 
trail or path connects Santiago with Panajachel, 
around the south and east shores of the Lake (pl. 23, 
a), and another path connects San Pedro with Santa 
Cruz along the west and northwest shores (see map 
20). The trail around the Lake never dips below 
the level which I estimated as the late 19th-century 
high-water line, though it frequently runs just at 
that level. 
The northeast shore villages are shut in by equally 
precipitous, though generally less elevated walls (pl. 
46, b, c). Certain linguistic variations here, prob- 
ably due in part to seclusion, have been cited. I 
noted little difference in this regard between north- 
east and northwest, despite the greater isolation of 
the latter. Ladinos are virtually absent from all 
158 Though these villages have no markets, buyers come occasionally, 
nevertheless. While in San Pablo, in October 1936, I saw four men 
from San Andrés Xecul, there to buy ropes, nets, and other maguey 
products. I was told that traders come rather often from San Andrés, 
and from Totonicapdan and elsewhere in that region, for cordage, since 
Pablefios do not go there to sell. Rope goes to the Quezaltenango— 
Totonicapan region from the Coban area, however. An old resident 
of Chichicastenango told me that he saw, in 1896, Indians from the 
latter town and from Totonicapan trading pottery for much-prized 
jocotes (for which the north shore is noted), giving a clay jar in ex- 
change for the fruit it would hold. This kept both in proportion to 
their value, a larger jar being worth more jocotes. 
