PREFACE 



antkropologj^ are needed. I once asked Jean 

 Learned, an economist who studied these mate- 

 rials on Panajachel, what she as an economist 

 would have done differently. The considered 

 reply was unexpected to me, yet whoUy obvious. 

 As an economist she would not have spent years 

 in a community of 800 people without records of 

 prices and the like. Panajachel is a place for the 

 skills of (say) an anthropologist, not an economist. 

 Conversely, an anthropologist is not trained to 

 cope with the problems of a nation in the world 

 community. 



Let me not be understood to minimize the im- 

 portance of study at the local level, or of the use- 

 fulness of the antliropological (cultural) point of 

 view at all levels. But this is a study at the local 

 level, and essential as it may be to understanding 

 the whole, it is the study by an anthropologist of 

 an an tliropologicaOy oriented problem. The econ- 

 omist will learn from it much about the economy 

 of a community in Guatemala. Ho will also learn 

 something about antlnopologists (as he can leam 

 more from Firth and Herskovits and others) and 

 the way one anthropologist studies a place like 

 Panajachel. I do not expect that he will learn 

 any economics. Nor do I suppose my colleagues 

 in anthropology will learn economics from me. 

 What I offer is a conception of how one studies a 

 primitive money economy. My ovn\ work falls 

 short of an ideal because I had no model. Here is 

 a pattern from which others may depart. 



This book has been long in coming. A fii'st 

 short draft was written dining the winter of 1938- 

 39. I was encouraged by Dr. W. F. Ogburn to 

 extend this to a full study. It was completed 

 in June of 1943, when Dr. Ogburn was also 

 kind enough to write a foreword. Delay of 

 publication, first because of the war and then by 

 desire to revise the manuscript, was fortunate, 

 both because in the intervening years I learned 

 much from colleagues at the University, and 

 because the long delay permitted a fresh approach 

 to the manuscript. I thmk it does not matter 

 that the economy is described as of a period 10 

 years past (and indeed from a 1936 base) because 

 if it is interesting it should be as representative of 



a type, relatively independent of time and place. 



My original field notes on Panajachel have been 

 microfilmed and as part of a series arc available 

 in many libraries, well enough indexed so that I 

 think a patient reader can use them in connection 

 with this volume. This is one of three books 

 which I hope to write from these materials; a 

 second describes the world view of the Indians; 

 the third, their social institutions. Meanwhile 

 the materials on these subjects may be studied in 

 their original form. Wlioever looks at them will 

 note that my wife and I (later with our young 

 daughter) lived in Pajiajachel on and off from the 

 autumn of 1935 to the spring of 1941, and that 

 Juan de Dios Rosales, an educated Panajacheleno 

 who was a school teacher ia 1936 and who became 

 my assistant (and eventually an anthropologist 

 in his own right) collected a great deal of the data 

 in the earlier years. It was not until the last 

 field season (1940-41), however, that I systemat- 

 ically collected much of the essential data on the 

 economy. By then I had done much work on this 

 book and had begun to know what I was looking 

 for. 



From 1934 to 1946 I was on the staff of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington's Division 

 of Historical Research. This work was done as 

 part of the Division's grand plan for studying 

 various aspects of Mayan Indian cultm-e. How 

 much I owe to its recently retired director. Dr. 

 A. V. Kidder, for his patience and encourage- 

 ment, I attempt to say by dedicating this book 

 to him. From my colleague and teacher, Robert 

 Redfield, with whom I have worked so closely 

 both at home and in the field, I have received 

 much more than I can acknowledge. I recall 

 with pleasure the friends in Guatemala who 

 helped us, and especially our Indian friends, whom 

 we still miss; and jump without difficulty to my 

 colleagues at the University of Chicago, who 

 through the years teach me hmnility. I have 

 said that my wife shared with nie the experience 

 in Guatemala; this book is hers, too. 



Sol Tax. 



The University of Chicago, 



May 1, 1951. 



