THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 



11 



theless, no other segments of society even ap- 

 proach the households in social and economic 

 solidarity. In the household the members may 

 be economic individualists, but they do cooperate 

 on a noncash basis, while between even such close 

 relatives as father and son or two brothers who 

 Hve in different households, there is practically 

 no common enterprise on a basis different from 

 that between imrelated persons. In making this 

 study, it was striking to find in how many ways 

 the data had to be gathered by households rather 

 than individuals on the one hand or family or 

 neighborhood groups on the other. Thus, in dis- 

 cussing marketmg it was useless to try to deter- 

 mine which individuals went to certain to\vns 

 regularly, but it was easy to find out which house- 

 holds were regularly represented by one or another 

 mdividual in a given to%vn. Likewise, in land 

 ownership it was not difficult to discover which 

 lots were owned and worked by a certain house- 

 hold; but it would have required more time than 

 we were able to give to determine which persons 

 of the family actually owned each one. 



THE WAY OF LIFE 



^\Tien a tom-ist comes to Panajachel, the road 

 takes him past the little tovm center where, sitr- 

 rounding a small square park, he sees the ruins of 

 the sLxteenth-century church and the drab adobe 

 town hall, library, and jail. Driving over the 

 cobblestones he finds the road lined for a few 

 blocks with whitewashed adobe houses, most of 

 which present to him a small store front and 

 grilled windows imder a red tile roof. Then for a 

 kilometer he is out in the country, the houses 

 spaced far apart along the road, coffee groves 

 and open fields and garden patches between them. 

 He arrives shortly at one of the hotels near the 

 lake shore, from which he has a view of the broad 

 expanse of water and the striking t\vin volcanoes 

 that dwarf it. Perhaps after a trip across the 

 lake to Atitlan, San Pedro, or San Antonio, and 

 perhaps a stroll through the countryside near the 

 hotel, he leaves the hotel to continue on his way. 

 He will remember the lake, certainly. If ques- 

 tioned he may recall that he did go through a 

 little town called Panajachel when en route to his 

 hotel, but that there was nothing there to attract 

 attention. Indeed, there was not. But in most 

 cases the tourist has not seen Panajachel. 



Nor have more than a few of the Indians seen 

 the tourist, at least as more than a passing cloud 

 of dust. The Indians live away from the highway, 

 most of them on the other side of the river. They 

 live in little thatched houses hidden in coffee 

 groves. The tourist has seen, for the most part, 

 the Ladino and Gold "Coast sections. Along the 

 roads he has seen more Indians from other tovvTis 

 than Indians of Panajachel. The latter he would 

 probably not have recognized anyway, since, 

 unlike Indians of such towns as Chichicastenango 

 that wear unique costumes, there is little to dis- 

 tinguish them. 



Yet the Panajachelcnos are distinguished from 

 all other Indians in details of costume, as well 

 as in language, institutions, customs, and beliefs. 

 Their economic base is different and many of 

 the techniques in which they are proficient are 

 foreign to inhabitants of neighboring towns. 

 Differ as they may from each other, the norm of 

 behavior in the community undoubtedly differs 

 in greater or less degree from the norms of be- 

 havior of each of the other surrounding muni- 

 cipios. That is the way of this region of Guate- 

 mala, and Panajachel is not the only community 

 different from the others; for each municipio 

 tends to have its own cultural variant, and its 

 own economic specialties. Panajachel is no 

 doubt less colorful than some other commu- 

 nities; but its sociology and culture and certainly 

 its economy is no less interesting. 



Panajachclenos arc almost exclusively agri- 

 cultural. The women weave part of the clothing 

 worn; the men build the houses and make a few 

 things like tool hafts for their own use; the 

 women cook raw materials into most of the food 

 that is consumed; but that is as far as industrial 

 technology goes, and none of its products are 

 sold outside the community. AU household 

 utensils — pottery, grinding stones, baskets, gourds, 

 china, and so on — and practically all household 

 furnishings such as tables and chairs and mats, 

 must be brought in from other towns. So must 

 many articles of wearing apparel, such as material 

 for skirts and cloaks, hats, sandals, blankets, 

 and cariying bags, as well as cotton and thread 

 for weaving the other things. So must most 

 of the essential foodstuffs: the greater part 

 of the corn, all lime, salt, and spices, most of 

 the chile, and most of the meat. To buy all 

 these essentials the Indians go to market, either 



