12 



THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 



in neighboring S0I0I& or in the local town center. 

 To get the money they depend upon the sale of 

 agricultural produce that is unimportant in their 

 own diet and grown almost solely for the market. 

 Onions and garlic, a number of fruits, and coffee' 

 are the chief commodities produced for sale. 

 To produce them consumes the great preponder- 

 ance of the Indians' productive time, and to take 

 them to market consumes much of the remainder. 



Corn is the first essential of life to the Indian 

 as a consumer; he thinks often in terms of his 

 tortillas and his beans which are, in a way, his 

 bread and butter. But his life as a producer 

 and in business is oriented toward onions, garlic, 

 and the other products of his truck farming. It 

 is to them, and the prices they bring, that his 

 fortune is tied. 



The Indian is perhaps above all else an entre- 

 prcnem-, a business man, always looking for new 

 means of turning a penny. If he has land enough 

 to earn a good living by agriculture as such, 

 he is on the lookout for new and better seeds, 

 fertilizer, ways of planting; and always new- 

 markets. If his land is not sufficient, he begs 

 and borrows land where he can, often paying a 

 rental price that is, for him, high. If he must, 

 he works as a day laborer for another. But 

 he would rather strike a bargain of some kind; 

 perhaps he can buy the harvest of some fruit 

 trees to gather and sell, or buy up onion seed 

 to take to MLxco or the capital. Even adolescent 

 boys and girls make deals when they can, perhaps 

 renting a piece of land and working it on their 

 owTi; and young children are alert to small 

 opportunities. 



Yet, although money is that which everybody 

 tries to get more of, it is not of highest value in 

 the culture. It alone does not bring the highest 

 respect, although it is, among other things, a 

 means of quicldy ascending the scale of ofBccs 

 to become a respected principal. The richest 

 man in towm is also the first principal, and possibly 

 the most higldy respected pcson; but he also 

 happens to be good and kind and religious and 

 wise. The next-to-richest man is probably one 

 of the most disliked, and he happens to be irritable 

 and tactless — and suspected, as weU, of having 

 killed off, by sorcery, most of his relatives for 

 their share of the inlieritance. People seem 



• Which is important in the diet; the Indians trequently sell their entire 

 crop, however, and buy coffee grown elsewhere, at retail. 



to be respected for their personal virtues (as 

 evaluated by the community) : industry, friend- 

 liness and amiability, willingness to share in 

 communal duties; and in a town as small as 

 Panajachel such virtues cannot be long simulated. 

 Yet it caimot be gainsaid that wealth is at the 

 least an obvious evidence of industry, and its 

 reward. 



Nor is business exempted from the ordinary 

 rules of decent behavior. People franldy try to 

 make a living, and to get rich, but not at the 

 expense of their self-respect; they do not ordi- 

 narUy try to cheat; a debt, unless it is secured, 

 seems to be a moral burden; they do not, when 

 sober, beg; when they ask a favor they bring a 

 gift, and when they do a favor they do not ordi- 

 narily accept payment for it; when they receive a 

 gift they return a gift. Loss of face is probably 

 worse for most people than loss of money; a man 

 may stay in the house for days at a time because 

 he is ashamed to face his to\vnsmen. 



This is a study of the economy of a group of 

 people who by our standards live in the most 

 primitive condition. Their houses have no floors or 

 window's and are filled with smoke from the open 

 fire. They are often in rags. Their diet has few 

 luxuries, and hardly a person is fatter than thin. 

 A newborn baby's chance for life is something less 

 than good, and with medical care at a minimum, 

 life is always precarious. A few dollars' capital 

 can, with hard work and good fortune, be run up 

 into what is, according to local standards, a tidy 

 nest egg. But the accumulation of years can dis- 

 appear with one prolonged sicloiess, or one spell 

 of drinking, or the acceptance of a public office 

 at an inopportune time. With good luck and 

 hard work a poor family can in a generation 

 become a rich family; but the largest fortune can 

 as quickly be frittered away. 



The community as a whole is not poor. At 

 least it is able to indulge in luxuries beyond the 

 needs of food, clothing, and shelter. It sup- 

 ports a rather elaborate ritual organization 

 requiring the expenditure not only of time but of 

 money, especially for liquor. It allows people 

 to go to festivals and to markets even when 

 these serve no commercial needs. It sustains a 

 no-work-in-the-fields Sabbath and a number of 

 holidays. It permits its youth their fashion 

 fripperies. All this in the face of perfect knowledge 

 that time is money and so, definitely, is a penny. 



