TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY 



19 



currently buying. The Catarineca women had 

 simply kept pace with our price, and nobody could 

 of course complain. 



The second point is that honest}^ is not so firmly 

 established in the culture that it can be taken for 

 granted. That the moral sanctions in Indian 

 culture are not such as assure honesty, even in 

 weights and measures, is shown in the fact that 

 buyers carefully watch the scales. It was shown 

 more dramatically one afternoon when an Indian 

 from nearby San Antonio came to sell onion seed. 

 He needed money, and had 2 pounds of seed; 

 he would sell the 2 pounds at a bargain price, and 



1 decided to buy them both to favor him and to 

 favor any local Indian to whom I could resell the 

 seed at this bargain price. I was with two of my 

 Panajachel friends when I made the pinchase; 

 and when I began to look for a scale to weigh out 

 the seed, one of my companions said, "Oh you 

 don't have to weigh it; if this man says there are 



2 pounds, there are 2 pounds; he's a creyenie." 

 Aly friends were normal Indians (i. e., not 

 creyentes); the Antonero was a convert of the 

 American Protestant missionaries; and the Pana- 

 jacheleiios recognized that a "believer" would not 

 short-weight us. The inference is clear that the 

 usual Indian morality, in contrast to creyente, 

 offers no such guarantee. 



Perhaps most significant is the fact that the 

 supernatural sanctions that govern business deal- 

 ings are essentially secular in effect, punishments 

 that fit the crime. If one commits a sin like 

 s])ittiug in the fire, or complaining at having to 

 climb a hill, the punishment is sickness; but the 

 punishment for stealing (in the form of robbery or 

 of business dishonesty) is rather bad luck in busi- 

 ness affairs: stolen monej^ just does not do one 

 any good, and ma.y cause poverty. 



Here is an ethic, in short, that encourages in- 

 dividual industry, acumen, and enterprise in a 

 struggle to gain wealth. 



At the same time, the culture tends to value 

 everj'thing in consistent monetary terms. It is 

 true on the one hand that money is not an end in 

 itself; that is, miserliness is certainly not a value, 

 and one gains prestige by devoting both time and 

 money to duties to the community; but, on the 

 other hand, such spendmg is the contrary of 

 anonymous, and it is as carefully accounted as 

 business transactions. Religions and social pat- 

 terns do not limit the operation of the economic 



system (although they consume wealth and are a 

 factor in maintaining a more equal distribution of 

 personal wealth); rather, the pattern of ritual is 

 in part cast after the image of a money-exchange 

 and competitive economy. Surplus wealth is 

 nowhere "given away"; it buys prestige and politi- 

 cal and social power; and at each step in the 

 process, everybody knows the cost. Wealth 

 brings with it obligations, but they are measured 

 and limited and involve equivalent returns. 



Nor is there conflict between the kind of im- 

 personal relations characteristic of this type of 

 economic system and the pattern of interpersonal 

 relations general in the society. It is perhaps a 

 tour deforce that a community of 800 people living 

 in a small territory should achieve such, but it is 

 a fact that relations among members even of the 

 Panajacheleno community appear extraordinarily 

 impersonal. Documentation of this assertion 

 must await publication of material on the social- 

 political-religious structvu-e of the commimity." 

 It must suffice now to say that, for its size, the 

 commimity is surprisingly "atomized"; that is, 

 individuals tend to be separate units, each related 

 to others with respect to a single role. Just as in 

 our society there are many relationships (such as 

 teacher-pupil, storekeeper-customer, physician- 

 patient, employer-employee) binding individuals 

 by single sets of behavior, and thoroughly scram- 

 bling the population; so m Panajachel most of the 

 ties that bmd tend rather to unite many people 

 lightly and ephemerally than to bind a few in 

 tightly knit groups. The family group tends to 

 break up as the chiklren matm'e; neighborhood 

 ties mean next to nothing; the groups of political 

 and religious officials unite individuals arbitrarily 

 and temporarilj\ The social system uses indi- 

 viduals, or simple household gi'oups, as its units, 

 and — to continue a figure of speech — moves them 

 about according to external criteria. The inter- 

 personal relations characteristic of the free econ- 

 omy are, in short, to be subsumed in a class of 

 impersonal and individualized relations more 

 general in Panajachel society. 



TECHNOLOGY 



The kind of economy that I have described 

 characterizes an entire region; the Panajachel 

 Indian economy is like this because, of course, it 



"Partially documented (Tax, 1941). 



