26 



TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY 



pottery, she would have nothing to do with her 

 time. But she would not even think of that pos- 

 sibility. Actually, since her time has no economic 

 value, the pots cost nothing to make, unless for 

 some purchased materials. The family could 

 clearly earn more money if she continued to make 

 pots than if she stopped. The competition with 

 wheel-made pottery is under such circirmstances 

 only theoretical. So women continue to make 

 pottery, and in the old-fashioned way. In some 

 places, as it happens, women's time is worth 

 money. For example, in Panajachel they work 

 in the onion beds. In a town across the lake — 

 San Pablo — they help their husbands to make rope 

 and hammocks. In both places the women are 

 rapidly dropping the auxiliary household arts that 

 they once practiced. Spinning was the first to go, 

 and then weaving. In San Pablo, the women no 

 longer weave at all; in Panajachel, fewer and fewer 

 learn the art. 



Perhaps, it may be suggested, the women who 

 made pots should have found some more lucrative 

 way of making their time earn money. Actually, 

 in the place I am thinking of (Chimente, municipio 

 of Totonicapan), the women do not even weave; 

 presumably pottery drove out weaving there some 

 generations ago. just as rope making drove out 

 weaving in San Pablo. Some new art would have 

 to be introduced or some old art expanded. Or 

 the women could help in the fields as they never 

 have. But consider again what changes are 

 demanded simply to get wheel pottery to replace 

 hand pottery in Guatemala. 



Spinning and weaving are other interesting 

 cases. I do not know whether the Spanish women 

 who colonized Guatemala brought spinning wheels 

 with them. If they did, spinning may have been 

 an "accomplishment" like playing the piano. 

 Whether they might have tried to teach Indian 

 women to spin, I wmII not try to imagine — since, I 

 repeat, I do not even know if they knew the art 

 themselves. Today, nobody in Guatemala spins 

 cotton on the wheel. Ladina women do not spin 

 at all; the Indian women who spin use the hand 

 whorl in a bowl. The big mill at Cantel now 

 supplies most of the cotton thread that the weavers 

 use, so Indian women are rapidly forgetting how to 

 spin cotton." The mill has not, however, replaced 

 the hand loom, chiefly because it does not yet make 

 the patterns of cloth that the women use in their 

 garments. Besides, now there is great foreign 



demand for the hand-woven textiles, and for this 

 market the mill will never be able to compete. 



Foot looms, on the other hand, can and do turn 

 out material which is used in Indian garments and 

 which is also, incidentally, purchased by foreign 

 lovers of native arts and crafts. Indeed, Indian 

 women have almost universally stopped weaving 

 material for their skirts because they prefer to buy 

 that of the foot looms. The blouses of the women 

 have more individuality from town to town, so it 

 will take longer for the foot looms to supply the 

 small individual demands, if they ever do. More 

 likely what will happen is that the Indian women 

 win give up their distinctive local blouses and wear 

 the more generalised types that are made on foot 

 looms, just as with the skirts. This will probably 

 happen, however — as in the cases mentioned — only 

 if and when and where other occupations for 

 women give their time more value than it has at 

 their looms. And this may never happen, now 

 that foreigners are buying their textiles. 



The foot looms, like the potter's wheels, are in 

 the hands primarily of Ladino artisans in shops in 

 the towns. As in the case of pottery, some 

 Ladinoized Indian men have learned the art. The 

 same explanations that are used to explain why 

 Indian women do not replace their backstrap 

 looms with foot looms obviously applies here as 

 well.^ Not only culture traits, but entire eco- 

 nomic complexes come into competition. 



The case of the Indian adoption of the European 

 wool complex mentioned above confirms this 

 thesis. There is no question of the Ladinoization 

 of these wool-working Indians. They are rural 

 dwellers and as much part of Indian societies as 

 any in Guatemala. But it should be recalled that 

 the Indians keep the sheep; sheer, wash, and card 

 the wool — aU in the European manner — as well as 

 spin it on the wheel and weave it on the foot loom. 

 Obviously, we are here dealing with an entire 

 complex of European origin. In the manner that 

 one would exi)ect, it has diffused to the Indians in 



" Unlike the case of pottery, the efficiency of the mill has its expected effect 

 for two reasons— first, because raw cotton in the highlands is not a free good, 

 but has to be bought: and second and more important, all women who spin 

 can also we^ve, so with cheap thread from the mill, they simply spend more 

 time at their looms. 



2" I cannot explain the exceptional case of the women of San Pedro Saca- 

 lepequez (Dept. of San M.orcos), where Indian women work at foot looms in 

 the shops. This is an extraordinary town, the only one I know that is a 

 Spanish-type town in every respect except that it is populated exclusively by 

 Indians. Perhaps if one studied the place he would discover that in some 

 sense all of the Indians have become Ladinoized; and that might explain the 

 anomaly of the women foot-loom operators. 



