30 



THE LAND 



But considering the occasional torrential rains that 

 destroy land and crops, and enforce idleneps, the 

 rains are also a liability. The Indians frequently 

 feel it as such. The rainy season is a time of 

 sickness and of poverty with granaries exhausted 

 just when corn is scarcest and highest and when 

 cash income from garden and market is lowest. It 

 is also a time of tension, and fear of the elements. 

 It is a relief to the Indians when the short dry 

 period in August permits them to do their outside 

 chores (such as supplying firewood) and freely 

 take the mountain trails. The release is greater 

 when the rains end entirely. The corn harvest is 

 at hand, and gardening and commerce reach their 

 full tempo. Even so, in the rhythm of the year 

 the first rains of May, after the windy and dusty 

 dry season, are welcomed by the Indians and (in 

 their words) by the thirsty earth alike. 



The clothing and shelter of the Indians is 

 reasonably well suited to the climate. The 

 women's garments seem too heavy for comfort in 

 the heat of the day; some have changed their 

 costume partly for this reason. Footgear is in- 

 frequent and all are accustomed to getting their 

 feet wet frequently. Merchants on the road wear 

 sandals and in the rainy season carry raincapes 

 made of palm fronds. Around town there is httle 

 formal protection against a sudden storm. While 

 not completely weatherproof, the thatched-roof 

 cane-and-adobe houses are substantial, and the 

 kitchen fire helps to keep them warm. At night 

 a light blanket often covers three or four persons, 

 with the temperature below 50° and the fire out. 

 An assessment of the Indian adjustment to the 

 climate must take into account both that the 

 people are hardened and accustomed to what they 

 have, and that the death rate is high, especially 

 in the rainy season. 



THE RIVER 



The river is less curse than bles,sing. The bed 

 of the river is a wide, rocky nuisance. In the 

 rainy season the quiet stream in the center divides 

 into rushing torrents of brown water carrying 

 rocks and timber from the hills above, is impass- 

 able for days at a time, and causes particular 

 difficulty for those who live on the side opposite 

 the town center. Worst of all, the streams at 

 times wash away acres of the fertile soil of the 

 river banks, including the houses of some and all 

 of the real possessions of a few. But the river is 



also the source of the irrigation system basic to the 

 garden agriculture that in large part supports the 

 Indians. The irrigation system serves every part 

 of the delta, and through both an appropriate 

 technology and communal effort and control the 

 water is very effectively utilized. When water is 

 short and there is moonlight, many of the Indians 

 water their gardens at night. Although people 

 are accused of many kinds of nonsocial acts, 

 Indians are rarely if ever charged with wasting 

 water. The teclmique of watering fields requires 

 a minimum of water. Various farmers may use 

 the same ditch at once by filling single gutters 

 through their fields and shutting off the egress of 

 water while using it. Land is flooded only for 

 special purposes; ordinarily water is simply dipped 

 out of the gutter in a tin basin and tossed onto the 

 garden bed. 



Most families get most of their kitchen water, 

 and do their laundry, and the women wash their 

 hair, in the river or in the nearest large irrigation 

 channel. (Bathing is done in the sweat bath; 

 relatively few Indian men, and more boys, bathe 

 in the lake.) 



In the rainy season the river provides firewood 

 washed down from the hills, and rocks for launder- 

 ing and fireplace stones, sand for building, and 

 small fish thrown out of the rushing streams. 



The few springs in the hills above town might 

 be better utilized, perhaps by following the isolated 

 example of one family which planted a dry-season 

 garden below such a spring. 



THE LAKE 



For the towns along its shores. Lake Atitl&n is 

 important not only as a source of water for per- 

 sonal, household, and agricultural uses (for which 

 purposes Panajachelenos use the river instead), 

 but also as a means of easy travel and a source of fish 

 and crabs, and of sedge used in making a popular 

 type of mat. 



In contrast with those of the south shore, par- 

 ticularly Atitlan and San Pedro, the Indians of 

 Panajachel do not regularly travel over the water, 

 mainly because their trade routes do not often 

 carrj^ them to or through the towns across the lake. 

 When Panajachel Indians do go to Atitlan or San 

 Pedro, they go by water (when they go to San 

 Lucas they often go by land because it is not so 

 much more difficult); however, they rarely go to 

 Atitlan or San Pedro, for their communications 



