LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



57 



in the same time. Spanish phims, growing much 

 more thicklj', are gathered by the thousand rather 

 than by the hundred. 



VEGET.\BLE-PEAR 



The vegetable-pear vine is quite another matter. 

 Phmted from seeds or shoots in only a few minutes, 

 the young plant is frequently fenced in and usually 

 a trellis is built for it to climb and small pots are 

 suspended to encourage the growth of large fruit. 

 After the fin-t harvest, in October or Noveml-er, 

 the vine is primed. Then it must be watered 

 occasionally until, in March or April, there is 

 another harvest. After 2 years, fruit is usually 

 no longer produced until the root, which has grown 

 large, is harvested. Then for 2 or 3 years fruit 

 grows again. Koots can be cut twice before the 

 vine dies. Each year, therefore, there are two 

 harvests of fruit, and every 2 years one of roots. 



Agriculture is what Panajachelenos think of 

 when they think of the land. For the most part, 

 when they think of agriculture they thinlc of 

 business. In The Business of Agriculture (pp. 108- 

 132) there is extended discussion of costs and re- 

 turns in this main Panajachel business. 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND 

 PRACTICES 



COMMON LANDS 



Four kinds of land are in some sense publicly 

 owned : 



(1) The law of Guatemala"" claims for the 

 Government 200 metei-s of the shore of such navi- 

 gable inland waters as Lake Atitlan, so that legally 

 the State could dispossess the private owners of 

 land along the lake shore. But the traditional 

 owners, at least through the time of this study, 

 were permitted to retain and use this land and 

 to buy and scU it at will. I have heard, but not 

 verified, that foreigners (but never Indians or 

 local Ladinos) who have bought such land on which 

 to build homes have had to make financial arrange- 

 ments with the central Govenmicnt on what 

 appears to be a rental or lease basis. Local people 

 have titles to their lake-shore land and appear to 



<■• Decreio No. 4S3, 1S94, Article IK, which piovidi-s that 200 meters from the 

 shores of navigable lakes are reserved to the public domain. The local im|>res- 

 sion is that the figure is 100 meters; perhaps the law has been changed, hut I 

 find no subsequent laws relevant to the point in Leyes \'iyentex, Guatemala, 

 1927. 



suffer no interference, although one lake-shore 

 landowner was denied exclusive wharfing privileges 

 and during the period of study the Government 

 set aside a piece of shore land as a public bathing 

 beach. Neither of these events deprived Indians 

 of land, although a road-building program in 1941 

 did.'^ In the following discussion, I shall treat 

 lake-shore land as privately owned, as, practically, 

 it is. 



(2) Streets, roads, main paths, and main irriga- 

 tion ditches are publicly owned. So also arc the 

 church and cemetery (which are not church 

 property), the plaza, and the edifice housing the 

 town hall, post office, etc. 



(3) The sterile river bed may be considered 

 public. Anybody may collect firewood or stones 

 from it, and when stones are collected commer- 

 cially for building purposes, permission must be had 

 from the town authorities. Since in the past 

 generation the river has continually eroded its 

 banks there are legal titles to land that "the river 

 has taken away." But the ownere appear to 

 consider such land as irrevocably useless and do 

 not raise the question of its ownership. Nobody 

 seems to know if reclauned lands would be 

 returned to the original owners. Since none has 

 been reclaimed," all the river bed is best treated 

 as publicly owned. 



(4) There is one piece of truly communal land 

 on the west hillside. Generations ago all hillside 

 land, at least, was probably communally owned 

 and parceled out to different families who obtained 

 permission to plant their cornfields on it, as La 

 other towns. If this is true, communal tract on 

 the west hill is doubtless the last remnant of such 

 land in Panajachel, not allotted because it is not 

 utilizable agriculturally. Wliatever the history, 

 this piece of land is universally recognized as 

 communal property. 



This tract of land is divided into two parts, 

 however. A strip at the foot of the hill is usually 

 thought of as privately owned, and only the upper 

 part is legally, practically, and indisputably com- 

 munal. The private owners of land at the base 

 of the hill claim as their own from 300 to GOO feet 

 of adjoining slope, but the town officials have 

 estalilishod the rights of the municii)ality over it 



*- The right to take land for roads was recognized in the then Guatemalan 

 Constitution (Article 28); although compensation is mentioned as mandatory, 

 for some reason none was given in this case. 



*3 Except a miniscule portion on the very edge of tlie river bed ^\ Inch h;is 

 been reclaimed for truet. 



