LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



59 



and in tlic only case where such disputed land is 

 utiHzed as;rieultu rally, the "owner" is required 

 to ask permission of the authorities to plant his 

 cornfield. In one case a claimant actually in- 

 eluded about 300 feet of the rocky hill base in 

 the deed of land that he sold, but since the land 

 is worthless, the minor dispute that arose was, 

 and appears to remain, purely academic. Never- 

 theless, most peopl(^ seem to think that this dis- 

 puted strip has individual owners, and for prac- 

 tical purposes it has. On map G, and in most of 

 the following discussion, this land is therefore 

 treated as if it were privately owned. 



Chart 5 separates private from public land, as 

 classified above. About 2.3 percent of the land 

 is publically owned, or 19 percent not counting 

 that which is privately claimed and used. Almost 



DELTA 



HILL 



.'.;•. •■••.••5 5 '.:•:'•'•.:•.'.• 



□ Privately 

 Owned 



Roads, 



Buildings, 



Etc. 



Privately 

 Claimecf 



River Bed 



Communal 

 Land 



I j= 20 Acres 



Chart 5. — Laud ownership. 



26 percent of delta land has no private owners; 

 21 percent of hill land is communally owned or 

 claimed, but the undisputed (and agriculturally 

 useless) part constitutes but 15 percent of all hill 

 lands. Of the public lands of the delta, 87 percent 

 consists of the sterile river bed. Of the remainder, 

 most (65 percent) is taken up by streets and 

 roads and the smaller portions by irrigation 

 ditches (20 percent) and public buildings, the 

 plaza, and the cemetery (15 percent). 



PRIVATELY OWNED LAND 



Chart 6 shows graphically how the privately 

 owned and claimed land of the area studied was dis- 

 tributed in 1936" among Ladino and Indian land- 

 owiiers, both resident in Panajachel and absentee. 

 It shows clearly that the Ladinos own the lion's 

 share — so much so that even the absentee Ladino 

 landowners own a third more than all the Indians 

 combined. This is a fact of importance, for the 

 Indians of Panajachel depend upon the land 

 almost exclusively for their living, and they con- 

 stitute more than two-thirds of the resident 

 population. Nor is this the whole picture of the 

 disparity, for the Ladinos to an extent not at all 

 approached by tlic Indians own land outside the 

 area studied. At least eight resident Ladino 

 families have large landholdings not included in 

 this study; indeed, the acreage of lands outside 

 owned by local Ladinos is far greater than the 

 entire area of Panajachel studied. (Probably aU 

 the absentee Ladino owners own more land in 

 other places.) On the other hand, the resident 

 Indians own relatively few acres of land outside 

 of Panajachel. (Again absentee Indian land- 

 owners no doubt have larger holdings elsewhere.) 

 In the area studied, however, the disparities are 

 not as great as the gross figures would indicate, 



** Unlike crop distributions, which can be observed, ownership informa- 

 tion must come from informants. On the oi igin;il work map, made In 1936 

 with a scale of 40 inches to a mile, land bomidarios were plotted as exactly as 

 possible, with the help of several native informants. In 1940 independent 

 information on the size of Indi m lots was obtained from informants and corn- 

 pared with corresponding data taken from map measurements. .\t the same 

 time, the base map was corrected to conform to Dr. McBryde's findings, 

 and the land boundaries— now corrected in some instances to conform to 

 informants' statements— plotted again on the new base. The map was then 

 rechecked on the ground, and with Ladino estimates of the size of Ladino 

 plots. Most inconsistencies were ironed out so that, finally, the sum of the 

 extensions of the lots of a t'iven small aici as given by inforraauts, about 

 equaled the extension of that area as measureit on the map. This was con- 

 sidered a final clicck on the accuracy of the individual land bomidaiies 

 as plotted on the ma|). The sizes of resident Indian holdings are probably 

 more accurate than those of the other classes, however, for only for resident 

 Indians was the information of informants obtained entirely independently 

 of the original and corrected maps. 



