62 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



the same pattern, but residents who own land in 

 Panajachel own more each than absentee land- 

 lords. Neither among Indians nor Ladinos is the 

 land equally distributed. In each class a few 

 families tend to own a large proportion of the land, 

 but this is more true for Indians than for Ladinos. 

 Chart 10 and table 10 summarize the distribution 

 of land owned by resident Ladinos and Indians. 

 (There is no point, of course, in discussing distri- 

 bution of Panajachel lands among the absentee 

 owners). It should be noted again that the data 

 on Indian lands are more reliable than those on 

 Ladinos. These were independently and com- 

 pletely checked with informants, while the sizes 

 of Ladino parcels, determined originally by map- 

 ping to scale and measuring, were only partially 

 verified in other ways. It will be noted that with- 

 in each class the disparities are less in the case of 

 delta lands than of all lands or of coffee-truck 

 lands. 



LADINO OWNERS 



Thirty absentee Ladinos own 40 parcels of 

 land in the area studied: one of them four pieces, 

 two others three apiece, and three others two 



Bv* • 



Resident Absentee 



LADINOS 



ResAbs. 

 INDIANS 



n 



/^C/}£ 



IV£ST D£LTA 



\-:::.-:-\ £AST oetTA 



apiece; the remaining 24 own one lot each. The 

 average acreage per owner is 12.3 acres, the dis- 

 tribution as follows: 



1 owns 215 acres, all hill land. 



1 owns 80 acres, all hill land. 



1 owns 22 acres, 12 of which are hill land; 10, delta. 



1 owns 10 acres, all hill land. 



1 owns 8 acres, all delta land. 



1 owns 5 acres, 3 of which are hill land; 2, delta. 



1 owns 5 acres, all hill land. 



1 owns 2 acres, all hill land. 



5 own from 1 to 5 acres, all delta land. 



17 own less than 1 acre, all delta land. 



Chart 8. — ^Average acreage of individual lots. 



Twenty-five persons thus own the 42-odd acres 

 of absentee Ladino land in the delta, an average 

 of 1.7 acres for each. The largest delta holdings 

 are of 10 and 8 acres; six are from 1 to 5 acres each; 

 and of the 17 who own less than an acre apiece, 

 4 have only house sites O.Oo to 0.13 acre each. 



Eleven of the absentee Ladino owners live in 

 Guatemala City, nine in Solola, three in the Pa- 

 cific lowlands, two in San Andres, and one each in 

 Quezaltenango, S. Jos6 Chacaya, Agua Escondida, 

 and the United States. The last is the North 

 American missionary group operating in Pana- 

 jachel, where it owns two pieces of land. In its 

 role as a resort Panajachel draws landowners from 

 as far away as Guatemala City, and in recent 

 years even from the United States. The number 

 of such owners has increased from 1936, for wliich 

 year the figures were prepared, to 1941 (when the 

 study ended), and probably since. Because of its 

 interest to tourists, as the most accessible spot on 

 the lake, Ladinos of nearby towns are also invest- 



