68 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



the Panajachelefios giving equal shares to house- 

 holds sharing land (chart 11) may be summarized 

 as follows: 



Of all land: 



6 families own 25 percent, 

 16 families own 50 percent, 

 39 families own 75 percent, 

 68 families own 90 percent, 



85 families own 95 percent, and 

 109 families own 99 percent, leaving 



7 familie.s landless. 

 Of delta land alone: 



9 families own 25 percent, 

 20 families own 50 percent, 

 53 families own 75 percent, 

 80 families own 90 percent, 

 04 families own 95 percent, 

 116 families own 99 percent, leaving 



9 families with 1 percent and 



7 families landless. 



In other words, an eighth of the families own 

 half the land, while at the other end a sixth of 

 them share a hundredth of it. But the distribu- 

 tion of valuable delta land is much more equitable: 

 27 percent of the families own half of it while at 

 the other extreme onlj' a ninth of the households 

 are left with the last hundredth. The difference 

 results because only a fourth of the families own 

 all Panajacheleno hill land, including that in other 

 communities. 



Table 12 shows the distribution of Pana- 

 jacheleno land wealth with areas of different types 



Table 12. — Distrihulinn of all Panajacheleno land, areas 

 reduced to value 



' Calcul:it»^d not on the basis of individual ownership or control, within 

 the household, but simply by dividine the land owned or controlled by the 

 household by the number of persons in the household, excluding servants 



of land reduced to dollar value (below, pp. 82-84), 

 the families reduced to the number of individuals, 

 and with pawned land (below, pp. 80-81) counted 

 as the property of the pawnee rather than of the 

 nominal owner. This gives a more realistic 

 picture of the distribution of land wealth which, 

 in Panajachel, is the basis of virtually all wealth. 

 With delta land worth so much more than hill 

 land, the distribution by dollar value is not un- 

 like the distribution of delta acreage. A compar- 

 ison of the four distributions shown in table 12, 

 however, demonstrates two further points of some 

 interest: (1) The land controlled by the various 

 families is more unevenly distributed than the 

 land actually o\vned. This might mean that 

 in the process of pawning lands, the rich are 

 becoming richer and the poor poorer. However, 

 as will be seen, there is no such general rule; 

 one wealthy family has obtained control of so 

 much land as to skew the distribution. (2) The 

 distribution of land owned or controlled is more 

 even when the individual is taken as a unit than 

 when the household is. This is because, in 

 general, the most land-poor families tend to be 

 small while the richest households are large. This 

 fact, of some importance in discussion of wealth 

 mobility, will be referred to again. 



TENURE AND TRANSFER 



If more of the hill land was communally owned 

 in past generations, the system of allotment was 

 probably similar to that in San Pedro across the 

 lake, where there is much more (Rosales, 1949). 

 Individuals who prove need receive the use of 

 land from the town authorities in exchange for 

 a small quantity of the harvest per unit of land 

 (the same rental, actually, that is paid to private 

 landowTiers) . The authorities use the proceeds 

 to pay secular and ceremonial expenses. In 

 Panajachel there exists no problem of use of 

 the piece of hill land still commonly held, because 

 it is useless. For practical purposes all of the 

 land of Panajachel is privately owned, and wholly 

 alienable, and landowners are free to do whatever 

 they wish mth their holdings. Public opinion 

 to some extent limits the individual's freedom 

 to dispose of his land: it is better to sell to 

 an Indian than to a Ladino, if possible, and it is 

 better to sell to one who owns adjoining land 

 than to anybody else, especially if he is a former 



