LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



69 



owner. More important as a limitation is the 

 high value placed on o\\Tiership of land: to 

 buy it increases and to sell it decreases not only 

 wealth but prestige. Finally, the individual's 

 freedom is restricted by his family: if a man's 

 children object strongly enough, he may desist 

 from selling his land, especially since public 

 opinion supports their argument that he is wrong 

 to fritter away their inheritance. With these 

 qualifications, ownership is unrestricted: land 

 can be bought and sold, rented or mortaged, 

 or given for security for a loan. 



There are apparently two kinds of legal title to 

 lands, and two khids of corresponding transfer of 

 title. Deeds prepared by lawj-ers may be regis- 

 tered in and transferred through a Government 

 land office in Solola, in which case taxes are paid 

 on the land. Or titles may be privately drawn 

 up and transfers privately arranged, in which case 

 an amateur lawyer draws up the papers of transfer 

 on stamped paper, they are signed by the prin- 

 cipals and witnessed and kept in the possession 

 of the purchaser. Such imofficial transfers are 

 apparently legal but not considered very safe and 

 watertight. The proportion of Panajachel lands 

 the ownership of which is registered in the land 

 office in Solola is probably small. The three cases 

 in which I was a principal to a land transaction 

 were all cases of unregistered documents. (I do 

 know what happens if an owner of lake-shore land 

 attempts to transfer title in Solola, since legally 

 the land there is of the public domain.) 



Land can be, and is, owTied by incUviduals re- 

 gardless of sex; thus part of the land of a family 

 may be owned by the husband and part by the 

 wife, each of whom has separately inherited it or 

 acquired it in some other manner. Men in general 

 own more land than women, both because they 

 are often willed more and because the husband 

 rather than the wife takes title to land bought by 

 the family. Young sons and daughters may under 

 certain circumstances own land, but if they are 

 living under the power of their parents or step- 

 parents the latter actually use the land for them 

 until they become independent and come into 

 their inheritance. In a similar manner, the hus- 

 band as agriculturalist generally controls the use 

 of the land of his wife. Neither husband nor 

 wife is sole master of the home or the family purse, 

 and neither is likclj^ to buy or seU laud without 

 the other's permission. Certainly neither can sell 



what belongs to the other. In one case a pro- 

 spective bu.yer erred seriously when he approached 

 a man about land which his wife owned; whatever 

 the real reason may have been, the wife subse- 

 quently refused to sell at any price even though 

 her husband seemed to favor doing so. After 

 that he refused even to talk about the land except 

 in his wife's presence. In another case an Indian 

 obtained his wife's permission to sell a piece of her 

 inheritance to a Ladino; the sale was consum- 

 mated, but the wife's mother then objected so 

 strongly to her duaghter that she induced her 

 husband to return the money. 



In general, Indians appear to be loathe to sell 

 their land, and sell only when they deem it abso- 

 lutely necessary. One class of exceptional cases 

 has come about in recent years with the willingness 

 of outsiders to pay high prices for lake-shore land. 

 Indians have in such cases sold land, but have 

 bought other land to replace it. There are also 

 cases in which people have sold land to pay for 

 prolonged drinking, and even (after coming into a 

 substantial legacy) to live an easy life. Such sell- 

 ing of land is not only unusual but frowned upon 

 in the community. It is generally felt that parents 

 should keep their land for their children. In one 

 case where a land-rich Indian sold all of his land, I 

 heard nothing but censure for him who had had so 

 much and who left nothing to his children. I have 

 several notes on similar cases: I shall cite tliree 

 that seem especially significant. 



(1) An informant described how a man who had 

 been left considerable money and land by his 

 father quickly spent the money and then eventual- 

 ly pawned or sold almost all the land. He added, 

 "Now he is not even able to work well; his phys- 

 ical weakness is undoubtedly an infirmity sent 

 him by his father because he has lost all the land." 



(2) I tried to buy a piece of land from an Indian 

 friend. "What would I have to leave my chil- 

 dren?" he asked, and added, "You can dig and dig 

 in your land, and the land is still there. Put in 

 fertihzer and the land grows. But mone\'- . . .?" 

 Several months later he was still reiterating this 

 position; he told me that others also wanted to 

 buy the land, but that he would not sell. He said 

 that he was considering trading it, however, for a 

 larger piece in a less favorably situated place. 



(3) An American in Guatemala City who was 

 trying to buy a certain smaU piece of land from a 

 local Indian asked me to intervene. The land was 



