70 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



the wife's inheritance. For a time I thought she 

 was holding out for more money, but when she 

 refused to sell even for 10 times what the land was 

 worth by local standards, I became convinced of 

 the sincerity of her insistence that she wanted it 

 for her son. 



It is true that there are special objections to 

 selling to Ladinos and to foreigners, but in too 

 many cases they i)roved too weak to interfere 

 with negotiations to suppose that they were the 

 major consideration in the last two cited. In 

 1941 an Indian proved anxious to sell me a piece 

 at a very moderate price; mistakenly thinking 

 that I had bought it, an Indian who lived on 

 adjoining land complained at its having been sold 

 to a foreigner. But the fact remains that had I 

 wished, I could have made the purchase (nor was 

 the seller a friend of mine: I did not laiow him 

 before negotiations began). In the case of a 

 family that did sell to foreigners, some Indians 

 blamed them for the opening of several new roads 

 which took away the land of others; but nobody 

 seemed to take the matter to heart. I tried in 

 vain to get a serious condemnation of sales to 

 outsiders from the richest landowner in town (who 

 himself had never sold land) or from almost any 

 body else. Wliat feeling there is is both mild and 

 sporadic. The facts are that for generations land 

 has been sold to Ladinos and to foreigners, that 

 Indians if they must sell prefer to sell to other 

 Indians, but that they almost surely put money 

 (in this matter) above sentiment. 



Until recently when lake-shore land began to 

 bring high prices from foreigners, so that some 

 sold it to better themselves by buying larger 

 areas of agricultural land elsewhere, it could be 

 said that Indians do not sell land for business 

 reasons but only because they need or want the 

 money for consumptive purposes. Cases that I 

 have, as well as statements of informants, all 

 indicate that sickness, death, and the assumption 

 of municipal or religious office are by far tiie most 

 important events leading to loss of land. Even if 

 land is not immediately sold in such ciiciimstances, 

 debts eventually lead to its sale, or to il-; loss by 

 being pawned and never redeemed. Protracted 

 drinking, which also often leads to debt, is itself 

 frequently begun at funerals and during the 

 performance of duties connected with civil and 

 religious offices. There are cases in which land 

 is sold in order to liquidate debts, and these may 



in a sense be called sales for business purposes. 

 In one case cited below, one of two pieces of land 

 was sold to enable the owner to redeem the other. 

 In another, an Indian was anxious to sell a 

 heavily mortgaged piece of land, having no hope 

 of redeemmg it, to enable him to pay other press- 

 ing debts. But I have never heard of land's being 

 sold to furnish capital, probably because land itself 

 is the only really profitable investment available 

 to a Panajachelciio. 



The last land to be lost, if all is lost, is almost 

 always the house site. If it is pawned, the family 

 continues to use the house — the creditor using only 

 the land; but if it is sold, the family can remain 

 only by the kindness of the new owner. There 

 were only five cases in 1936 (besides that of a 

 man who kept a second wife and family in a 

 "borrowed house") in which families who owned 

 land did not live on their own property. In none 

 of these cases was the house site sold or otherwise 

 given up before other land, and the evidence is 

 clear that such would be an extraordinary practice. 

 On the contrary, landless Panajachelenos buy land 

 first from a desire for a home site. This means, of 

 course, that while land is the source of wealth and 

 economic security, it also makes possible an owned 

 home site, desire for which may be as important 

 as desire for wealth. In other words, Indians do 

 not live on borrowed land in order to make the 

 most, agiicultu rally, of their own land. 



WTiile it is true that the sale of Indian land to 

 Ladinos and outsiders is in general a one-way 

 process, our notes record six cases of the reverse, 

 four of them in very recent years. It is, obviously, 

 a matter of relative wealth: Ladinos usually are 

 not forced to sell land, and when they do sell, it is 

 apt to be in quantities that Indians cannot afford 

 to buy, and often for prices higher than they will 

 pay. Of the six cases, four concerned wealthy 

 Indians, and the other two poorer Indians who 

 bought very small lots from relatively poor Ladi- 

 nos. Most of the land that Indians buy is pur- 

 chased from other Indians. The number of such 

 tiansactions, probably four or five a year, is 

 difliodt to estimate from my incomplete notes, 

 partly because in all-Indian transactions the line 

 between pawned lands and purchased lands is very 

 hazy. Discussion of pawning is anticipated in the 

 following cases inserted to show the confusion 

 that often surrounds land transactions among the 

 Indians. 



