80 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND PRACTICES 



not liitherto-divndcd land, Imt the dcalh of the 

 father tends to hasten the further division. A 

 dependent son who dies without heirs generally 

 has no real property to leave. If he has, it 

 presumal)ly (I have no cases) goes back into the 

 family pool. If he dies with heirs, and before he 

 has received his mheritance, his share belongs to 

 his children; but if they are young, and years 

 pass before the division is made, they are likely 

 to get less than a fair share. 



The laws of the country are infrequently applied. 



LAND AS COLLATER.iL 



I Icnow of three ways by which money is bor- 

 rowed with land as collateral. (1) The title 

 is deposited as informal security; (2) the land is 

 mortgaged; and (3) most commonly the land is 

 given in pawn to the creditor. 



In the first case, an Indian borrows money, 

 usually at mterest, and leaves with his creditor 

 the deed to a piece of laiid without making any 

 agreement conccrnmg the land. The document 

 is left as an evidence of good faith; for ^vithout 

 it the land cannot be sold or palmed. Thus in a 

 nimiber of cases where Indians came to borrow 

 money they brought titles to land to leave UTth 

 me. A case outside ])ersonal exjK'rience demon- 

 strates that no question of forfeit of the land is 

 involved. An Indian borrowed $5 from a Ladina, 

 at 5 percent, per month payable monthly,^' and 

 left with her the deed to a piece of land. For 5 

 years interest was ])aid pretty regularly, and 

 receipts given. Then the Indian took sick and 

 stopped paying interest. Two years later, his 

 cretlitor (the son of the Ladina, who had died in 

 the interim) took the matter to the local court- 

 house where, after the Indian showed he had paid 

 more in interest than the tunount of the original 

 debt, the remainder of interest was canceled and 

 he was given 3 months to pay the $5. He paid, 

 and received the deed to his land. In the litiga- 

 tion the India,n had assured the Ladino that he 

 woidd pay lieeause he wanted his document re- 

 turned. No question vwis raised of forfeiture, 

 and during the years that the delit ran, the 

 Indian continued in possession of the laud. 



Mortgaging of land, with a sti]Hdatiou that the 

 land may be forfeited, is not common and perhaps 

 never occurs among Indians. However, I have 



" Such a rate is now illegal, thoush in Informal cotitr.icts interest is often 

 higher than the legal ruaximam. 



record of three cases in which Indians mortgaged 

 land to Ladinos. The Indians continued to use 

 the land, simply paying interest on the money 

 borrowed. In all three cases, the Indians finally 

 lost by foreclosure; in one, the Indian lost his 

 home. 



LAND PAWNIXG 



By far the most common way of borrowing 

 large sums of money is by giving to the creditor 

 the use of the land for the loan period or until 

 the money is repaid. I know of no case in which 

 the land was forfeited by any legal process when 

 the term of the loan expired, although Ladinos 

 are reputed to foreclose in such circumstances. 

 (However, there are cases in which the land has 

 been pawned again by the person who has it 

 ou pawn.) What happens instead is that after 

 a long time even the owner or his heirs forget 

 that it only has been pawned and not sold, and 

 the community thinks of the land as having 

 changed hands. In such cases, with deeds not 

 registered, the land has in fact changed hands. 



The custom of pawning land was probably 

 the onl}^ way Indians borrowed on land in genera- 

 tions past when written documents were not 

 common. It is convenient. There is no problem 

 of collection of either interest or principal. The 

 creditor simply takes possession of the land until 

 the money is repaid. The fruit of the soil is so 

 profitable a return that the investor does not 

 care if the money is never repaid. Indeed, with 

 land virtually the only profitable investment 

 in Panajachel, and control of land the way to 

 wealth, people with money are anxious to lend 

 it on these terms. The wealthiest Indian of 

 Panajachel obtained his start this way. The 

 converse is that Indians pawn land only when 

 they think they must, knowing that loss of their 

 land curtails earning power and makes redemption 

 of the land difficult. They are therefore motivated 

 to borrow less rather than more money on a piece 

 of land, to redeem it more easily. Borrowed 

 money is usually spent for food, medicines, and 

 liquor, at times of sickness, death, or the assump- 

 tion of office, when cash is needed at a time the 

 earning power is reduced. With the abolition 

 of debt peonage in 1936, advance payment for 

 labor became illegal. This left borrowing as 

 the only way to get money for emergencies, and 

 the easiest way to borrow is to pawn land. Pos- 

 sibly the pawning of land has therefore increased 



