LABOR 



105 



o^\^l fields (planting vegetables) before the titular 

 fiesta began on October 2. All he did then until 

 Monday, the 7th, was water his gardens, cut fire- 

 wood, and so on. That day he went with Indian 

 L. S. to spend 2 weeks (but they returned week 

 ends) in Cerro de Oro, across the lake, to cultivate 

 2.67 acres of corn that L. S. had there. It was a 

 12-day job because the land is very stony. He 

 was given 8 cents a day, plus food; but because of 

 his debt, he received in cash only 6 cents a day. 

 Then for 3 days he worked in his own milpa and 

 in the following 6 workdays he made 7 tabloves 

 for Ladino M. G. (at the rate of 12 cents a tahlon) 

 in part payment of the rented tablones. " 



Then, AU Saints' Day holiday intervening, he 

 celebrated on Octo])er 31 and November 1 and 

 wound up in jail on November 2. Released on 

 the 4th, he weeded his own vegetables on what 

 remained of November 4, and on the 5th and 6th. 

 The rest of that week he helped thatch Ladino 

 J. F. A.'s house, and earned 15 cents cash each of 

 3 days. On the 11th, 12th, and 13th he earned 

 70 cents carting stones in a canoe. The next day 

 he worked in the garden of his Indian friend L. S., 

 and 2 days later the favor was returned; in the 

 intervening day he did his own work. Mean- 

 while he began to pick coffee for Ladino J. F. A. 

 and in 2 weeks picked 30 5-cent baskets. During 

 these same weeks, however, he earned $1.1 6 making 

 tablones for an Indian (J. J.) who discounted 70 

 cents still owed him. 



Not until November 30 did he get back to his 

 own work, and even then he worked with me in 

 the morning; but not until December 3 did he 

 finish picking J. F. A.'s coffee. Most of the next 

 3 weeks he spent making his own tablones, etc., 

 and harvesting his milpa (on December 16-17 

 with the help of three laborers). The last 12 

 work-days of the year he spent making tablones 

 for Indian V. L. who paid him 6 cents a day plus 

 food. 



Most of the first 3 weeks of 1 941 he spent picking 

 coffee for Ladino M. G. who paid him either 13 

 cents or 15 cents per hundredweight — I never did 

 get this straight. In each week there was a 1-day 

 holiday (January' 1, 6, and 15) but he worked 



*' Up to this point I had to depend upon the memory of the informant and 

 there were many mix-ups; doubtless there are inaccuracies enough in the 

 account I present, but they give an idea of how this man's time is spent. 

 After this point 1 was in contact with him, and my own diary checks his 

 statements. I toolv his statement independently, and I found that he tends 

 to have a poor memory for sequences: but I was able to straighten out most 

 matters. 



right tlirough, except that on the 6th he stopped 

 early. He collected 1,200 pounds of coffee in this 

 period, and received all but 50 cents, which was 

 applied on a dollar debt, in cash. 



The week of the 20th he devoted to his own 

 fields, harvesting corn the first days and planting 

 onions the last. Then during the last week of 

 January and the first two of February he worked 

 around the house of Ladino M. G. cutting trees 

 for house posts, making and combing tablones and 

 planting nursery, cutting firewood, carrying stones 

 and adobes, fencing, helping to make a duck pond, 

 etc. On the days he worked he earned 15 cents a 

 day, but of the tablones he made, three were for 

 himself and another three for his employer in lieu 

 of rent. In between times he also did some work 

 of his own, spending 3 or 4 days making a hard 

 tablon. He also took a day off cutting firewood 

 for Ladino J. F. A. 



Then he obtained steady work on the construc- 

 tion of a large house, and he continued to work 

 there at 20 cents a day to the time I took tliis 

 information, on April 8th. 



During these weeks, when I spoke with the 

 informant almost every evening, I could obtain a 

 good idea of how much of liis own work he could 

 do early mornings and late afternoons. vSunday 

 mornings he had to report for military training, 

 but before that he almost always "made" a load 

 of firewood. Twice he watered his gardens in- 

 stead, and once he prepared firewood in the morn- 

 ing and watered in the afternoon. Usually, 

 however, he did not work Sunday afternoons. 

 During each week he watered his gardens once or 

 twice before going to work and sometimes in the 

 midweek he prepared firewood in the afternoon. 



FREEDOM OF LABOR 



Chester Lloyd Jones concludes a discussion of 

 the labor history of Guatemala, in which he 

 shows that from early Colonial days there was 

 virtual labor slavery in one fomi or other, with 

 the statement that the more the system changes, 

 the more it is the same thing (Jones, 1940, p. 164). 

 He describes how the abolition of the mandamientos 

 was followed by a system of debt peonage, wliich 

 kept the highland Indians still bound to lowland 

 plantations, and argues that the 1935 substitution 

 of antivagrancy legislation for debt peonage had 

 the same effect. 



