122 



THE BUSINESS OF AGRICULTURE 



her gardens (exceptional because squash are rarely 

 grown outside the milpa) to sell. Processed com 

 and bean foods such as tamales and atol are sold 

 by local women. But by and large, the products 

 that are associated with the milpa, with the excep- 

 tion of green beans separately grown, are not for 

 sale by the Panajachel Indians who produce them. 



Coffee, to the direct contrary, is almost all sold. 

 Some of the growers of coffee even sell their entire 

 crops and buy what they need during the year. 

 One reason for this is that Panajachel coffee, which 

 is high grade, brings a better price than that 

 which can be bought in the market. Another is 

 that very many poor families sell their coffee "on 

 the bush" long before the harvest. Indian growers 

 do not market their coffee. Instead, Ladinos come 

 to their houses to buy it to send to the capital for 

 export. Some of the wealthier Indians hold out for 

 better prices, but never attempt to market it 

 themselves. The middlemen often profit from 

 these transactions with little risk, since before 

 they buy they know the price to be had in Guate- 

 mala City. 



It is to the disposal of their vegetables and fruit 

 that the Indians devote their commercial atten- 

 tion. The sale of this produce is effected in several 

 ways: 



(1) A large part of the vegetable crop, and to a 

 lesser extent the fruit, is sold to merchants of other 

 towns who make a practice of coming to the homes 

 of the local Indians to bargain for onions, garlic, 

 pepinos, etc. The most important business of this 

 kind is in connection with onions (something like 

 half of which may be sold in this way), bought 

 usually by Sololateco merchants who take them 

 to Guatemala City to sell. When onions are in 

 particular demand in the capital, Sololatecos (less 

 frequently Atitecos or others) are seen knocking 

 at doors looking for onions, or harvesting and 

 preparing them, or fixing their cargoes. They 

 often buy them by the unharvested tablon, or they 

 pick up smaller quantities from several growers. 

 Onion seed (Panajachel seed is supposed to be 

 especially good) is also bought by outsiders (most 

 frequently from Mixco) who come to shop for it. 

 Nursery seedlings are also occasionally bought for 

 transplanting by Sololatecos, Atitecos, Tepanecos 

 and perhaps others. Although cases of Atitecos' 

 buying cabbages are recalled, other vegetables are 

 less frequently bought in this manner. Very 

 frequently and in great quantities during the very 



short season, pepinos are purchased by merchants 

 from other towns, especially Sololfi, who take them 

 to Guatemala City. Fruit is frequently sold in 

 this manner also. During the Spanish-plum 

 season Catarinecos, especially, buy the imhar- 

 vested fruit of whole trees, which they then take 

 home to ripen and eventually to sell in other towns. 

 They also buy ripe and harvested fruit. Cases 

 have been noted of Chichicastenango Indians 

 buying plums and oranges, of Luquenos buying 

 green avocados to take to Guatemala City, of 

 Andresanos buying limas and oranges at the time 

 of the com harvest, to give to their harvesters, of 

 Antoneros buying limas, of Jorgenos buying stems 

 of green bananas to ripen and sell in the Solola 

 market, and so on. 



(2) A relatively unimportant means of disposing 

 of the local produce is by house-to-house sales to 

 Ladino families and to hotels, and to traveling 

 merchants passing through, either on the road or 

 at the piers where they embark and disembark. 

 Only women engage in such selling, and they 

 usually offer small quantities of a variety of fruits 

 and vegetables, or eggs and fowl.'" A few women 

 (none native Panajachelenas) also sell beef and 

 pork products," and one local Totonicapena began 

 in 1937 to make a rice-and-milk drink to sell 

 chiefly at the Ladino houses. Most women sell 

 the produce from home, but in some cases they 

 may buy them from others for resale at a profit. 

 One may guess that a fourth of the households are 

 more or less regularly represented by women and 

 girls who sell at the houses, on the roads, and at 

 the piers several days of each week. Since they 

 sell the family produce, their "profits" are not 

 separable from the earnings of agriculture. 



(3) The chief means of disposing of produce is 

 in the market place. Every landed family sells at 

 least part of its produce in formal markets. Local 

 Indians sell their own produce or that of other 

 families, which they buy in private to take to 

 market. Exceptionally, they bring produce pur- 



^ Local Indian women never sell fowl In the local market; in one case 

 noted a women sold a hen in the S0I0I& market. Fowl are evidently sold 

 only when the woman is in need of cash, for she prefers the less public method 

 of going to a customer's house. 



" Especially pork products. Most pigs being butchered by Ladinos, the 

 business is largely in their hands. Beef products are usually sold in connec- 

 tion with the butcher shops, but one Ladino butcher hired a local Totonl- 

 capei^a to sell beef-belly at the houses. Rosales one day (October 27, 1936), 

 spoke to her when he had bought some and found that she received a cent for 

 each 5 pounds sold. She carried 30 or 40 pounds in a basket on her head, her 

 child meanwhile being carried in the usual fashion on her back. She said 

 she sold on credit, too. 



