THE BUSINESS OF AGRICULTURE 



123 



chased in other to^vns. The markets that are 

 frequented regularly (table 43) , are those of Pana- 

 jachel itself; of Solola, an hour by foot to the 

 north; of San Andres, an equal distance to the 

 east; of San Lucas, across the lake; of TecpS,n and 

 of Patziin, a day's walk to the east; of Patulul and 

 Chicacao, on the "coast" to the south; of Quezal- 

 tenango far to the west; and of Guatemala City. 

 Occasionally, for annual fiesta markets, local 

 Indians visit other towns such as Chichicaste- 

 nango, San Pedro, AtitMn, and so on; but rela- 

 tively few go and not at all regularly. On the other 

 hand, although few are real merchants who regu- 

 larly buy in 1 town to sell in others, only 13 (all 

 landless) of the 155 households never regularly 

 sell anything. They frequent markets for buying 

 purposes, of course, but take nothing to sell. 

 Three of them are "foreign" Indians (2 Totoni- 

 capan, 1 San Pedro) with special trades; the others 

 are for the most part families whose adults work 

 as laborers and domestics for other families, 

 Ladino or Indian. In some cases the women 

 could, were they ambitious as some others, buy 

 produce to sell, but they do not. 



Table 43. — Number of households habitually represented 

 by vendors in various markets 



Markets 



Households having no regular vendors 



Households represented by vendors in; 



Panajachel market only _ 



Panajachel and Solol4 markets 



Panajachel and San Andr&s markets 



Panajachel and Tecp^ markets _ 



Panajachel and San Lucas markets 



Panajachel and Guatemala City markets 



Panajachel, Sololfi, and San Andr6s markets 



Panajachel, Solola, and Tecpun markets 



Panajachel. SololS, and San Lucas markets 



Panajachel, Tecp^n, and Patziin markets 



Panajachel, San Lucas, and Guatemala City markets 



Panajachel, Solola, Tecpan, and San Lucas markets 



Panajachel, Solola, Tecpan, and Patziin markets 



Panajachel, Solold. San Andrfe, and Tecpdn markets 



Panajachel, S0I0I&, Tecpfin, and Guatemala City markets. 



Panajachel, San Lucas. Chicacao, and Patulul 



Panajachel, TecpAn, and Guatemala City 



Panajachel. Chicacao. Patulul, and Guatemala City 



Panajachel, San Lucas, and Patziin markets 



Panajachel, S0I0I&, San Andres, TecpSn, and Patziin 



Panajachel, Solol4, San AndrSs, Tecpiin, Patziin, Quezal- 

 tenango ._ 



Panajachel, San Andrfe, Tecp&n, Chicacao, Patulul, 

 Quezaltenango .._ 



Total 



Total number of households 



Number of 

 households 



32 

 69 

 6 

 4 

 1 

 4 

 3 

 2 

 3 

 3 

 2 



THE LOCAL MARKET 



The 142 households that dispose of their produce 

 in markets are all represented by sellers more or 

 less regularlj' vending in the local market. Except 

 for three recent cases of men selling in the market 

 (including a young boy, but all equally criticized) 

 these families are represented in the market only 

 by their womenfolk. Table 44 and the derived 

 summary of table 45 (the results of a spot check 

 at stated times over a period of weeks) give a 

 precise picture of when local women tend to sell 

 in the local market and what, during one season 

 at least, they bring.'* Most women come to 

 market at least several times during the week, for 

 an hour or two, morning or afternoon, some of 

 them regularly on certain days at the same time, 

 others only occasionally. Sunday is "market day" 

 when as many as a hundred local women come, 

 usually only for the morning but often for the 

 whole day, going home at noon for a quick lunch.** 

 Sunday is also the day when the women do much 

 of their purchasing for the week from the mer- 

 chants of other towns who come. The next best 

 selling days are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, 

 when (en route to or from the Tuesday and Friday 

 market days in Solola) merchants stop and buy 

 local produce. The number of women coming to 

 seU on these days rises from a dozen to as many as 

 30. Besides those who sell fruit and vegetables, 

 there are two Panajachelenas vendors of coffee 

 and prepared foods; this business is not prominent 

 because a resident Nahualena keeps a restaurant 

 in a corner of the market place, and a woman 

 originally of Concepci6n regularly sells food at the 

 entrance of town and often in the market place. 



" Sunday forenoons are not included; count of the large Sunday market 

 was made but once; the results (table 50) are discussed In section on Consumer 

 Goods (pp. 133-154) becaiise the Sunday market is important for shoppers. 

 Ladina women are not included in the table; "Foreign" Indian women resi- 

 dent in Panajachel are Included, eicept for the Nabualefla restaurateur and 

 the proprietor of the butcher shop. 



•• One wealthy woman regularly makes two trips to the Sunday market 

 with large baskets of fruits and vegetables. She is notoriously a shrewd 

 woman and is said always to sell out at good prices. One Sunday (December 

 6, 1936), Rosales noted that she brought large baskets of tomatoes, sweet 

 cassava, sweetpotatoes, beans, cabbages, onions, oranges, limas, peaches, eta 

 It happened that no Atitecos came with fruit from the coast, and this woman 

 had a field day: the Ladlnas surrounded her and bought her out at good 

 prices (peaches, for example, at three for a cent). She hired other women 

 to go to her house for more fruit to sell. 



