144 



CONSUMER GOODS 



each; 42, 2 houses; and 39, 3 houses; only 13 had 

 more than 3. Two-thirds of the houses classified 

 (table 54) have walls of cane frame and mass- 

 adobe and grass-thatch roofs,"" the kind of house 

 typical of the Indians of Panajachel which I call 

 simply "mass-adobe." In general the wealthier 

 people have the one-out-of-five houses with walls 

 of adobe brick (simply called "adobe" here), but 

 where there are several houses, not more than one 

 or two are likely to be adobe. Smaller structures 

 such as granaries, outhouses, and the like are 

 never adobe. 



The variety of house types is greater than indi- 

 cated in table 54, for there is considerable vari- 

 ation in details. Thus, 94 of the 328 houses have 

 porches (corredores) , a characteristic of adobe 

 houses, 68 percent of which have them (as com- 

 pared with 20 percent of mass-adobe and 8 percent 

 of cane houses). Thus also, 32 of the 328 houses 

 have annexes (called culatas) built onto an outside 

 wall; since more than half of these are built into 

 porches, they tend also to be associated with adobe 

 houses, so that 13 of the 32 annexes are foimd on 

 the few adobe houses. There are differences also 

 with respect to doors and windows. Most houses 

 have wooden doors, but 99 of the 328 have doors 

 of canes tied together, associated with cane houses 

 (43 percent of which have them, as opposed to 

 34 percent of mass-adobe and only 9 percent of 

 adobe houses) and in all cases thatched roofs. 

 Where windows exist, they are unglazed and only 

 occasionally are more than holes in the wall. 

 Windows are found in 27 percent of adobe houses, 

 10 percent of mass-adobe and 5 percent of cane- 

 walled houses; but the total number is only 43 of 

 the 328 houses. All houses are rectangular and 

 almost all consist of only 1 room. The largest 

 house of which measurements are available is 14 

 by 6 mras,"' with a height at the center of 6 varus; 

 but this is one of the few divided into 2 rooms. 

 The largest 1-room houses noted are 7 by 6 by 7; 

 7 varas in fact seems to be their maximum length, 

 and 6 varas the maximum width. The roof ridge 

 is only very rarely as high as 7 varas. The walls 

 do not seem to exceed 3 varas in height. The 

 smallest independent house measured is 3 by 3 by 

 3, with the wall height Iji varas. Adobe houses 

 tend to be larger than other kinds. 



"• Tho terminology used in the discussion of houses conforms to that of 

 Wauehope, 1938. 

 "1 The vara Is about 33 English inches. 



With two minor exceptions, all Indian houses of 

 Panajachel have gabled roofs (two sheds); if 

 there were more with other types, notably hip 

 roofs, they were not observed."^ The houses, if 

 not square, are always longer along the roof-ridge 

 axis than they are wide. The doorway is most 

 frequently on one side, but in some cases the 

 front of the house is one of the gable ends. Data 

 on this difference were not systematically collected. 



Aimexes, most frequently buDt onto an end of 

 the house (when not on the porch) have single 

 shed roofs. They serve as small bedrooms, occa- 

 sionally kitchens, storerooms, chicken coops, etc. 

 In one case a sweat bath is annexed to the house 

 in this manner. All told, 41 such annexes were 

 counted in 1937. Of these, 24 had mass-adobe 

 walls, 12 cane walls, and 4 adobe-brick walls. 

 One armex, used as a saint house, was constructed 

 of branches. Except for one roofed with boards, 

 and another with tiles, all were thatched. 



Sixteen wall-less structures (galeras) were 

 counted in connection with Indian houses. More 

 important are storehouses for corn. In most cases 

 com is stored in part of one of the main houses, in 

 an annex, or in a walled portion of the porch. But 

 in 1937 there were 20 cases of separate structures 

 for this purpose, all of cane and thatch. Chicken 

 coops are much more frequently separate struc- 

 tures; of the 70 counted, all were cane and thatch, 

 except 1 of boards, 2 of rocks and muck, and one 

 of loose adobes piled up. The 7 chicken houses 

 that were not separate were buUt on the porch, or 

 annexed to the building. Only one dog house was 

 noted, but there were two pigpens and two rabbit 

 houses, one of the latter with a wooden floor. 

 There was also one separate bake oven, besides a 

 small one evidently a toy. 



The sweat bath is a rectangular structure with 

 rounded corners and roof. Of 113 counted in 

 1937, 74 were constructed of rubble set in adobe 

 mud, 37 of adobe, 1 of mass-adobe, and 1 one of 

 planks. Only 1 was excavated. In addition, 2 

 sweat baths were annexed to houses. Separate 

 roofs of thatch (and in one case tiles) are fre- 

 quently built over the sweat bath for protection 



1" Wauehope (1938, p. 41) says: "The gable roof is the most common form 

 in only one Indian region, the Alta Vera Paz of Guatemala . . ." It is true 

 that in the Lake AtitlSn region many towTis have houses with hip roofs, but 

 Panajachel certainly does not and Sta. Catarina has both types. I believe 

 that most of the houses in S0I0I&, Chichicastenango, and other towns to the 

 north have gabled roofs. 



