THE LEVEL AND COST OF LIVING 



163 



of 157 days of work and $12.56 in cash. (Equip- 

 ment will be accounted for below.) 



Thus, all told, the totals of table 63 should prob- 

 ably read: 



Total cost of clothing $4, 640. 02 



Value of labor within the community, 5,763 



days at 10 cents 574. 40 



Materials and items bought outside the com- 

 munity 4, 065. 62 



FOOD 



Data on the consumption of food in the com- 

 munity is based on three kinds of information: 

 (1) Annual family budgets worked out with four 

 families, two of them very complete and reliable; 

 the third reliable but complete only for food and 

 utensils; and the fourth (from the wealthiest 

 family), neither complete nor highly reliable, 

 useful only as a check and for some comparisons. 

 The data are given in table 65. (2) A very care- 

 ful 7-day account of the actual consumption of a 

 sample of six Panajachel families in the winter of 

 1944, made as a part of a more general food survey 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1944, 

 pp. 176-177), under my direction (Goubaud, 1946). 

 Juan Rosales collected the data in Panajachel. The 

 results were turned over in 1945 to the National 

 Indianist Institute of Guatemala directed by the 

 late Antonio Goubaud Carrera, who had also been 

 field director of the survey. In turn the data 

 were tabulated by the Food and Agricultural 

 Organization of the United Nations, who made 

 available to me the results as shown in table 66. 

 Since only 1 week is involved, the results are 

 useful only as they supplement and check the 

 material otherwise collected to permit calculations 

 for the entire year. The three families supplying 

 reliable data in terms of household budgets are 

 all included in the 7-day study. '^^ (3) A variety 

 of general information on seasonal differences, on 

 ceremonial and other uses of food, and the like. 



THE SAMPLE FAMILIES 



Family No. 58 consisting in 1936 of father, 

 mother, five sons, the eldest with wife and infant 

 daughter, the others 18, 14, 4, and 2 years of age, 



'•• All of the figures in table 65 are printed as they were calculated from the 

 original 1936 data. When the 1944 data became available, I compared notes 

 where possible and became convinced that the original figures are highly 

 reliable. Family compositions had changed, so that any exact comparison 

 Is impossible; but I am unable to find contradictions in the two sets of evi- 

 dence. Therefore I continued to use the fuller 1936 data as the primary basis 

 of the calculations for table 65. 



respectively, was well above average size. The 

 father, of pure Panajachel stock, as far as can be 

 determined, has lived m Panajachel all his life, 

 and is in most respects a typical Indian. '^< When 

 he was a boy he went to school and served the 

 local priest and learned to read and write. The 

 mother, daughter of a Panajacheleno and a Con- 

 cepciofiera who was in 1936 a widowed midwife, 

 was born and raised in Panajachel, wore the local 

 costume, partook of the local customs, and with 

 her husband went through pubHc and religious 

 offices. The eldest son spent a period in military 

 service in Sololi after having learned to read and 

 write in the local school. He brought back with 

 him European-type trousers and a Totonicapena 

 wife raised in Concepcidn, where her father phed 

 a trade. She wears Totonicapdn clothing, and 

 like other Totonicapenos is Ladinoized in certain 

 respects; for example, she speaks Spanish quite 

 well, does not know how to weave, and uses frying 

 techniques in cooking. 



Family No. 49 consisted in 1936 of the father '" 

 and mother and two daughters, aged 15 and 5, of 

 old Panajacheleno stock, and old fashioned and 

 "typical" in most respects. 



Family No. 37 consisted in 1936 of man and 

 wife and 10-year-old son. (Four children had 

 died in infancy.) The man comes of a pure Pana- 

 jacheleno family, as nearly as can be determined; 

 the wife, however, is a daughter of family 55, of 

 mixed ancestry. '** The family in most respects 

 is culturally tjrpical; but Mariano may be said to 

 be a "go-getter," and within the culture, extraor- 

 dinarily enterprising and "progressive." He is 

 one of two Indians owning canoes, and ambitious 

 to own an outboard motor for his dugout. He is 

 the only one who has built a bake-oven; one of 

 two who make fish nets; the only organizer of a 

 marimba band. It was he who brought about a 

 revival of the Conquista dance in Panajachel. 

 But he enters fully into normal Indian social life, 

 and evidences no desire to go beyond it. Since 

 Mariano is something of an individualist it is 

 probable that the diet in his home is not quite 

 typical ; and indeed some diflferences are apparent. 



JM In 1940 he and his family became the first Panajachelefio converts to 

 Protestantism. Relatives in Guatemala City had been converted earlier 

 and may have influenced the family, but at least Bonifacio and his eldest 

 son had for a long time been interested in the new faith. 



"• Santiago became my best informant before this study was finished, bat 

 the data referred to in this chapter were for the most part taken from him 

 by Sr. Rosales, 1937. 



'M Supra, pp. 75-79. 



