164 



THE LEVEL AND COST OF LIVING 



Family No. 1 consisted in 1936 of man and wife, 

 five sons — 11 to 32 years of age — and two daugh- 

 ters, 27 and 16 years old. The family, pure Pana- 

 jacheleno, tends to be old-fashioned in most 

 respects. The man's father was probably well- 

 to-do and he inherited a fair portion; but he has 

 since acquired very much more land and was in 

 1936 by far the largest landholder. He is generally 

 believed to be the richest Indian in Panajachel, 

 and no doubt he is. 



FamiUes 58 and 49 were interviewed at length 

 over the course of several weeks each, the time 

 being devoted almost exclusively to their household 

 finances. The wife as well as the husband was 

 present during most of the interviews. In the case 

 of family 37 only the husband was interviewed, 

 during days when he guarded the church as 

 sacristan. Only the head of family 1 was inter- 

 viewed on this subject, and not at great length. 

 An elaborate series of schedules had been worked 

 out, and they were filled in (and revised) with 

 each of the families. The food schedules included 

 lists of aU commodities, as specifically as possible, 

 with spaces for the quantities consumed daily, 

 weelvly, or monthly; variations seasonally or for 

 holiday periods; total annual consumption; the 

 source of the commodity (home-grown or pur- 

 chased) ; the average price ; and the total annual 

 value. Clothing and utensUs and other schedules 

 varied slightly to suit the necessities of the case. 

 Table 65 summarizes the results for the three 

 families for which information is most complete. 

 The values of the quantities consumed are calcu- 

 lated on the basis of prices listed in Appendix 2, 

 which are not always the same as those given by 

 the three families. 



Although a fuller sampling would be desirable, 

 a fair picture of the cost of living in Panajachel 

 may be had from the information available; first, 

 because the three informants are unusually con- 

 scientious and reliable and desired themselves to 

 discover where their money goes, and second 

 because the variations in most items of expendi- 

 ture do not appear to be very great in the Indian 

 community. It seems likely that the method used 

 is more reliable in Panajachel than it would be in 

 an American farm community, for the Indians 

 tend to buy at regular intervals, and in about the 

 same quantities, and it is not difficult for them to 

 keep track of the amounts of various commodities 

 that they use. Since the Indians are very money- 



minded, and price-conscious, and are accustomed 

 to keeping accounts mentally, they make excellent 

 informants in these matters. 



COMMUNITY TOTALS 



For the figures in table 67, heavy reliance is 

 had on the information suppUed by the three 

 sample families. It would therefore seem useful 

 to weight members of the families by sex and age 

 (as was done with the 7-day food count). In 

 studies in the United States the proportions con- 

 sumed by persons of the two sexes and various ages 

 have been worked out on the basis of the value of 

 food consumed,'" but the scale cannot be applied 

 to Panajachel because consumption differences are 

 certainly distinct; the use of high-priced milk in 

 the United States, for example, raises the relative 

 value of a child's diet far beyond what it must be 

 in Panajachel. On the other hand, I know too 

 little of the differences in diet within the Panaja- 

 chel family to hazard setting up a comparable 

 scale. 



For the purpose of determining the consumption 

 of the community as a whole, the selection of 

 families 37, 49, and 58 is not too fortunate, since 

 they are all above the middle of the wealth scale 

 (66-67). Yet they surely represent something 

 near the norm of families with land. The large 

 size of family 58 makes it poorer than its amount 

 of land would indicate, while the other two, lower 

 in the scale of land controlled, are under the aver- 

 age in size. No. 58 is economically stable (owning 

 and controlling the same land) while No. 49 was 

 once richer, since it owns more land than it con- 

 trols, and No. 37 poorer. All three families have 

 dogs; No. 58 also has a cat and two sheep; Nos. 

 58 and 37, chickens. The three families are pri- 

 marily agricultural; the man in No. 58 butchers 

 pigs, in No. 49 he is a caponizer, and in No. 37 he 

 is an occasional baker, he makes nets, has a canoe, 

 and plays the marimba. The wife m No. 58 does 

 ordinary weaving; the women of No. 49 only twist 

 thread for the family's clothing, and the wife of 

 No. 37 does no work in textiles. Among the three 

 famOies are found all the common types of house 

 (one cane and thatch, 4 mass-adobe and thatch, 

 one adobe brick and thatch) in about the proper 

 proportions, and all of the common types of 

 clothing (2 "old fashioned," 1 "modern," 1 

 "elaborate," 1 "city" male costume, and 3 "plain 



'" See, for example, Stlebellng and Phlpard, 1939, table 3, p. 7. 



