174 



THE LEVEL AND COST OF LIVING 



sively by family 58, which has more Ladino-like 

 tastes and techniques; in this case, a sharp correc- 

 tion of the total must be made. A correction must 

 be made for "imported" bananas, too, for Nos. 

 58 and 37 seem to be wildly extravagant in their 

 use. There is little to be said of the fruit locally 

 produced; it is difficult to rely on any figures, since 

 children, especially, are apt to pick a fruit to eat 

 whenever they please. Obviously also, what is 

 consumed depends in part on what an individual 

 family happens to produce. I could go through 

 my fruit census and make corrections of the sample 

 on this basis, but considering the vagueness of the 

 figures, I think it not worth while; the families of 

 the sample, at any rate, are fairly representative 

 of fruit-tree owners. A general correction should 

 be made for all locally produced fruits, however, 

 to take account of the 18 percent of the families 

 who own no land or fruit trees and who doubtless 

 eat less of these fruits grown by the sample 

 families. I have taken off roughly 10 percent to 

 account for this difference, and in special cases 

 (such as those of the granadilla and papaya), 

 when I know that the fruit is more rarely grown 

 than the sample would indicate, I have made 

 special corrections. 



(88-88) Sweets. — Lard cracklings have already 

 been mentioned as favorite "snacks," and it has 

 been noted that fruit is eaten outside of meal 

 hours as a refreshment. In addition, candies are 

 bought in the stores and toasted horsebeans and 

 cookies in the market place. Peanuts are also 

 bought in the market, but were left out of the 

 original schedule as must have been other mis- 

 cellaneous sweets, such as candied popcorn that is 

 occasionally found in the market. Certainly some 

 Indians also drink the cold beverages to be bought, 

 but none of the sample families did. The rice- 

 with-milk beverage is a Ladino favorite, and indi- 

 cates again that family 58 is not typically Indian. 

 Correction must be made in this case as in those 

 of cookies and fresh-corn tortillas wherein again 

 the No. 37 family shows its liking for snacks and 

 sweets. 



In summary (table 67, e) it is seen that, according 

 to my calculation, the community as a whole con- 

 sumed $15,255.35 worth of food in 1936. About 

 26 percent of this was produced within the com- 

 munity and 74 percent outside. Clearly, Pana- 

 jachel does not produce what it consumes, nor 

 consume what it produces. An examination of 



the proportions of different kinds of food con- 

 sumed makes it equally apparent that if the data 

 and calculations are anywhere near correct, the 

 Indian diet is by no means confined to, nor the 

 dollar spent on, corn, beans, and chile. 



EQUIPMENT 



General information on equipment owned by 

 the Indians was obtained from many sources, in- 

 cluding simple observation. Dependence for the 

 quantitative statements of table 68 is had chiefly 

 on the sample of three families referred to above. 

 Table 68, a estimates the value of all equipment 

 owned by Panajachel Indians at a point in time 

 in 1936. It excludes supplies of a transient nature, 

 such as soap, kerosene, and firewood. The method 

 pursued in arriving at the conclusion of the second 

 last column is essentially that used to determine 

 quantities of food consumed. With the informa- 

 tion of the sample judged in the knowledge of its 

 peculiarities and tempered by common sense and 

 general knowledge of the community, it is possible 

 to reach conclusions that seem sound. 



It will be noted that, either because the families 

 were not asked about them, or because they did 

 not use them, some items used in Panajachel were 

 not reported by the sample families. I know that 

 some people have shotguns and flashlights, many 

 use bought brooms (a bunch of branches serves 

 otherwise), a few have hammocks — to rest, not 

 sleep, in — china and pottery cups, forks and 

 knives; I am sure that most, if not all, households 

 own liquor glasses, and the wooden troughs that 

 are placed around the grinding stone. For all such 

 items general knowledge had to take the place of 

 special data, but the results cannot be far off. 



It will be noted, also, that the three families 

 differed somewhat in their judgments of how long 

 certain objects are used before they need to be 

 replaced. Thus a table lasts family 49 15 years, 

 family 37 only 10; a kind of chair lasts family 58 

 3 years; the others, 5; and so on. This is to be 

 expected, and I have tended to average the esti- 

 mates in drawing conclusions (except where infor- 

 mation is apparently wrong, as in the case of 

 family 37's report that a tump-strap lasts him 

 only a year) . Some of the differences reflect differ- 

 ences in the kind of use the articles get. For 

 example, there is a nice (if rare) consistency in the 

 statement that three tin lamps last 3 years, two 



