FUNCTIONS OF WEALTH 



187 



elusions. The differences are that in the United 

 States one depends upon written records, including 

 information collected by other scholars. In 

 Panajachel svich do not exist, except for vital 

 statistics data. Indeed, since the Indian com- 

 munity of Panajachel is not literate, one cannot 

 even collect records by means of questionnaires 

 and the like. There are no ways, no local censuses. 

 One cannot ask school children to help. Every 

 bit of raw data is personally set down in the hand 

 of the ethnographer — or his wife or any local 

 assistant he might be able to find and train. The 

 compensating quality of the situation is of course 

 that the community is small ; it is possible to come 

 to know personally many of its aspects. 



Despite inherent difficulties, this study pretends 

 to be quantitative, the quantities stated with refer- 

 ence to the whole community, and complete: It is 

 quantitative in that at every point the effort is 

 made to answer the question "How much?" as 

 weU as "What?," "Who?," and" How?" It has 

 reference to the whole community in that the 

 object is not to say only what and how much one 

 or several individuals produce and consume, but 

 what and how much the whole community pro- 

 duces and consumes in 1 year. It pretends to be 

 complete insofar as it tries to report not some but 

 all of the community expenditures, in time and 

 money; it purports to inventory all of the time, 

 the money, and the resources of the community. 



What follows is far from a historical account of 

 what I did in the field. Rather, it is an idealiza- 

 tion; what I would like to have done — or, perhaps, 

 what I like to pretend to have done. My actual 

 fumbling is not worth committing to print; it is 

 enough to have distributed it on microfilm. What 

 follows distills some of what I learned through the 

 experience of doing. Every individual item of 

 method that I mention is honestly enough re- 

 counted. However the order is rationalized, the 

 logical arrangement supplied by hindsight. 



Suppose now that the reader comes to Panaja- 

 chel (as I did) with some knowledge of the general 

 area. Even a 2-week tourist will know from the 

 regional differences and the money markets, and 

 merchants — which are indeed part of the tourist 

 attraction! — that the economy is something like 

 ours. This is not Melville's island paradise to be 

 approached as entirely novel. It might take a 



little longer to discover that there is a system of 

 private ownership, economic rationality, and free 

 enterprise, particularly since tourist guides fre- 

 quently confuse issues. For example, one hears 

 (and reads) that merchants will not sell on the 

 road, but only in markets either because of taboos 

 or because they enjoy the markets; or that the 

 Indians become so used to the burdens that on 

 return from market they substitute stones for the 

 merchandise they have sold. Anybody willing to 

 look will soon see, however, that there are simple 

 economic motivations at work and that compari- 

 sons of this society with our own might be useful 

 and valid. In this context it takes almost no time 

 to note that Panajachel, specifically, specializes 

 in growing vegetables, fruit and coffee and ex- 

 changes the produce for much of what is needed 

 to live that is grown or manufactured in other 

 towns similarly specialized. 



Settled in Panajachel and making conversation 

 with the Indians it is soon obvious that there are 

 "rich" and "poor" people; they talk about this 

 difference. Suppose one then asks how rich are 

 the rich and how poor are the poor; how many are 

 rich and how many are poor; whether differences 

 sort out families or instead divide them; whether 

 from generation to generation wealth remains 

 within a family group; how much tendency there 

 is for individuals to become rich during their life- 

 times, or poor; and what the prerogatives of wealth 

 are. Suppose further, that one is interested both in 

 what people say or think about these questions 

 and also what the objective facts are. Suppose, in 

 sum, that without using the terms, one is interested 

 in "class" aspects of differences in wealth. 



This let us take as a problem area. 



DEFINING THE COMMUNITY FOR STUDY 



The first step then is to define the community 

 of people about whom the questions are asked. 

 It is apparent from the beginning — indeed from 

 the census publications — that there are two kinds 

 of people: Ladinos and Indians. Not only are 

 they self-conscious groups, so that people will talk 

 about themselves and others as Ladinos or Indians, 

 but there are obvious signs. Ladinos speak Span- 

 ish as a mother tongue, Indians are those who are 

 at home in an Indian language and who speak 

 Spanish with an accent. Indians wear distinctive 

 and rather colorful costumes; Ladinos, European- 



