190 



FUNCTIONS OF WEALTH 



(2) Labor required to yield harvests. This 

 requires general study of the value and use of 

 time; the division of labor and differences in the 

 use and value of the time of different age and sex 

 groups. The problem of the time required for each 

 task in the fields (for which we had the help of a 

 document prepared for the President) involves the 

 relative efficiency of paid and of family labor, of 

 wages and other customary payments to hired 

 help, and so on. 



(3) Yields. The safest check on statements of 

 informants is to sample and count, measure, or 

 weigh. This is not difficult, once the investigator 

 has friends willing to help. It is easj' to count the 

 harvest of onions, garlic, and the like (and corre- 

 spondingly unnecessary to check informants, who 

 are always counting them for sale!), much more 

 difficult with corn which in Panajachel is har- 

 vested for home use and not really part of the 

 commercial complex. 



(4) Prices, which involve study of the whole 

 market system, the variety of ways in which prod- 

 uce is disposed of, and so on. In a place like 

 Panajachel where commerce is the breath of life, 

 the investigator gets a good deal of this back- 

 ground simply by having to live, hence cope with 

 it. So much so that I paid too little attention to 

 recording prices; I should have kept a list of 

 commodities on hand as a reminder to collect and 

 systematically note prices at weekly intervals 

 throughout the year, and in different places. Since 

 I did not do this, I could check the knowledge of 

 reliable Indians (which is excellent) only by the 

 instances I happened to have noted, and the few 

 published records available. It now becomes 

 possible to make distinctions between (a) hill 

 land, of relatively little value, in its subdivisions 

 of valueless waste land, cornfield land, and fallow 

 land usable for pasture; and (6) delta land, divided 

 between (1) land that is not irrigable, on which 

 rainy-season cornfield alone can be grown, though 

 being nearly level it is better than hill cornfield; 

 (2) land on which coffee stands; and (3) land on 

 which truck farming is practiced all year. The 

 validity of this classification depends upon all the 

 information suggested above; for example, that 

 the truck-farm land is equally valuable regardless 

 of what happens to be growing on it is a conclusion 

 based on Icnowlcdge of agricultural practices, 

 yields, labor requirements, and prices. 



At this point it is possible to tabulate the amount 



of land of each significant class that is owned by 

 each household. Now in order to place a value on 

 each kind of land, one returns to the data on 

 yields and prices to see what is produced by the 

 land; but data are also sought on the following: 



(1) Sale prices, when land is sold. This requires a 

 collection and analysis of cases, with knowledge 

 of the circumstances. One can even test conclu- 

 sions "experunentally" by bargaining for land. 



(2) Rental values. This requii'es not only many 

 cases, but a background of much information on 

 rental practices, of which there are a variety. 



(3) Loan values. The practice of pawning land 

 (the lender having the use of the land until the 

 loan is repaid) is common; again, cases must have 

 a background of a variety of kinds of general 

 information for proper analysis. 



Putting all this information together, a conclu- 

 sion is reached as to the dollar value of each type 

 of land and it is finally possible to tabulate the 

 worth of the land of each family. But at this 

 point it becomes clearly advisable to correct for 

 pawned lands. Since income (and effective wealth) 

 belongs not to the family that owns the land, but 

 the one who is using it — often for so many years 

 it might as well be transferred — it is necessary to 

 make this correction by crediting pawned lands to 

 the creditors. 



We then have a tabulation of the wealth of all 

 the households in terms of land controlled — the 

 best that land can tell us about differences in 

 wealth. 



However, land is not the only thing in Pana- 

 jachel culture. Among other things to consider 

 are: 



(1) Domestic animals. Investigation of family 

 bookkeeping (a complicated process itself) dis- 

 closes that fowl and pigs are — far from being a 

 measure of wealth in the sense that land is — a 

 liability in Panajachel (where corn to feed animals 

 must be purchased). One gets into problems of 

 psychology in studying cases where animals are 

 kept (as well as where unprofitable crops are 

 grown) and learns some interesting things — not 

 relevant here — but the conclusion is clear that 

 since the rich have more and the poor fewer 

 animals, and since the value of the animals is 

 small compared to that of the land, the order of 

 wealth as determined by land ownership and 

 control is little affected when one takes into the 

 account the ownership of domestic animals. 



