192 



FUNCTIONS OF WEALTH 



simple a picture, but. it is noteworthy that here, 

 too, the richest section is in the corner facing the 

 river and the lal<;e. In the whole southern portion 

 of this side of the delta there are but five poorest- 

 quarter families, and four of the second-poorest, 

 out of a total of 26 or 28 families, depending upon 

 where the line is drawn. The fact appears to be 

 that if one should bring together the two sides of 

 the delta, he would find the heavy concentration 

 of rich families in the center of the wide portion 

 facing the lake, with the poorer people (always 

 recognizing exceptions) to the north and along the 

 border of the hills. 



Part of the explanation, certainly, is that the 

 south-central part of the delta has the richest land, 

 and the people whose homes are there have in- 

 herited enough of it to give them an advantage. 

 It will be recalled that it is in this area only that 

 Indians own most of the land (map 5). It is true 

 also that this section, especially the east side of it, 

 is the most Indian and the most Panajacheleiio 

 part of the delta, and the nuclei of the most stable 

 old families are found here. It has been noted 

 that land-losing Indians tend to keep their house 

 sites longer than their other lands, and so obviously 

 the place where most Indians live is the place 

 where one woidd expect to find the greatest num- 

 ber owning at least a minimum of land; other 

 things being equal, the Indians of that neighbor- 

 hood are bound to be wealthier. 



It must be pointed out that in native concept 

 there is no suggestion of rich and poor neighbor- 

 hoods. The Indians do not realize that more of 

 the wealthy live in one section than another; nor 

 did I until this study was virtually complete and 

 I could enter the data on the map. I do not 

 think that the rich tend to move into the central 

 delta portion (if there is such a tendency — and I 

 have no evidence for it) because it is preferred as a 

 wealthy neighborhood. That sort of thing seems 

 foreign to the thinking and the whole sociological 

 set-up of the Indians of Panajachel. Neighbor- 

 hoods are known only by landmarks and by the 

 names of their most numerous families, and those 

 recognized do not coincide with those that I have 

 here distinguished. 



LAND .\XD WEALTH 



Since land is the important measure of wealth, 

 it is significant to see how wealth relates to patterns 

 of renting and pawning land. Table 76 compares 



the amount of land owned and controlled by all 

 families involved in transfers of land by pawning. 



1 Some land pawned to another; other land on pawn. 

 3 Lands shared by 2 households; for some purposes I assume that each 

 has half the land, but here the 2 are better treated as 1 case. 



The poorest quarter includes the seven landless 

 families, and others with small amounts of land 

 with values up to only $48. Clearly, the reason 

 no families of this group had borrowed money on 

 their land is that most of them had no land or 

 almost none, or only house sites without com- 

 mercial value. In the medium-poor quarter the 

 number that had pawned land was 10, in the 

 medium-rich quarter 5, and in the highest 13. 

 Eight families in all — two in the medium-poor 

 group and three each in the medium-rich and the 

 wealthiest — were in 1936 on both ends of pa\\Tiing 

 agreements. In three cases — one in each of the 



