FUNCTIONS OF WEALTH 



197 



regularly worked in the fields of other resident 

 Indians, and 22 of these are in the bottom half on 

 the wealth scale; 4 are in the second-richest quarter 

 and one in the richest. Again, those who own 

 little or no land are those who hire themselves out. 

 Information is not sufBcient to explain all of the 

 few exceptions to the ruJe. I suspect, for example, 

 that the fourth richest man (No. 4 in table 79) 

 hires men in his fields, since he cannot possibly do 

 himself the six hundred and fifty-odd man-days of 

 work usually done by men that is required in liis 

 fields, if my data about his fields are anywhere 

 near correct. He is the only man in his household. 

 Likewise, I have no information on men hired by 

 the fifth-richest family, and although there are 3 

 women in the household, there is only one grown 

 man. It is probable that again there is an omission 

 in the data. On the other hand, the fact that 

 No. 6 hired no men in 1936 is explicable by the 

 fact that there were three grown men in the 

 household. And, similarly, it is clear that the 

 reason No. 10 hired so many is that he was too 

 old to work and two young sons had to carry the 

 burden. Also, the reason why No. 15 hired so 

 many laborers, in spite of there being three grown 

 men and four women in the house, is that the 

 family grows an unusual amount of onions and 

 onion seed. Were the basic data absolutely relia- 

 ble, it would be worth while to analyze each 

 instance in detail. As it is, I shall confine myself 

 to discussion of the more striking exceptions. 

 Numbers 38, 39, and 40 probably do not own 

 enough land to justify their hiring labor. In the 

 first case one of the two men of the household, 

 however, was engaged in various enterprises aside 

 from agriculture, and so could hire men; he also 

 rented a sizable piece of truck land and worked 

 his land more intensively than most. In the 

 second case the head of the household is a shaman, 

 and the three sons of the house were not full grown 

 in 1936. In the third case, the head of the house, 

 and his wife were past their prime, and only a 

 daughter and her husband (and two babies) 

 completed the household ; the man cared for dairy 

 cows and hired labor for the fields. No. 44 is an 

 exception easy to explain; the head of the house 

 was old and was an entrepreneur and a merchant — 

 and the only other adults of the household were a 

 school-teacher son and his Ladino wife. I cannot 

 explain the case of No. 54, who had two grown 

 sons and two grown daughters and — in addition — 



two wives; it is true that most of his land was in 

 onions, but the family should have been able to 

 care for them, and whatever the reasons why they 

 did not, there is no indication in my data of how he 

 could support the family(ies) and still pay laborers. 

 In the case of No. 59 the family consisted of a 

 widow and her daughter and son-in-law (with two 

 small children) ; according to my information, the 

 land was not intensively planted, and I do not 

 know why men were hired. No. 61, on the other 

 hand, a family consisting of a couple with a young 

 child, planted all of their land in onions, and 

 doubtless required and could afford the female 

 help. Even more easily is exceptional No. 67 

 explained, since in addition to the lands that the 

 couple (of which the household consists) owned, 

 they rented truck land and grew onions almost 

 exclusively. 



As far as employes are concerned, it may be 

 emphasized that table 79 does not include mention 

 of Indians who work for Ladinos. It has already 

 been mentioned that the seven landless families 

 (with one possible exception) are full-time laborers, 

 but they work for the most part for Ladinos, hence 

 do not appear in the table. The other land-poor 

 Indian families shown as working for other Indiaus 

 also work for Ladinos; the few exceptions are 

 those who have part-time nonfarming occupations 

 and/or who rent land. As they approach the 

 middle of the land-wealth scale, however, the 

 households of which persons work for others drop 

 off sharply in number. Again, the exceptions are 

 usually explicable. No. 68 was a household con- 

 sisting of two grown men and a woman, and a 

 nearly adult youth; although it controlled con- 

 siderable land, and rented more, it doubtless had a 

 surplus of labor to sell. On the other hand No. 62 

 and No. 66 were families with only one man, and 

 even more land; but the men rented no land and 

 had virtually all of their own planted in coffee, so 

 in their cases they had at once little with which to 

 occupy themselves, and the need to work outside. 

 The case of No. 43 I can explain only on the basis 

 of the man's being exceptionally industrious 

 (which he is); he cultivated sufficient land inten- 

 sively enough to keep himself very busy, and yet 

 he occasionally worked for others. The same 

 may be said of the woman of family No. 25, but 

 here two other factors may enter: there are two 

 men and three women in the household, and the 

 balance is upset so that the family finds it neces- 



