EMPIRES children: THE PEOPLE OF TZINTZUNTZAN FOSTER 



21 



latto, and Mestizo families, often exceeding in 

 total number the remaining Indian families." 



It is thus apparent that by the middle of the 

 18th century the basic ethnic picture which 

 exists today was well on the road to formation. 

 A nuclear Tarascan region still maintained its 

 language and racial type, and a peripheral 

 region was already well mestizized, with Spanish 

 as a colanguage and in some places the more 

 important. The succeeding 200 years have been 

 merely the logical development of this process. 

 The hard core remained, and the peripheral 

 area became more and more Mestizo until today 

 it is Mestizo in race and Spanish in speech. 



It is possible that some of the Spanish fami- 

 lies subsequently moved away from Tzintzun- 

 tzan. Humboldt mentions it as "only a poor 

 Indian village, though it still preserves the 

 pompous title of ciudad" (Humboldt, 1811, p. 

 208). He refers to the political category bestow- 

 ed by King Philip in 1593 which, as a mock- 

 ing reminder of a great past, lingered on. In 

 official rank Tzintzuntzan, with its 2,500 inhab- 

 itants (probably including neighboring ham- 

 lets), was on a level with Morelia and Patzcua- 

 ro, and superior to Zamora, Uruapan, Zitacua- 

 ro, and a dozen other towns of greater popula- 

 tion. 



In an interesting gazetteer and geography of 

 the State of Michoacan, published in 1824, 

 Tzintzuntzan is described as "a miserable pue- 

 blo of Indians" in which only recently had a 

 constitutional government been established. No 

 mention is made of the convent, and the priest 

 is listed as secular. A famed pottery, sold in 

 all parts of the kingdom (this must refer to the 

 Archbishopric of Michoacan alone), is given as 

 the principal industry (Martinez de Lejarza, 

 1824, pp. 165-166). 



Romero describes Tzintzuntzan about 1860. 

 Only the cloister of the convent remained; the 

 rest was a pile of ruins. The parish church was 

 that which formerly belonged to the convent, 

 and the religious needs of the village were 



s Villa-Senor y Sanchez, 1748. This authority stumbles 

 over the nomenclature of City of Michoacan and confuses 

 Patzcuaro with Tzintzuntzan. His Tzintzuntzan data appear 

 to have been taken from the Padron Genrl de Espatioles que 

 cumplen con el presepto anual de Nra Sta Ine Yglessa en 

 la_ ParrocW de NSPS franco de la Cruz de Cintzuntzan en el 

 aiio de 742 as — , today found in the Archivo del antiguo 

 obispado de Michoacan in Morelia, Lcgajo 166. Tzintzuntzan 

 is said to have 407 gente de razon (97 families) and 496 

 indios. 



administered by a single priest and vicar. The 

 pottery made here is described as the best of 

 the Archbishopric of Michoacan, and the only 

 form of commerce of the inhabitants, said to 

 be primarily Indians (Romero, 1862, pp. 

 78-81). 



Beginning in 1869 a number of governors' 

 reports occasionally mention Tzintzuntzan, but 

 little can be gleaned from these sources. A 

 school for boys had been established by that 

 year, and the town continued its dreamy, forgot- 

 ten existence. 



The railroad from Mexico, via Morelia, 

 reached Patzcuaro in 1886, and thus opened a 

 new means of transportation for the few daring 

 souls willing to try the new. Lumholtz passed 

 through Tzintzuntzan in 1896 and calls it Mes- 

 tizo rather than Indian in composition (Lum- 

 holtz, 1902, vol. 2, p. 451). The Revolution of 

 1910 and the religious discords of later years 

 appear to have left less imprint on Tzintzuntzan 

 than on many other towns of the area. 



The real opening of the town began in the 

 early 1930's, under the influence of General 

 Lazaro Cardenas, first as Governor of Michoa- 

 can (1930-34) and later as President of Mexico 

 (1934-40). A trade school for both sexes, later 

 followed by the present modern building, was 

 opened, running water and electric lights instal- 

 led, and — perhaps most important of all — 

 the highway connecting Morelia and Patzcuaro 

 was opened in 1939, making possible a new and 

 easy mode of travel. A sense of civic responsi- 

 bility was also brought to the town when, in 

 1930, it was made the cabccera or governing 

 city of the new municipio of Tzintzuntzan, which 

 includes a number of adjacent villages. 



The Tzintzuntzan described in this mono- 

 graph is the modern village, aware and proud 

 of its former glory, lethargic after a sleep 

 of 400 years, again conscious of its part 

 in a new Mexico, struggling to adjust itself to 

 strange and different conditions. The task ahead 

 is difficult, though no more difficult than that 

 which faces countless other towns of the same 

 type. Apart from its glorious past, Tzintzun- 

 tzan is probably typical of a vast number of 

 small Mexican pueblos. Conditions here de- 

 scribed are in large part applicable to other 

 places, and the constructive measures which can 

 help Tzintzuntzan along the path to a new and 



