INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 6 



Occupations of each family head are indicated 

 by appropriate symbols. Distances were deter- 

 mined by counting paces. Due to the rectangu- 

 lar plan of most of the village the greater ac- 

 curacy which would have come from a real 

 survey would not be justified in time and money 

 for an ethnographical account. Since a number 

 of individuals own several pieces of property 

 within the limits of the town, it was decided to 

 give the same key number to all holdings. 

 Hence, a number of solares, town lots, share the 

 same key number with others. 



Economic data, particularly that connected 

 with family budgets, food habits, and the daily 

 work cycle, were obtained by means of a simple 

 questionnaire or work notebook kept for 8 fam- 

 ilies for 1 to 3 montlis. All expenditures and 

 income were recorded, the day's work for each 

 adult (15 years old or over), and the meal 

 times and food consumed for all members of 

 the family. This was a time-consuming task, 

 since daily visits had to be made to each family. 

 Recording was slow, because even with tlie de- 

 sire to cooperate it was often difhcult for inform- 

 ants to remember just what had been bought 

 and sold, or eaten or done. We soon found that 

 we could not ask for jmrchases, but had to go 

 over each possibility: "Did you buy onions? 

 tomatoes? sugar?" and so forth. Nevertheless, 

 the material so obtained more than justified the 

 effort. 



Birth, death, and marriage data were record- 

 ed for the period 1931-44, which represents the 

 first 14 years of politically independent life of 

 the municipality. Tax data also were taken from 

 the records of the municipal treasurer and the 

 State tax collector. The church archives were 

 examined, but proved to be in such bad con- 

 dition that little usable data could be gleaned. 



This monograph represents, then, the results 

 of the standard ethnological approach of observ- 

 ing, questioning, and note taking, plus a good 

 deal of statistical data which are not always 

 available. 



Most ethnographic reports represent a com- 

 promise between a short, well-integrated pre- 

 sentation of the data pertinent to the author's 

 particular interests, and the necessity of placing 

 on record other material which may seem ex- 

 traneous, and which by its detail may detract 



from the readability of the paper, but which 

 may contain just the answers someone working 

 on other problems is looking for. This paper is 

 no exception to the rule. I have tried to describe 

 life in Tzintzuntzan as a functional whole, the 

 end product of a period of more than four 

 centuries of change, starting from a base which 

 we know fairly completely. No single reader 

 will find all of the material interesting or useful; 

 it is my hope that all parts will make their con- 

 tribution to at least a few readers representing 

 diverse interests. 



Two categories of data have been reserved 

 for later separate treatment, since they can be 

 withdrawn without doing violence to the paper 

 as a whole, and since simple economics, both 

 time and money, place limitations on any report. 

 A great number of local plants are used for 

 home cures, and their enumeration and identi- 

 fication, along with their mode of employment, 

 will be dealt with at a later date. A fair-sized 

 collection of folk tales will also be presented in 

 a sejiarate paper. 



I frequently refer to the inhabitants of Tzin- 

 tzuntzan as Tzintzuntzehos. Although this form 

 is perfectly good Spanish, it is rarely if ever 

 used in the immediate neighborhood of the town. 

 It is employed simply to avoid the cumbersome 

 phrase "people of Tzintzuntzan." 



Spanish and Tarascan words, with the excep- 

 tions which follow, are written in italics. A 

 number of words of Spanish and Aztec origin 

 have become so common, in ethnological liter- 

 ature at least, that they will be recognized by 

 most readers. Though included in the glos- 

 sary at the end of the monograph, they are not 

 written in the text in italics. The principal 

 words in this category are huarache (sandal), 

 metate (grinding stone), milpa (corn field, and 

 in a broader sense, any field), petate (reed or 

 palm mat), rebozo (shawl), serape (blanket), 

 tortilla (thin corn cake), and zacate (grass used 

 for fodder or thatching). 



All field notes were recorded using the metric 

 system, and this has been used in the monograph. 

 Actually, a very wide variety of measures is 

 used in Tzintzuntzan, reflecting the multiple 

 cultural origins of the people. Those commonly 

 used, in addition to the metric system, are as 

 follows: 



