INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



ing successively the director's quarters, the fifth, 

 third, and first grades, and finally the carpentry 

 shop. Sefiora Bartola Urbina, wife of Pascual 

 Corral, school caretaker, first cooked for us, and 

 subsequently our comadre. Carmen Peiia, wife 

 of the s'mdico, Guillermo Morales, fed us in her 

 own house. During the spring of 1945 a small 

 stone house was constructed near the ydcatas, 

 the ancient Tarascan pyramids which rise from 

 an artificial platform near the east edge of town. 

 This house was built by the Instituto Nacional 

 de Antropologia e Historia for the use of ar- 

 cheologists during field seasons, and was very 

 kindly turned over to us for our use during the 

 remainder of the time we were in Tzintzuntzan. 

 Here, with large tables, electric lights, and a 

 fireplace for cold nights, we enjoyed comforts 

 not always associated with the field. Guillermo 

 was appointed caretaker of the archeological 

 zone, and Carmen came along to continue to 

 cook for us. 



Our first weeks were fraught with certain 

 tensions and difficulties in establishing rapport. 

 Once accepted, however, we enjoyed friendships 

 and confidences which I have never elsewhere 

 experienced in the field. No small part of the 

 credit for breaking the ice goes to Gabriel Os- 

 pina, who, with a ready tongue and versatile 

 command of his native language often turned 

 a potentially difficult situation into a huge joke 

 for all concerned. Likewise his practical knowl- 

 edge of first aid proved an excellent entree into 

 many homes and the basis for firm friendships. 

 No end of confusion was caused, however, by 

 the fact that, though I was el doctor, which 

 could mean only a "medico," it was always 

 Gabriel who gave the injections. For field work- 

 ers in Latin American countries, no tool is of 

 greater use than a basic knowledge of simple 

 medical diagnosis and treatment. Large anthro- 

 pology departments might well consider the 

 advisability of giving, in conjunction with med- 

 ical schools, a full course on medical field 

 practice. 



I have found that the precise field techniques 

 to be used in gathering data, and even the 

 nature of much material, depend to a consider- 

 able extent upon local circumstances. For exam- 

 ple, most ethnologists realize that the use of a 

 paid informant as a source of material often 

 entails grave disadvantages. Nevertheless, 



in 



many cases it is necessary to pay a man to devote 

 lime to the ethnologist which he would other- 

 wise devote to his customary manner of earning 

 a living. In my own earlier work among the 

 Popoluca of Veracruz, literally every man went 

 early in the morning to his milpa, often several 

 kilometers away, and stayed until dusk, at which 

 time he was so tired that he was uninterested in 

 hard mental labor. Hence, there was no alter- 

 native to offering wages sufficiently high that a 

 man was willing to come home early to work 

 for the ethnologist. 



In Tzintzuntzan we were favored by the basic 

 organization of village economy. Half of the 

 families make pottery. This is a quiet occupa- 

 tion in which various members of the household 

 sit in the patio, talking and laughing as the pots 

 take form. Hence, once accepted by the family 

 the ethnologist could drop in for hours at a time, 

 apparently just gossiping, but in reality guiding 

 the conversation into the channels he wished. 

 Also, since everyone speaks, or can speak Span- 

 ish, the language problem was greatly reduced. 

 The minutiae of daily chit-chat which would be 

 lost in a group where interpreters are necessary 

 were heard and noted, and the exact choice of 

 phraseology used by each speaker quickly be- 

 came a part of the ethnologist's interpretation 

 of his personality. We stated quite frankly 

 that we were making a study of die village and 

 its people, how they lived, earned their living, 

 organized their fiestas, so that people who could 

 not come, both in Mexico and other countries, 

 would know about life in Tzintzuntzan. Our ex- 

 planation was facilitated by the fact that every- 

 one knows Tzintzuntzan to have been the former 

 capital of a great Indian empire, and hence it 

 is quite natural to the modern population that 

 others might want to know about their town. 



At first we used no notebooks, remembering 

 data to record in the evening. Subsequently, in 

 many households it became possible to write 

 freely and ask direct questions about all aspects 

 of life. Casual conversation and sporadic ques- 

 tioning, however, are not sufficient to provide 

 many of the statistical and concrete data neces- 

 sary in a monograph. There come times when 

 it is necessary to sit down with an informant 

 and go through a body of data in systematic 

 fashion. Here again we were favored. For sev- 

 eral months after moving into our house a num- 



