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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



that satisfactory food will not be obtainable. 

 Men who have gone to the United States to work 

 have only one real criticism: they cannot stand 

 the food, particularly the lack of tortillas. 



Vicente, Natividad, and Consuelo once came 

 to Mexico City with me for several days, stay- 

 ing in a small hotel. After our return to Tzin- 

 tzuntzan they showed me a photograph they 

 had taken. "We look terrible," said Nati. "I 

 am naturally ugly, but I look uglier in this 

 picture. It's because we hardly ate a thing all 

 the time we were in Mexico City. We were 

 afraid of what might be in the food that they 

 gave us in the restaurants, so Ave didn't eat 

 much else but bread. And what terrible bread 

 they do have in Mexico City, too. I can't think 

 what the bakers must put in it. It isn't edible." 



"Is it true," asked Vicente, "that in Mexico 

 City cats are considered a great delicacy and 

 are eaten a great deal?" Nati then told a story 

 in which cat meat in mole had been served to 

 some people under a name they did not recog- 



nize. They thought it was chicken. When they 

 had finished, the waiter told them that it was 

 cat, asked if they did not think it delicious and 

 if they did not eat cat in their town. Vicente 

 expressed the belief that dog, horse, and burro 

 meat are also freely eaten in Mexico City. "Why 

 they even eat the flesh of babies who have died," 

 exclaimed Nati. "A lady in the hotel where 

 we stayed told us that they did and that we 

 should be careful what we ate in restaurants. 

 I know that what she said was true, too, for a 

 priest from Tzintzuntzan, who is now dead, went 

 to Mexico City with a senorita from here. She 

 said, 'Let us go in this restaurant and eat some 

 nacatamales and some atole.'' They were eating 

 their tamales when the priest began to examine 

 a piece of meat in his more closely. It was the 

 end of a baby's finger, and even had the finger- 

 nail on it! He looked a little further and 

 found the upper joint of a baby's finger. Of 

 course they didn't eat any more. They stopped 

 right there, paid their bill and left in a hurry!" 



EARNING A LIVING 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



For all societies, life is made possible by 

 the earth and its offerings. Among primitive 

 and semiprimitive peoples the relationship be- 

 tween the soils, the waters, and the air is far 

 closer than that among peoples characterized 

 by a specialized industrial economy. It will be- 

 come apparent to the reader that Tzintzuntzan, 

 in most of its aspects, is not an Indian com- 

 munity; more of its cultural roots are traceable 

 to the Old World than to Mexico. Nevertheless, 

 in the sense of a community economically close- 

 ly tied to the earth, in which the day-by-day 

 weather, the rains, the unfolding of the seasons 

 are of intimate concern to every individual, 

 Tzintzuntzan must be considered a "primitive" 

 village. Life, in the sense of food, shelter, and 

 clothing, is closely tied to the earth, and the 

 economic processes by which the individual and 

 the family exploit the offerings of the environ- 

 ment are for the most part simple and direct. 

 No one can afford to remain indifferent to his 

 surroundings and expect to sui-vive. 



In Tzintzuntzan a casual walk through the 



town reveals the basic outlines of the relation- 

 ship between man and nature. The circular 

 adobe ovens in yards, the rich lakeshore milpas, 

 and the stony hillside fields reveal that it is a 

 town of potters and farmers. The broad surface 

 of Lake Patzcuaro suggests, also, the possibility 

 of fishing as a major industry. The visitor may 

 logically assume that there are secondary oc- 

 cupations which at first glance do not meet 

 his eye. 



The exploitation by which man here makes 

 nature work for him takes place on several lev- 

 els. First, and today of least importance, is the 

 gathering of wild products, principally vege- 

 table but also mineral, usually for immediate 

 consumption or use. This is done in a haphaz- 

 ard fashion, without complicated organization, 

 and in a manner to meet the immediate ends 

 of the participant. In form, fishing must fall 

 within this category, but in function it is rather 

 different. Intensive exploitation of the lake dur- 

 ing certain seasons makes possible the basic 

 income of some families. Nothing is put into 

 the lake to ensure a continued supply, and the 

 fisher's concern is adequate equipment and his 



