124 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 6 



an improvised tile roof to protect them until 

 building begins. 



The adobe makers, a separate group apart 

 from the masons, have straw furnished to them 

 by the builder — if they were responsible they 

 would skimp. One afternoon I found the patio 

 of Faustino Pefia full of huinimo (T. "pine 

 needles") which he said were to be used in 

 adobes to repair an old room. Pine needles are 

 better, he says, but it is hard to get adobe 

 makers — the needles prick their feet when mix- 

 ing the mud. 



Walls rise, carefully plumbed and alined, 

 either to an even level from which a four-shed 

 roof will rise, or gabled on the ends for a two- 

 shed cover. Locally made tiles are used in 

 almost all houses. On a good house outer walls 

 are laid with adobes crosswise, while interior 

 walls, carrying less weight, are laid lengthwise. 

 Occasionally outbuildings or small additions 

 will have shingles in the style of the sierra, or 

 even a cover of maguey leaves. The better 

 homes are whitewashed inside and out. Very 

 fine sand is passed through a sieve and 

 mixed with powdered horse dung or the dust 

 swept from the street and then mixed with water 

 and applied with a mason's trowel. The water 

 paint, not necessarily white, is applied to this. 

 A few homes have painted flowered walls. A 

 stencil is cut in paper which is waxed to make it 

 stiff, and used time after time until the wall is 

 covered. Jose Villagomez' brother was the best 

 painter the town had known. He wandered over 

 Mexico, studying designs in many churches, and 

 then came home to make his own stencils. Jose 

 proudly tells me that he painted the interior of 

 La Soledad, which, he thinks, is the finest exam- 

 ple of the house painter's art in the region. 



Most houses have a dirt floor. Around the 

 plaza and along the highway, and occasionally 

 in other parts of town, homes will be found with 

 concrete or tile floors which are, needless to say, 

 much cleaner and more pleasant. Except for 

 the poorest houses all have a few windows. 

 Many of the better houses have a pleasant open 

 porch which runs the length of the patio side of 

 the building. Frequently the kitchen is a sep- 

 arate building, of the same general construction, 

 which is placed to the rear of the living quarters. 

 When a new house is completed there is some- 

 times a small house-warming fiesta, with food. 



music, and dancing, and often the priest is asked 

 to come to bless the new home. 



House costs are difiicult to estimate, both be- 

 cause of the great differences in size and com- 

 fort, and because skyrocketing building prices 

 make last year's data worthless this year. Wood, 

 adobes, tile, and labor are the principal ele- 

 ments. Estimates of straw needed for adobe 

 vary from 10 arrobas (115 kilos) to 20 arro- 

 bas (230 kilos) for 1,000 standard building ado- 

 bes. In 1945 adobe makers received from 

 $50 to $60 for 1,000 adobes. At $0.30 an arro- 

 ba, straw adds from $3 to $6 per 1,000. Adobe 

 makers average from 50 to 100 adobes a day, 

 including puddling, so that they earn from a 

 bit less than $3 to nearly $6, considerably above 

 the prevailing daily wage for work. In this work 

 a man may be helped by his wife and children, 

 so the rate of return is not so high as appears 

 at first glance. Curiously, none of the adobe 

 makers are potters. Apparently there is no con- 

 ceptual similarity in mixing mud for pots and 

 for adobes. 



For small jobs masons are paid $3 a day. 

 a surprisingly low wage for specialized work. 

 Usually, however, in house building payment is 

 for the job. The mason sets his own speed and 

 often hires a peon to aid him. In this case his 

 wage is appreciably higher. Aided by a peon 

 to carry water and mud mortar, a good mason 

 can lay 200 adobes in a day. The following 

 house costs are based on (a) Vicente Rendon's 

 estimate of what his $900 house, built in 1942, 

 would cost in 1945; [b] actual cost to Vicente 

 of a new kitchen built in 1945; (c) estimate 

 of Ignacio Estrada, one of the best masons, of 

 a hypothetical first-class two-room house built 

 in 1945. 



(a) Vicente's house consists of two rooms about 

 5 by 6 m., outside dimension, a wide porch along 

 the back patio side, and a good four-shed tile roof. 



2,000 adobes at $50 a thousand S 100 



2,500 tiles at $100 a thousand 250 



16 morillos (roof beams) at S'lO 



a dozen 47 



25 smaller beams 73 



4 lintels at $20 each 80 



4 porch pillars at $10 each 40 



1 ridge pole 20 



6 dozen planks at $3 each 216 



[Tabulation continued on [lage 125] 



