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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



"provisional possession" of the land. Sefiora 

 Maria Soledad Tovar, the owner, agreed to ac- 

 cept, without court action, on condition that no 

 more land be taken from her holdings of 65 

 hectares of temporal and 444 hectai^es of monte. 

 In arguing her case she stated that the agrarian 

 census included persons no longer living in Tzin- 

 tzuntzan, potters and merchants who did not 

 work the land, persons chronically ill and un- 

 able to farm, and dead persons. Subsequent to 

 the provisional possession but before the final 

 grant, the engineer in charge, in a report dated 

 September 6, 1927, expressed the belief that tlie 

 census showing 1,180 persons was cori-ect, and 

 that the share to be granted to each ejidstario 

 should be 5 hectares of irrigated land, 8 of tem- 

 poral, or 12 of monte. This was later revised 

 to 6 of temporal and 18 of other lands. This 

 report, which is strongly biased, states that 

 "among the inhabitants of Tzintzuntzan a re- 

 duced group is dedicated to pottery, but that 

 properly speaking this does not constitute an 

 industry; the products are uncertain and ex- 

 tremely variable due to the lack of organization, 

 of method in the work, and the lack of means to 

 modernize the work." 



When it was finally decided that 57 individ- 

 uals were eligible for land, it became apparent 

 that land had to be taken from the Hacienda of 

 Corrales, which had escaped the first allotment. 

 Accordingly, the presidential resolution of Fe- 

 bruary 2, 1928, grants 518 hectares 40 ares to 

 be taken as follows: 336.60 from Sanabria, a 

 total of 26.7 parcelas including 12 of temporal 

 of 6 hectares each (72 hectares) and 14.7 of 

 cerriles- postal, pasture, of 18 hectares each 

 (264.60 hectares) ; from Corrales 181.80 hec- 

 tares, in the form of 30.3 parcelas of temporal 

 of 6 hectares each. Thus, the presidential reso- 

 lution, signed by P. Elias Calles on February 2, 

 1928, formally recognized the legal identity of 

 the new ejido. The land passed to the ejidata- 

 rios, who were obliged "to maintain, preserve 

 and foster the existing vegetation and forests 

 and to work the land in common." Not until 

 May 9, 1931, or more than 15 years after the 

 original petition, was the formal act of posses- 

 sion signed. Though the ejidatarios had the 

 right to work the land before this date, ap- 

 parently very few did, since a letter dated May 

 17, 1931, to the owner of the Hacienda of Co- 

 rrales tells her to vacate all land sown in wheat 



by June 30 of the same year, land sown in corn 

 by November 30, and land sown in alfalfa by 

 May 9 of the following year, 1932. 



The act of formal possession must have been 

 very disappointing to the State officials who had 

 tried to aid the community: only 7 of tlie 57 

 new ejidatarios appeared to take their grants. 

 The officiating engineer reports that this is due 

 to the "lack of enthusiasm and the atmosphere 

 of hostility toward this class of activities." If 

 the citizens of Tzintzuntzan were uninterested in 

 what was handed them on a silver platter, there 

 were others who were interested, and farmers 

 from neighboring communities became "squat- 

 ters," farming the land without legal authori- 

 zation, but later, through right of occupation, 

 receiving title. Thus, the Colonia Plutarco Elias 

 Calles was founded near the ejido in 1932. 

 Many of the farmers in Tzintzuntzan never both- 

 ered to go to the ejido, about 8 km. south of 

 town, to inspect their plots. 



The engineer in charge in a letter dated July 

 6, 1936, reports that of the original seven who 

 took possession, only one was actually working 

 his land according to the provisions of the law; 

 the rest were share cropping a medias, a strict- 

 ly illegal practice. About this time some of the 

 farmers of Tzintzuntzan began to wonder if they 

 had not missed a good bet, and in May of 1937 

 tried to make out that the land in the ejido was 

 loaned to the farmers of Colonia Calles, to be 

 given up as soon as new ejidatarios in Tzintzun- 

 tzan entered into the Agrarian Community. Fail- 

 ing in this, in October of the same year a group 

 of citizens of Tzintzuntzan went directly to Pre- 

 sident Cardenas to petition for additional grants. 

 This group included some of tlie original dotees 

 who had never bothered to inspect their land. 

 In 1938 potential ejidatarios, most of them not 

 from Tzintzuntzan, petitioned for the enlarge- 

 ment of the ejido, and a presidential decision 

 of January 25, 1939, recognized the rights of 

 16 potential ejidatarios without land, but stated 

 that in view of the lack of suitable lands to be 

 expropriated, nothing was to be done. 



As of 1946 there are 12 individuals, includ- 

 ing 1 woman, who hold land in the ejido. Of 

 these, 3 actually work, while the remaining 9 

 rent the lands on a share-cropping basis. Prac- 

 tically speaking, the ejido is of no importance 

 in the life of the community. The old adage 

 about leading horses to water seems very apt, 



