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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



third party, who may be a compadre, how the 

 property is to be disposed of. A common prac- 

 tice is to leave half the property to the widow 

 and to divide the other half equally between the 

 children, boys and girls alike. When the mother 

 dies, her half is also divided equally. In prac- 

 tice, the youngest son often ends up with the 

 house, older brothers and sisters having already 

 married and established their own homes. There 

 is still some feeling among many that sons 

 should receive more than daughters, based on 

 the belief that it is the duty of the husband to 

 support the wife. Married daughters have, there- 

 fore, been taken care of, and unmarried daugh- 

 ters are more apt to share equally with the sons. 

 Case histories will probably reveal more than 

 a discussion of theoretical possibilities. 



(1) Vicente Rendon is one of four brothers and 

 two sisters, all of whom were quite young when their 

 father died. The father left a considerable amount of 

 land, which was not formally divided, in charge of 

 the mother. Since she had no way of supporting her 

 family, she sold the property a little at a time until 

 in addition to the house only one small milpa, about 

 100 by 50 m., remained. When she died, the older 

 brothers and sisters were married and established 

 in other homes, so the youngest son inherited the 

 house. Vicente's baptismal godfather was asked by 

 the children to divide the field, which is adjacent to 

 the house, in six equal parts. Subsequently the young- 

 est brother has bought the shares of the other children 

 except Vicente. He insists that he will not sell ; along 

 with his house and patio, this is the only property 

 he has to leave his children. In this sentiment, Vi- 

 cente reflects the feeling of a large number of men 

 whose desire is to leave a house and a reasonable 

 amount of corn land to each child. Few men, of 

 course, are able to meet this goal. 



(2) Primo Calderon is one of the exceptions. In 

 his childhood, Primo was the poorest of the poor. 

 During his youth he went to the United States, where 

 he remained for 8 years. In 1930 he came back with 

 several thousand pesos, which he invested wisely in 

 land and houses. Although his four children are all 

 under 10 years of age, he already has houses and 

 fields waiting for them, and is one of the town's rich- 

 est citizefis. 



(3) The father of Moises Zavala divided his prop- 

 erty equally between his sons, leaving nothing to the 

 married daughters and only a small house to the one 

 unmarried daughter. Moises says that he will leave 

 most of his property to his sons, but that he will 

 also leave something to his daughters in the form 

 of a dowry. 



(4) Tlie father of Eleuterio Melchor told his son 

 shortly before dying, "I am leaving this little house 

 to you, for you to take care of, and to share with 

 your sister Maria. To your other sister Salud I will 

 leave notiiing, since you already know how she has 

 treated me. If Maria should some day marry, then 

 try to buy her share of the house, so that it will be 

 entirely yours." Some time later, Maria married a 

 next-door neighbor. Since the husband was very lazy, 

 Maria soon found herself in need of money. "Bro- 

 ther," she said, "how would you like to buy my share 

 in the house? I am urgently in need of money." 

 Eleuterio answered, "Very well, sister. How much do 

 you want for it?" and she replied, "Seventy pesos." 

 He then offered her $50, which she accepted, paying 

 S25 immediately and the rest a short time later. The 

 reason the father had disinherited the other daughter 

 is revealing: Salud had married well and assisted 

 her husband, the proprietor of a store. At one period 

 the father was a carguero and needed a bottle of 

 liquor to fulfill his obligations. He went to his daugh- 

 ter and asked her to give him a bottle, and she 

 refused. "You will understand," says Eleuterio. "how 

 awful it is when a father is refused a drink by his 

 own daughter." Most Tzintzuntzefios would agree that 

 the father was justified in his action. 



GOVERNMENT 



MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION 



The municipal organization of Tzintzuntzan 

 must be described not only in terms of the vil- 

 lage itself, but also of the subsidiary villages 

 which together form the municipio. The muni- 

 cipio in a sense corresponds to a county in the 

 United States, in that it is the basic unit into 

 which State government is divided, and in a 

 sense it corresponds to a township, because of 

 its small size and the relative lack of authority 

 of its officials. The municipio of Tzintzuntzan 

 (map 2) was formed by a decree on October 2, 



1930, under the governorship of Lazaro Carde- 

 nas. Parts were carved from adjoining munici- 

 pios, principally Quiroga and Patzcuaro. The 

 reason for the creation of the new entity appears 

 to have been largely sentimental; General Car- 

 denas was anxious, even if only in a symbolic 

 way, to restore some of the vanished grandeur 

 of the former seat of the Tarascan Empire. 

 Though a municipio in theory is "free and in- 

 dependent," in practice all major decisions are 

 made in the State capital, and civil or military 

 intervention on the part of the state can and 

 does occur at any time. 



