268 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



OLD AGE AND DEATH 

 POSITION OF THE AGED 



In Tzintzuntzan the approach of old age 

 is not marked by special crises. It is a status 

 into which one drifts little by little, often (in 

 the case of men, at least) scarcely conscious of 

 the transition. As a man goes through adult 

 life he gradually fulfills the religious and civic 

 posts which he may feel are his duty, thereby 

 acquiring the respect due a man of his age. As 

 a past carguero he can expect to be queried on 

 matters of religious policy, and as past town 

 official he is exempt from the faena, the several 

 days of labor given annually to the town, ex- 

 pected of all able-bodied men. The marriage of 

 children, particularly when they leave home, 

 means an adjustment in the family work pat- 

 terns, but almost invariably, as long as parents 

 are alive, at least one son or daughter will re- 

 main in the old home. As long as they are able- 

 bodied, parents will keep their own finances 

 apart from those of the children. When one of 

 the two dies, the survivor will work as a member 

 of the family of the younger generation, and 

 most income will be pooled. 



Since most families have children, few of 

 whom leave the village, the problem of where 

 to live in old age usually is not acute. A home 

 with one of the children is almost always a 

 certainty, and since most old people contribute 

 to their own support, they are not particularly 

 burdensome. Possibly the fact that pottery mak- 

 ing is the basic industry influences ideas about 

 old age and the position of the aged. Because of 

 the many different steps in the process, involving 

 very different expenditures of energy, there is 

 almost always something useful that a very 

 aged person can do when working in cooperation 

 with the total family group. For nonpotters 

 there are other tasks, such as driving cattle to 

 water, repairing huaraches, mending fishnets, 

 whittling colorin wood net floats, and the like, 

 which require little physical strength. Certainly, 

 the average person does not look forward to re- 

 tirement at the age of 55 or 60, and expects 

 to continue to work, just as any younger person, 

 as long as he lives. This attitude is conscious 

 or unconscious recognition of a basic economic 

 truth; the productivity of the village is such 

 that, beyond children, a nonworking class or 



group cannot be supported. The labor of the 

 average individual during adult life does not 

 produce enough so that he can expect to spend 

 the first and last 15 years of his life in freedom 

 from work. This apparently is possiblte only in 

 a system in which a greater investment in capital 

 equipment results in a much higher return from 

 the labor of each worker. 



Little information on the psychological and 

 physiological aspects of old age was obtained. 

 Many women seem to enjoy excellent health for 

 a number of years after the menopause and, 

 without the cares of children, are able to work 

 harder and more continually than at other times 

 in their lives. Life is sufficiently difficult at eacli 

 stage that few if any people would like to go 

 back to earlier periods. I have never heard 

 anyone express the wish that he could again 

 be 20, 30, or 40 years old. For the more for- 

 tunate oldsters, those were happy years, to look 

 back upon with pleasure, but sufficiently diffi- 

 cult so that there is little desire to relive them. 

 For the less fortunate, those same years were 

 probably difficult enough so that a return to 

 them would not look appealing. On the other 

 hand, though death is regarded as natural and 

 inevitable, I have never heard anyone express 

 the thought that death is the easy solution to 

 one's trials and tribulations. Informants were 

 able to recall no cases of suicide in the village. 

 By and large, older people seem to be neither 

 less nor more happy than other adults; individ- 

 ual variations within all age classes are far 

 greater than any variations between groups. 



FUNERARY PROCEDURES 



I follow standard ethnographic custom in 

 discussing death at the end of the life cycle, 

 even though, more logically, these data might 

 immediately follow the section on birth. Nearly 

 one half of all Tzintzuntzan deaths occur during 

 the first 5 years of life (see table 50, page 271). 



Tzintzuntzan has preserved no death observan- 

 ces which recognizably date back to pre-Con- 

 quest times. Variations in procedure correspond 

 to the status of the deceased, and are apparently 

 entirely Catholic in inspiration. Children are 

 considered to be angelitos, little angels, and 

 consequently go directly to Heaven without pas- 

 sing through Purgatory. Hence, though grief is 

 shown freely at the death of children, it is in 



