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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



she simply did not go home except to visit. 

 She said, simply, that her aunt fed and clothed 

 her better than her parents and there was less 

 work. The girl's parents fully approved the 

 step; friendly, and possibly affectionate, rela- 

 tions continued. 



General behaviors. — All more distant rela- 

 tives are expected to take part in any "labor." 

 This refers not to ordinary activities, but to 

 such affairs as a wedding, house moving, death, 

 or mayordoynia. For such affairs each family 

 wishes to have as large a crowd as possible, for 

 prestige values are involved. On such occa- 

 sions the husband's relatives attend, but only 

 the closer relatives (and the compadrcs) will 

 ordinarily assist actively. The one exception is 

 in a house moving where the husband's male 

 relatives do all the labor. Relatives of the 

 wife also are expected to attend all functions. 

 The males do no labor, but the wife's female 

 relatives assist in the cooking and serving. 

 Attendance at such affairs is expected even of 

 relatives so remote that they are not called by 

 kinship terms. If they cannot come, they must 

 send an adequate excuse (illness or business 

 out of town alone are adequate) and send a 

 small gift such as they would have brought had 

 they attended. Failure to appear would cause 

 bad feeling and refusal to attend "labors" of 

 the offending relative. Roughly speaking, the 

 obligation extends to anyone addressed or re- 

 ferred to as primo or prima and to any children 

 or parents of such persons. It also extends to 

 all compadres and their children. 



Another occasion in which kinship obliga- 

 tions are apparent is when a family returns to 

 the town after a long absence. Then all the 

 relatives and friends come and spend a day 

 with the family (usually at the house of a close 

 relative). There are also many invitations to 

 meals. Augustin said when his family re- 

 turned to Cheran he ate scarcely a meal at home 

 for several weeks. 



THE COMPADRE SYSTEM 



Fully as important as kinship in Cheran is 

 the system of compadrazgo. Ordinarily this 

 could be ti-anslated as simply the godparent 

 system, but at Cheran the relations between 

 parents and godparents are often as important 

 as those between godparents and children and 



may be entered into in some cases without 

 children being involved. In many parts of 

 Mexico, both Indian and Mestizo, the compa- 

 drazgo is an extremely important aspect of 

 social relationships and it has taken on many 

 special localized forms. As yet, the only ade- 

 quate study of the institution is that made by 

 Spicer for the Arizona Yaqui.'"' 



The following account of the compadrazgo 

 was written by one of the Tarascan assistants, 

 Pedro Chavez. Additions to the original 

 Chavez manuscript are in parentheses. 



The compadrazgo is very common among the Taras- 

 cans and is highly I'espected. All compadres and 

 comadres, when they meet on the street, must salute 

 each other with the phrase "Buenos dias co-inpadre" 

 (good-day) or "Buenos< dias comadre," or its equivalent 

 in Tarascan "najeranku kumbao (or komeri)." This 

 obligation is especially strong between comadres or 

 compadres. de pila, as are called the compadres .of 

 baptism of a child. In this case it is obligatory to 

 shake hands in sign of a certain mutual respect the 

 two maintain. (These obligations endure for life, even 

 though the child may have died long since.) 



Classes of compadres: Among the compadres exist 

 the following classes: 



1. Com,padres of baptism. 



2. Cornpadrcs of confirmation. 



3. Compadres of the crown (corona) or cir- 



cumcision. 



4. Compadres of marriage. 



The degree of mutual respect and appreciation be- 

 tvi^een compadres is approximately in the order in which 

 they are given. (It should be noted that there are 

 really two classes of compadres of marriage. There are 

 the godparents of the bride and groom, usually a mar- 

 ried couple, and the relatives of the bride and groom 

 who become coynpadrcs as described below.) 



Duties: The main duties are those of eovipadres of 

 baptism. Immediately after the act of baptism (in 

 which the infant is carried to church and the small 

 fee paid by the godparents), they say to each other 

 "comadre" or "compadre" or "komeri" and "kumba," 

 which are the same as the Spanish. This is the first 

 duty and the first occasion it is said. From this arises 

 the duty to care for the godchild, for example, to treat 

 it as nearly like a son as one's resoui'ces permit. The 

 godparents have the duty of giving the godchild some 

 kind of clothing, such as a hat, shirt, or trousers, 

 whenever they can afford to do so. This can be done 

 as often as the godfather wishes. The father of the 

 boy or girl has the duty of educating the child, telling 

 him that he has the obligation to speak to the god- 

 parents with the words "pagrinitu" or "magrinitu." 

 (If the godchild dies before the age of 10, the godfather 

 must provide the burial clothing.) 



'Spicer. 1940. p. 91 ff. 



