CHERAN: a sierra TARASCAN village — BEALS 



115 



charge with equal vigor. Finally the acting 

 mayor ordered that she be locked up, and, 

 despite voluble protests against injustice, the 

 woman was conveyed forcibly to the jail. The 

 whole procedure seemed very high-handed, but 

 when the woman was out of earshot, the acting 

 mayor turned to me mildly and remarked that 

 he would not have acted that way on the man's 

 word alone but there had been two witnesses 

 and there was no doubt of the woman's guilt. 

 He was trying to frighten the woman into a 

 confession and restitution of the blanket, with 

 which he would be content to dismiss the case. 



Several drunks on the morning of October 3 

 created a commotion. Two got into a fight 

 and were locked up. The rest were not 

 molested. 



On another day, two women were noticed in 

 the jail. One said the other had thrown a 

 gourd at her head. The second accused the 

 first of stealing something from her lot. They 

 were both thrown in jail to cool off. 



A little girl was "horsing around"- — to use 

 the phrase of Augustin Rangel — near one of 

 the street-corner vendors. The woman told 

 her to go away, but the girl's mother did not 

 interfere. In the mother's absence the girl 

 broke some pottery. The two women began to 

 quarrel and finally went to the mayor's office. 

 After discussion, the woman with the pottery 

 was advised to be more careful of her goods 

 when there were children around. 



Three men walked down the street, in vari- 

 ous stages of drunkenness. Two began to 

 quarrel and the drunkest of the three picked up 

 a rock and threatened one of the men. The 

 third man interposed himself, talked soothingly, 

 eventually got the rock away from the drunken 

 man, and they continued their walk. 



One drunken man kept saying to another 

 "You are rich and can do everything you want 

 and I have nothing." The second man ignored 

 this. After a while the first man said, "I don't 



care if you are rich, you ," and 



then began commenting on the man's mother. 

 The second man said, "Take back what you said 

 about my mother." The first man said, 

 "Never." Then they began to fight. Nothing 

 was done about this. 



The cases given above represent conflicts 

 which resulted in no official punishment. Con- 



flicts and illegal acts which brought official 

 action were few (outside of property suits, 

 which are not considered here) . The following 

 is the calendar of cases placed on the records 

 from October 9 to December 3. 



October 9. A man knocked down a child and 

 hurt her head. He was placed in jail overnight. 



October 12. A man was drunk and disor- 

 derly. He was placed in jail (no term in- 

 dicated). 



October 15. A man was drunk and disor- 

 derly. He was placed in jail overnight. 



October 16. A drunken man broke onto a 

 house. He was placed in jail until the 

 eighteenth. 



October 22. A. woman was "disobedient" 

 (probably disorderly conduct of some sort). 

 She was placed in jail overnight. 



November 3. A man raped a young woman, 

 his second offense. He was placed in jail until 

 the 10th. It should be observed that according 

 to Cheran ideas a properly brought up girl 

 whose parents looked after her as they should 

 would never have been in a situation where 

 rape would be possible. 



December 3. A man "abused confidence" by 

 trying to register a piece of land as his own 

 which actually belonged to his mother-in-law. 

 He was put in jail overnight. 



The above cases do not include those which 

 involved fines of less than one peso nor cases 

 which came before the judge. 



Despite the fact that Cheran has a bad repu- 

 tation in other towns for violence, there seem 

 to be relatively few serious fights. Drunks 

 often fall to fisticuffs, usually ineffective, but 

 knife fights are rare and the use of firearms is 

 even more unusual. In ordinary times there 

 is probably not more than one killing a year. 

 However, a very serious affair occurred shortly 

 before the close of the study. 



At a wedding the new priest appeared after 

 the drinking was well under way. He reproved 

 the people soundly for their excessive drinking 

 and urged them to go home. One of the men, 

 who was already very drunk, took the priest's 

 words to heart and started home. Crossing the 

 bridge to the barrio of Paricutin, he was shot 

 from ambush and killed. That night the ronda 

 went from house to house asking for certain 

 persons, but up to the time the .study closed 



