CHERAN: a sierra TARASCAN village — BEALS 



135 



With regard to the charge of drunkeness, 

 the prioste asserted that this had been true 

 "in the time of our grandfathers" but it was 

 not true today. What gave color to the charge, 

 he said, was that people brought them many 

 bottles of charanda. These the cabildo sold 

 in the stores and returned the empty bottles to 

 the donors. 



It was quite evident that the prioste was 

 filled with bitterness over the situation. The 

 dance of the pastorela, he felt, was especially 

 the dance of the cabildo and the prioste and one 

 which gave much pleasure to the people, and 

 now they would lose it. (Even our most anti- 

 Church informants agreed that the dance was 

 the best given in Cheran, partly because it was 

 unaccompanied by the drunkenness and rowdi- 

 ness associated with other dances.) The 

 prioste also said that the cabildo was accepting 

 the will of the people and was neither speaking 

 nor making propaganda with anyone. After 

 all, he pointed out, the cabildo gained, and espe- 

 cially the prioste and colector gained because 

 they now did not have to spend their money. 

 However, he had gone to the church and taken 

 out the large candles and some small ones left 

 by his wife. This, he said, was custom, for 

 the old prioste always took the remains of the 

 candles and the new prioste provided others. 

 The priest had asked why he removed the 

 candles and the prioste had explained the situa- 

 tion. The priest then asked if he was not dis- 

 posed to leave the candles, but he refused. 

 After this the prioste scarcely left the house, 

 and never went either to the plaza or the 

 church, partly because of fear, partly because 

 in church he would have to see those who had 

 thrown him out of office and this "caused him 

 anger which it is better not to have before the 

 Lord." 



The prioste suggested that the leader of the 

 opposition was an ambitious man who was 

 furthering some devious and as yet undisclosed 

 project to further his own interests. He also 

 said the cabildo had made no move to seek a 

 new prioste or ke?;i, which they ordinarily did 

 by August. He also said he had no idea 

 whether the priest would appoint new officials 

 to take the place of the cabildo or go on naming 

 people to perform their duties from day to day 

 as he was doing. Incidentally, he pointed out 



that never before had the church been closed 

 when the priest left town. 



In addition to the above accounts, which 

 seem reasonably correct as far as they go, there 

 were floods of rumors and stories. At one 

 time I was told authoritatively by several people 

 that my landlord had been named the new chief 

 of the cabildo. When I asked him about it, he 

 was completely surprised and it finally appeared 

 that no new cabildo was to be named. 



With regard to the story told by the prioste 

 of taking his candles from the church, a much 

 more lurid version was circulated. One 

 woman's account of the quarrel was as follows : 



When the new priest came he asked one of the 

 cabildo to bring him maize from the storehouse. The 

 cabildo had taken all the maize from the storehouse but 

 the man pretended not to know this. He went to the 

 storehouse and returned, saying, "Father, there is no 

 maize." "What has happened to it? There is supposed 

 to be maize." The priest gave the man money to buy 

 maize for that day. Next day the priest made in- 

 quiries. People told him the cabildo had stolen the 

 maize.- He called the cabildo together and accused 

 them. They denied the theft. The priest said, "Do 

 you want me to bring witnesses?" They conferred and 

 said, "No. We took the maize." The father began to 

 scold them, and they said, "What right have you to 

 scold us? We collected the maize and we have a right 

 to live." The priest became angry and told them they 

 could no longer serve in the church. They went away. 

 For 2 or 3 days they did nothing. Then they came in 

 a body and began stripping the church of all the altar 

 cloths, vases, and decorations. The priest interrupted 

 them. They said, "These things are ours; we bought 

 them. If we cannot serve here, we will take these 

 away." They argued. The priest said, "These things 

 belong to the community." But he realized it was not 

 becoming for him to argue in this way and kept still. 

 When they finished, he said, "Now have you everything 

 belonging to you?" They thought and said, "Every- 

 thing but the saints." At this the priest flew Into a 

 rage and said, "The saints belong to the community. 

 Now take the other things and leave the church and 

 do not let me ever see your faces again." 



This is a very interesting tale, but it con- 

 tains very little truth. The major fact which 

 seems correct as compared with the prioste's 

 tale is that the cabildo did actually remove all 

 the vases, altar cloths, and other things they 

 had bought. 



One man, regarded as a fairly reliable source 

 of information, stated that the cabildo had 

 received the alms given at church but had 



