CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE MODERN TARASCAN AREA—WEST PATE 
-----—Field or lot 
1000 ft. 
300 m. 
Map 15.—Plan of Uringuitiro (Juafyitiru), 1946. Like most indigenous ranchos of the Sierra, the street pattern is irregular 
and dwellings are widely spaced. 
HOUSE TYPES ** 
The most striking material cultural element 
of the modern Tarascans is the wooden house 
(troje), constructed of logs or large planks placed 
horizontally and interlocked at the corners by 
notching or cogging in a fashion similar to the log 
house of Scandinavia.*® Ordinarily the Tarascan 
structure is square or rectangular in plan, carries 
a 4-shed roof of shakes, and has a porch or veranda 
4a Since Beals, Carrasco, and McCorkle (1944) have discussed Tarascan 
house types in some detail, only a summary of the subject will be given here. 
38 South of Lake PAtzcuaro the wooden troje often lacks the usual netched 
corners, but the ends of the planks are housed in an L-shaped cornerpiece 
(pl. 3). 
attached to the front, which usually faces away 
from the street and toward the interior of the 
house lot (pl. 3). The wooden troje is found 
mainly in the Sierra, where constructional materi- 
als are abundant, and extends south to the limit 
of the pine forest; its eastern limit has not been 
determined. In the Lake, La Canada, and 
northern areas houses with adobe or stone walls, 
rectangular plan, and two-shed roofs of tile 
predominate. The above distributions, however, 
are not rigid; occasionally a few old wooden frojes 
are encountered in the towns around the lake 
and in the northern plateau (pl. 4), and adobe and 
stone construction is increasing in the Sierra. 
