38 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 7 
tédrakua,” are employed chiefly to replant maize 
which failed to germinate or was killed by frost. 
The most common form is a pointed, fire-hardened 
stick of oak or otate.™ Occasionally the stick 
is tipped with a chisel-shaped iron piece. A less 
common type of planting stick, which carries a 
round wooden blade, 6 to 8 inches in diameter, 
is reminiscent of the ancient coa, from which it is 
probably derived. The blade and handle are 
ordinarily of oak and of one piece. In Capa- 
cuaro a meidntatérakua with a round metal blade 
attached to a wooden handle was seen.” Another 
wooden instrument, called pala or te‘ké¢akua 
(sometimes simply tardékua), is used in the Sierra 
to plant maize in the house-lot gardens. The 
blade, carved of oak, is flat with an outline of the 
modern spade. In the wet lands of the Zacapu 
Basin Tarascans use this implement to plant maize 
in the fields. There, blades purely of wood, of 
wood edged with metal, and wholly of metal were 
observed. 
On the steep slopes and in small patches of soil 
within lava flows, where the plow is useless, the 
Tarascans have retained their ancient ways of soil 
preparation and planting. The hillside fields in 
the Sierra (desmontes) are cleared by cutting 
underbrush and small saplings with the juds, the 
larger trees with the ax (hacha), customarily during 
December and January. Girdling was not ob- 
served. In March the dried brush is burned, the 
wood ash serving as a much needed fertilizer for 
the leached yellow-brown soils (pl. 5). Such plots 
are usually productive for three to five consecutive 
plantings; thereafter they are abandoned for 
several years. A type of shifting agriculture is 
thus practiced on the steeply sloping lands. The 
small fertile plots within the lava flows, however, 
are permanent fields. Small permanent maize 
fields (cachitos, ua¢iai) also occur on lower slopes 
near the shore of Lake Patzcuaro. Soil retaining 
walls at the lower edges of such fields give them 
‘9 Literally, instrument for replanting maize. The word ‘‘tarakua,’’ mean- 
ing implement, or apparatus, forms the root of many Tarascan terms for 
various instruments used in the native economy. 
6 Otate is a bamboo with tough, woody stalks. 
6 According to a native of Capacuaro, the present distribution of the 
round-bladed planting stick includes the towns of Capacuaro, San Lorenzo, 
Paracho, Quinceo, Arantepacua, Turfcuaro, Cumachuén, and (before the 
volcano) San Juan Parangaricutiro, all located in the southeastern portion 
of the Sierra near the approaches to the tierra caliente. (Information sup- 
plied by Sr. Pablo VelAsquez G.) 
62 The planter, following the plow, sinks the spade into the bottom of the 
furrow approximately 8 inches, shoves the instrument forward, prying up 
a section of earth, under which he casts the seed; he then extracts the spade, 
permitting the earth to fall back on the seed. 
the appearance of terraces.“ Remnants of 
pre-Columbian terrace agriculture occur in the 
vicinity of Chilchota in La Cafiada.* 
In the small plots described above, the large 
metal hoe (azada, azadén, with blade perpendicular 
to handle) is the principal instrument used to 
prepare the soil. Although called by the native 
name (t‘eka¢akua or tardikua) by some Tarascans, 
the azadén is European, having been introduced 
into Tarascan culture early in the 16th century. 
The aboriginal t‘eka¢akua (with blade parallel to 
handle) is no longer used to prepare soil for 
planting, but, as mentioned above, is still some- 
times employed to replant. In pre-Conquest 
times this instrument (at least in the tierra 
caliente) carried a copper alloy blade (Mus. Nac., 
leg. 102, Rel. de Cinguacingo, 1581); the tarékua 
with a triangular iron blade is at present employed 
by the mountain people in the Balsas drainage of 
Guerrero (Hendrichs, 1945-46, vol. 1, pp. 31-32). 
Planting in the desmontes and other small maize 
plots is performed by opening a small hole with 
the azadén, dropping in the seeds, and covering 
them with earth by a sweep of the foot. The 
seed holes are spaced 2 to 3 feet apart, but no 
attempt is made to form straight rows. Maize is 
cultivated twice (escarda and segunda) with the 
azadon. 
Maize harvest and storage-——Three maize prod- 
ucts are obtained from the field: roasting ears 
(elotes), fodder (rastrojo), and mature ears (mazo- 
reas, Sanini). Roasting ears come mainly from 
the special colored corns of the house-lot garden, 
but many are taken from the fields. In the 
humedad lands of the Sierra elote is ready by August 
in the temporal lands, in July. At high eleva- 
tions (e. g. around the rancho of Cherato) the 
development of e/ote from corn planted in March 
63 These apparent terraces are best developed along the north and west 
shores of Tasiu-k‘éri Peninsula. 
& The following account of the terrace agriculture near Chilchota is given 
in the Relacién GeogrAfica for that town (1579): 
“|... por ser muy pedregosos y de malpaiz las piedras estan puestas a mano 
como gradas derando entre grada y grada con wna vara de medir de ancho limpio 
donde plantaban el maiz, y es esto tanto y hecho por tal orden que parese cosa 
que pone espanto”” (Mus. Nac., leg. 102, f. 56v). 
65 In some Tarascan towns a minor celebration occurs when roasting ears 
begin to mature. The first ears picked in the village are taken through the 
streets by girls, who invite people to kiss the elotes. The ears are then taken 
to the village church and placed on the altar. Later, when all the fields and 
house lots are in elote, girls make special tamales (uéépu) of green corn for 
friends and the family. The elote fiesta is apparently a vestige of a significant 
aboriginal harvest rite. Other minor festivals occur on the first day of the 
fall-corn or spring-wheat harvests, but they are usually family days and 
consist mainly of a ‘‘combate,” or drinking spree. Often special foods—ta- 
males, cu {pu (meat stew)—are prepared. There are no religious rites 
involved in the latter fiestas, 
