CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE MODERN TARASCAN AREA—-WEST 47 
raw (when aged or pasado) or, more recently, 
cooked on Easter, and sometimes on the village 
saint’s day are distributed to all inhabitants at 
the end of the fiesta. Moreover, cacao beans 
were formerly an important trade article imported 
into the upland pueblos. In most households in 
the Sierra the beans were roasted on the comal and 
then wet-ground on the metate. Mixed with 
piloncillo and cinnamon, the chocolate “dough” 
was made into small disks (2 in. diameter), called 
k‘ékua. A chocolate drink is made by dissolving 
the k‘ékua in hot water. A few storekeepers still 
make disks from ground chocolate purchased 
from mestizo wholesalers. Today chocolate is 
taken principally on fiesta days, and is often served 
to visiting strangers. Other tropical fruits, such 
as the common banana, mango, pineapple, mamey, 
chicozapote, zapote prieto, etc., are brought into 
the Sierra in season. They are eaten at all times 
and appear to have no ceremonial significance. 
Pineapple is used for a fermented beverage, 
tepache. 
Specialized truck gardening.—This is a more 
recent type of horticulture among the Tarascans. 
They have adopted intensive commercial produc- 
tion of vegetables in only a few well-watered 
spots near large mestizo markets. The most 
notable truck gardening district has developed on 
the narrow stretches of lacustrine soil along the 
shores of Lake Patzcuaro, where irrigation is 
practiced. Although water is carried in buckets 
to some of the smaller gardens (e. g., in Pudcuaro), 
most of the vegetable plots are irrigated with the 
t‘aparatardkua, or pala, possibly a pre-Columbian 
invention.” This instrument consists of a wooden 
spoonlike container fastened to a long pine pole, 
which, resting on a crosspiece, is used like a lever 
to scoop water from ditches or wells (fig. 4; pl. 7). 
Along the wide western shore of Patzcuaro shallow 
ditch wells are dug down to the water level (5 to 
6 ft. from the surface), from which water is scooped 
and distributed to vegetable plots by a system 
of small canals. Along the narrow shores of the 
Taafu-k‘éri Peninsula (where the water table is low) 
small canals have been constructed to permit lake 
water to flow into a ditch well, from which the 
water is lifted with the pala to high levels. In 
101 The latter custom was reported from Charapan and Patamban. 
102 The provenience of the ¢‘apdratarakua is not clear. Its mention has not 
been encountered in colonial documents; the Relacién de Michoacan (p. 25), 
however, speaks of irrigated maize, presumably around Lake PAtzcuaro. 
Today the ¢‘dpdratardkua is used also at Tarajero, in the basin of Zacapu. 
addition to the gardens of Lake Pa&tzcuaro, 
commercial truck farming is also carried on in 
La Cafiada and in Atapan, but on a smaller 
scale. There, fields are irrigated by diverting 
water from streams, a technique probably learned 
from Europeans. 
The native chile, jitomate (tom-kuaraki), tomate, 
and green beans (ejotes) and the Old World onion, 
garlic, cabbage, and lettuce are the principal 
products of the commercial gardens. Chile is the 
most significant of these, in terms of both acreage 
and market value. The fruit of this plant, a 
vitamin-rich gastrin, has always been important 
in the aboriginal diet. Two species of Capsicum 
are cultivated: C. annwum, the common her- 
baceous annual, and C. fructescens, the perennial 
shrub (chile de drbol). The latter is cultivated 
mainly in the house gardens. Both species re- 
quire a long growing season and abundant water; 
consequently chile cultivation is absent from the 
Sierra, but is found in the surrounding well- 
watered areas. Chile, therefore, has ever been a 
trade article between the Sierra and its border- 
lands. Tarascan Pudcuaro, Uricho, Aricutin, 
and mestizo Técuaro and Erongaricuaro are the 
main chile producers of the Lake. Most of the 
La Canada pueblos raise some chile for export 
into the Sierra, but Etticuaro, outside the valley, 
is the largest producer of that general district. 
All these areas raise chile verde, rather than the chile 
seco of the tierra caliente and Lake Cuitzeo district.!° 
In both the Lake P&tzcuaro and La Canada 
areas chile and tomatoes are first planted in the 
almdciga, or hotbed, in December.'® Replanting 
in the gardens is done in March, and the vege- 
tables are harvested from June through September. 
STOCK RAISING AND ANIMAL PRODUCTS 
Modern Tarascans raise most of the European 
animal domesticates. Most households own a 
team of oxen for plowing and one or two burros 
for hauling wood and carrying produce to market. 
103 In several formerly Tarascan towns in the northern plateau area veg- 
etables are cultivated on a commercial scale. The truck farming around 
Ziricicuaro, southeast of Lake Cuitzeo, was significant during the latter part 
of the 18th century. Tarascan horticulturists of this pueblo carried vegetable 
produce as far as the Toluca market (AGN Historia, vol. 73, f. 265). 
1% The Tarascan name for Chilchota is ¢irapu, which means green chile. 
The Sierra people have always thought of La Canada as a producer of chile, 
as well as other vegetables and fruits. 
108 The chief varieties of C. annuum in the Lake district are lumbrillo (verde), 
amarillo, and relleno (bell chile). Chile seco from the tierra caliente reaches the 
Sierra through the markets at Uruapan, PAétzcuaro, and Los Reyes. 
10% The almdciga is likely a European introduction, although it was pre- 
Columbian in the chinampa district in the Valley of Mexico. 
