Quiroga: A Mexican Municipio 



By Donald D. Brand 



INTRODUCTION 



(MAPS 1, 2) 



This paper is the outgrowth of two research 

 projects in southwestern Mexico. The Institute 

 of Social Anthropology of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution in May of 1944 sent Dr. George M. Foster, 

 ethnologist, and the writer, a cultural geographer, 

 to Mexico. The Mexican office of the Institute of 

 Social Anthropology, in its first 2 years under the 

 directorship of Dr. Foster, concentrated upon a 

 program of campus and field training of graduate 

 students in ethnology and geography. Campus 

 instruction was given as part of the curricula of 

 the Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia 

 in Mexico City. The writer taught, among other 

 courses, a seminar in Anthropogeography, with 

 special attention to the methodology of a regional 

 study in Michoacdn. This seminar was given in 

 the second term of 1944 (August to December), 

 after which a group of graduate students went out 

 with Foster and the writer to the Patzcuaro Basin. 

 Here it was decided to divide the party into 

 ethnologists under Foster working Tzintzuntzan 

 and Santa Fe, and the writer, assisted by Jose 

 Corona Nunez, studj^ing the geography of the 

 area around Quiroga. 



This field work continued a project which the 

 writer had begun in 1939. In that year a small 

 group of advanced students at the University of 

 New Mexico was directed in a regional archeo- 

 geographical survey of areas mainly within the 

 presumptive fifteenth and early sixteenth century 

 Tarascan realm or region. This work was con- 

 tinued in the summer of 1941 with special attention 

 to northwestern Michoacdn (CojumatMn and 

 Sahuayo) and to a sector of the middle Balsas 

 (San Miguel Totolapan to Santiago Conguripo) 

 where we had surveyed previously. Campus 



seminars and library and museum research (con- 

 centrated on the natural history, geography, 

 archeology and history of the greater Tarascan 

 region) were carried on sporadically from January 

 of 1939 to January of 1942. In 1944 came the 

 opportunity for the writer to participate in the 

 Mexican work of the Institute of Social Anthro- 

 pology. This work the director. Dr. Julian Steward, 

 had oriented toward the Tarascan region after 

 conferences with officials of the collaborating 

 Mexican institutions and with Dr. Ralph Beals 

 who had previously carried out ethnologic studies 

 for the University of California in the Tarascan 

 Sierra. 



Prior to January of 1945 we had had several 

 contacts with the Quiroga area. In the summers 

 of 1939 and 1941 we passed through and stayed 

 overnight in Quiroga on several occasions. In 

 June of 1944, Dr. Foster, the writer, and two stud- 

 ent assistants (Pablo Veldsquez and Pedro Car- 

 rasco) made a rapid tour of the present Tarascan 

 area from Patzcuaro and Uruapan to Apatzingan, 

 Tancitaro, and Charapan. In July of the same 

 year the writer renewed his work in the museums, 

 libraries, and archives of Morelia, and spent some 

 time in the Pdtzcuaro Basin. On December 27 

 we commenced field work in Michoacdn, and 

 January 2, 1945, we located in Quiroga. 



Several reasons led to the selection of the town 

 and municipality of Quiroga as the center for a 

 geographical study. It had been decided earlier 

 to concentrate our studies within the Lake 

 Patzcuaro Basin, so our field for selection was 

 confined to the four lake municipalities. The 

 town of Quiroga and its dependent ranchos is 

 made up entirely of Spanish-speaking whites, 



