quiroga: a MEXICAN Mtnsricrpio — bbanb 



and historical development) so that people in 

 other Mexican towns and in foreign lands might 

 know how this community made a living, what the 

 people were like, how they governed themselves, 

 their relationships with the State and Federal 

 Governments, their education, their religion, 

 their recreation, what they ate, from what diseases 

 they suffered, what kinds of houses they lived in, 

 the settlement patterns made by the groupings of 

 the houses, trade and other external contacts, and 

 the dozens of other items that make up the hfe 

 and actuality of a community or people. A part 

 of the goal was the determination and description 

 of how a pagan Tarascan village had become con- 

 verted into a Christian Spanish-speaking mestizo 

 town. 



To the best of our knowledge, no other such 

 study of a Alexican community exists. There 

 are numerous studies of Mexican communities, 

 but they stress history, or ethnology, or economics, 

 or physical anthropology, or nutrition, or merely 

 relate a visitor's experiences and reactions. Ex- 

 amples are: Redfield's TepotztMn and Chan Kom, 

 Dickens' Galeana, Storm's Uruapan, Parson's 

 Mitla, and Toussaint's Pdtzcuaro. The work on 

 El Valle de Teotihuac^n edited by Gamio comes 

 the closest of any study to providing a fairly com- 

 plete picture of a Mexican community, but various 

 aspects (principally the natural environment, and 

 the political nexus) have been slighted. Our own 

 study is far from perfect, and is purposely deficient 

 along sociologic lines, since Dr. Foster and his 

 group were stressing those aspects in their study 

 of nearby Tzintzuntzan. We have endeavored 

 to stress those elements most commonly neglected 

 or slighted by geographers, anthropologists, and 

 sociologists. 



It may serve some useful purpose to outline our 

 field procedure, and narrate some of our experi- 

 ences. We set up headquarters on January 2, 

 1945, in a local hotel which once had been the 

 home of the richest citizen of Quiroga. Then we 

 presented our papere and credentials to the 

 presidente municipal (president of the township). 

 The first month was devoted mainly to "learning 

 the lay of the land." We walked over every road 

 and public trail in the area, climbed all the higher 

 mountains and hills, collected plant and rock 

 specimens, took elevations and orientations, and 

 took photographs and notes of the various features 

 of the natural landscape. Also, we endeavored 



to convince the inhabitants that we were sincere, 

 honest, and harmless individuals who were ob- 

 jectively interested in the area and the life of its 

 inhabitants. After we had made a number of 

 acquaintances and friendships we learned that we 

 had been accused of being such diverse things as 

 Communists, Yankee imperialists, Protestant mis- 

 sionaries, fifth columnists, spies, agrarian engi- 

 neers planning to seize certain properties, and 

 governmental employees obtaining information in 

 order to increase taxes. All of this was despite 

 the fact that the writer had a United States special 

 passport, and letters of recommendation from 

 Federal officials in Mexico City, the Governor of 

 the State, and the Archbishop of Moreha, and 

 despite the fact that his assistant (Prof. Jose 

 Corona Nunez) was a native of a town less than 

 40 miles distant, had been trained in an Augus- 

 tinian seminary, and had been a well-known and 

 honored teacher in the Michoacdn school system. 

 Fortunately, we soon made the acquaintance of 

 Don Jose Medina Gaona, the local postmaster and 

 a native of Quiroga, who was an educated and 

 traveled gentleman. Through his friendship and 

 aid, and through the genial personahty of our 

 assistant, we gradually overcame most of the sus- 

 picion and passive opposition which had greeted 

 us. However, we continued to be circumspect in 

 our actions and questions. 



We had hoped to use some survey instruments 

 to make a base map of the area, including natural 

 features and field boundaries, but we soon dis- 

 covered that we could not use the instruments and 

 retain the confidence of the farmers. When we 

 took a general census of the area we purposely 

 omitted all questions concerning names, rehgion, 

 real-estate holdings, valuations, and simOar topics. 

 This did not materially reduce the usefulness of 

 our census, since it is second nature in Mexico (as 

 well as elsewhere) to give consciously inaccurate 

 information on the latter topics even to official 

 census takers and tax officials. The census con- 

 stituted the core of our cultural study of the area. 

 We personally visited every house and family in 

 Quiroga and its six dependent ranches at least 

 once, and most of them twice or more times. In 

 the general census we obtamed for every house and 

 every family the following information: location 

 (quarter, block, street, number) ; the front dimen- 

 sions of the house; nature of road, street, and side- 

 walk; number of stories, windows, and doors; 



