6 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



material of roof, walls, and windows; form of the 

 roof; sui'face finish of the front wall; number of 

 rooms and for what they were used; nature of 

 floor; toilet and bath facilities; yards, gardens, 

 orchards, fields; number and kind of all economic 

 and ornamental trees and shrubs ; kinds of flowers ; 

 number and kind of all domesticated animals, 

 including pets; nature of water supply; materials 

 used for cooking and illumination; wagons, auto- 

 mobiles, sewing machines, and radios; number of 

 families, and number and sex of adults and chil- 

 dren within each family; where born; literacy; 

 individuals who had been in the United States; 

 languages spoken; and occupation. In addition to 

 the general census, several special censuses were 

 taken (on the basis of the information in the gen- 

 eral census)^ — both complete and sampling. We 

 attempted to revisit and obtain specific detailed 

 information from all of the gainfully employed; 

 e. g., the bakers, arrieros, carpenters, painters, 

 butchers, shoemakers, etc. Also, special censuses 

 were made of the schools, mills, soap and candle 

 factories, tanneries, brick and tile kilns, etc. 

 Sampling censuses were taken of kitchen equip- 

 ment, sleeping accommodations, foods, consump- 

 tion of maize, etc. 



While carrying out the various censuses, we 

 periodically revisited the entire area in order to 

 check on seasonal developments in the vegetation, 

 agriculture, forest exploitation, etc. At the end 

 of our first field period, January through June of 

 1945, we had accomplished about two-thirds of 

 our program. Because of academic commitments 

 we were forced to return to Mexico City for the 

 summer and fall, but we returned to complete our 

 work in a short session from the middle of Decem- 

 ber 1945, to the middle of February 1946. Un- 

 fortunately, the hiatus from July to November 

 excluded a personal check on the seasonal changes 

 of an entire year, but we were able to fill in most 

 of the desired information with data given us by 

 a number of the more observing citizens of the 

 area. In our second field session, in addition to 

 the writer and Corona Niinez, another of our 

 former students from the Escuela Nacional de 

 Aotropologia e Historia assisted us in all phases of 

 om- work. This was Prof. Pablo Velasquez 

 GaUardo, a Tarascan native of Charapan, former 

 assistant to the linguist Swadesh and the zoologist 

 HaU, and former teacher in the Michoacan school 

 system. Velasquez was especially helpful in 



ascertaining Tarascan names for various items, 

 and in interpreting various indigenous elements 

 in the culture. 



Besides filling in the gaps in our previously 

 acquired data, we spent much of our second 

 session in visiting the ranchos and in abstracting 

 the various local records. The municipal tax 

 rolls for the past 40 years were examined to get 

 an idea of sizes of land holdings, declared valua- 

 tions, changes in valuations and ownership, 

 methods of land description, etc. A few private 

 titles from the eighteenth centiu-y were abstracted ; 

 and the title of the congregacion (dating back to 

 1534), with later confirmations and changes, was 

 copied in its entirety. In the Agrarian Office in 

 Morelia we copied everything available on the 

 Comunidad de Indigenas de Quiroga, including the 

 various litigations with Santa Fe, Atzimbo, and 

 Tzintzuntzan — which included much information 

 on landholdings and boundaries. Also, we ab- 

 stracted the information concerning the ejido of 

 Quiroga. All records available in the municipal 

 palace were examined, and most of them were 

 abstracted. From the treasurer's office we ob- 

 tained data on all the current imposts, sources of 

 income, and expenditures. The incidence and 

 nature of crimes, and also records of transfer of 

 properties, were obtained in the office of the 

 juzgado menor. The secretary's office provided 

 us with broken records covering the history of 

 municipal administration during the past 80 years, 

 including such varied items as the elected officers, 

 changes in street nomenclature and house number- 

 ing, installation and upkeep of illumination, 

 market fees, registry of brands, bandit raids, 

 records of the municipal slaughterhouse, water 

 supply, etc. In the registro ciinl we abstracted 

 records covering births, marriages, and deaths 

 from the 1860's through 1945. These records 

 afforded us interesting information as to birth 

 rates, death rates, causes of death, family and 

 baptismal names, longevity, population move- 

 ment, age at time of marriage and of first child, 

 proportion of males to females, etc. Similar 

 records in the Quiroga parish house, as kept by 

 the various curates, were even more valuable 

 since they were more complete, and extended 

 back into the Spanish colonial period when dif- 

 ferent books were kept for the various races and 

 castes. One interesting disclosure was that 

 Quiroga, hke hundreds of other Mexican com- 



