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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



cioneros asked the State government to go over the 

 tattered remnants of the pertinent titles and make 

 an authoritative copy which could serve as the 

 basis for modern titles. The fragments of docu- 

 ments copied allow us to trace the main lines of 

 the development of this hacienda from some time 

 in the early seventeenth century up to 1736. 

 The earliest document (which has no date but 

 whose context indicates that it is from the first 

 half of the seventeenth century) represents the 

 sale by Luis Castilleja y Paruata to Francisco 

 Ponce de Le6n of lands termed El Tucuruyo 

 whose described boundaries included nearly all 

 the lands claimed by Cocupao (in its title of 1534) 

 which lay to the east of the pueblo proper of 

 Cocupao and the present site of Zirandangacho. 

 In other words, these lands mcluded all of modern 

 Cuenembo, Atzimbo, El Tigi'e, La Noria, Santa 

 Cruz, and Los Corrales, and possibly parts of 

 Caringaro, Sanambo, La Tirimicua and Icuacato, 

 but only Santa Cruz was mentioned. The name 

 Tucurullo is still applied to the area along the 

 Arroyo del Salto between Atzimbo and the 

 Puerta de Cuenembo. Castilleja mentioned that 

 he had obtained this property by purchase from 

 his sisters and by inheritance from his ancestors 

 (who were of the royal Tarascan family). In 

 this connection it is of interest that a legend 

 relates that Atzimbo was named after Atzimba, a 

 sister of the last Tarascan ruler. The next docu- 

 ment, of 1680, refers to the hacienda of Nicolas 

 Ponce de Le6n (either son or grandson of Francisco 

 Ponce de Le6n), gives its boundaries (which are 

 much the same as those given previously), and 

 provides for renting a portion for the period of 9 

 years. The Hacienda de San Antonio Tacupare 

 (later known as Chapultepec) together with 

 Sanabria held the lands to the south, and La 

 Teneria and Cocupa formed the boundaries to the 

 west. The northern and eastern boundaries are 

 uncertain. However, there is reference to a paper 

 (escriinra) issued by the Pueblo de Cocupao 

 granting rental rights to unspecified lands. This 

 probably was the basis for acquisition of the areas 

 of modern Caringaro, Icuacato, and Sanambo. 

 Among the places mentioned within the hacienda 

 were: The Pueblo Viejo de Arameo by a malpais 

 or volcanic flow (the Alalpais de Itziparamuco of 

 Beaumont's map and the Malpais de Cuenembo 

 of today); the Pueblo de Coenembo Santa Cruz; 

 the Puesto de San Bartolom^ Atzimbo; and the 



Puesto de Tupuero y Jarambo y jVrameo (it is 

 possible that the copyist used the singular by 

 mistake and the last item should read puestos). 

 The renter, Nicolas Renteria, was to erect puestos 

 and ranchos wherever necessary. A document of 

 1696 adds the Puesto de Itziparamuco and men- 

 tions Cuenembo and Santa Cruz as separate 

 puestos. 



Apparently the period 1680 to 1689 was when 

 the term "rancho" was first applied to some of 

 the puesios, and during the same period possibly 

 such ranchos as Caringaro, Icudcato, and Sanambo 

 were established in their present locations. The 

 latter two entities were in existence during the 

 sixteenth century, but both were congregated 

 about 1603. It is quite likely that the sites of 

 the modern ranchos of Icudcato and Sanambo are 

 the same as those of the original Indian pueblos 

 of those names because ranchos and puestos were 

 located where there was potable water, and many 

 of the springs in the region have retained their 

 Tarascan names even to this day. It woidd be 

 logical that a rancho established at the spring of 

 Sanambo, for example, should become known as 

 the Rancho de Sanambo. We must insist (as we 

 have pointed out elsewhere) on the non-Indian 

 nature of the inhabitants of the ranchos, with the 

 exception of La Tirimicua. The haciendas during 

 the colonial period were worked mainly by mestizos 

 and mulattoes, since the Indians worked their own 

 lands for subsistence and in order to make the 

 necessary contributions tc the church, the govern- 

 mental officials, and to the crown. The nature 

 of the population, the pattern of settlement, and 

 the form of economy in the Quiroga area differed 

 in certain respects from the conditions that 

 obtained elsewhere in Mexico. It was a region of 

 comparatively dense agricultural Indian popu- 

 lation, of poor pasture lands, and of minimal 

 water supply in the dry season from February to 

 May, which factors kept the large estates or 

 haciendas from attaining the size of the lati- 

 fundios in northern Mexico, and caused them to 

 divide their attention between crop labores and 

 cattle estancias. Actually there were no haciendas 

 de ganado in the Ptltzcuaro region, but rather they 

 were haciendas de labor which would include one 

 or more sitios de ganado or estancias. Although 

 there were richly mineralized zones within 50 to 

 100 miles in all directions (for example Inguanin 

 copper to the south, Ozumatl^n and Tlalpujahua 



