52 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBUCATION NO. 11 



journs in Japan. At any rate, some or most of 

 Quiroga's houses were of this type at the close of 

 the colonial period. After the village was burned 

 to the ground in 1811 it was probably too great a 

 task to cut and hew all of the timber necessary to 

 rebuild the houses entirely of wood, so the walls 

 were made of adobes and only the roofs were of 

 shakes — as reported by Romero (1860-63). The 

 present two-shed tile-roofed houses with adobe 

 walls and floors of brick are definitely European. 

 However, those houses which consist of three units 

 (a combined livingroom-bedroom, a kitchen, and 

 a storeroom) are functionally as Tarascan as they 

 are Spanish. The furniture of the houses and the 

 plants and animals in the patios are a mixture of 

 the two cultures, with a majority of the items be- 

 ing of Old World origin. The native sweathouse 

 has been completely eliminated, although the oc- 

 casional bread oven in the backyard is somewhat 

 reminiscent of its shape; the shape of most of the 

 granaries is quite probably non-Indian; and the 

 animal corrals and excusados are definitely Old 

 World. 



LAND OWNERSHIP 



FEDERAL, STATE, AND MUNICIPAL LANDS 



The lands in the municipality of Quiroga belong 

 to the Fedei'al Government, the State Govern- 

 ment, the municipal government, the Indian 

 agrarian community, and to individuals. Within 

 the Villa de Quiroga and its ranchos the National 

 Government has theoretical title to the subsoil 

 minerals, to Lake Patzcuaro and its permanent 

 tributaries (nationalized in 1920), to the churches 

 and chapels and lands which they occupy, to the 

 federalized rural school "La Redenci6n" which 

 occupies the former chapel of San Miguel (the 

 town school, although Federal, is on private 

 rented property), and to the line which brings 

 electricity from Tacambaro. In actual practice 

 Federal ownership of lands and buildings in 

 Quiroga is insignificant. All Federal employees 

 (such as teachers, doctors, post-office workers, 

 highway workers, etc.) own privately or rent their 

 offices or places of business; e. g., the postmaster 

 owns the building in which the post office is 

 housed. The nature of State claims to land 

 ownership is somewhat uncertain, but apparently 

 the nearest State property is the Balneario de 

 Chupicuaro near Santa Fe. State employees, 

 such as the tax collector, have their offices in 



buildings which they own privately or rent. The 

 State does own the telephone line. The munici- 

 pality as a legal entity owns the public roads and 

 bridges, the streets and plazas, the water system 

 from the cajas de agua to the pilas and including 

 the pipe lines into private homes (theoretically 

 the Arroyo de Quiroga and its waters belong to 

 the Federal Government), the cemetery, the 

 slaughterhouse, the municipal building, the poles 

 and lights of the town lighting system, and a few 

 small scattered pieces of property within Quiroga 

 town which were valued in 1941 (on the State tax 

 rolls) at 765 pesos. 



The cemetery or panteon municipal was built in 

 1850 to take the place of the old and crowded 

 cemetery in front of the parish church. It is 

 situated at the very northeast corner of town, by 

 the Arroyo de Cerro Azul and just below the 

 spring of La Tep6ricua. The main portion, which 

 is enclosed by a high adobe wall, measures 104 

 meters along the western side by 93 meters in 

 width. The only entrance is through an ornate 

 gateway at the southwest corner. Withm the 

 main precincts are a centrally located chapel built 

 in 1890-92 which is now roofless and in ruins, the 

 majority of the graves, and all of the ornamental 

 trees and shrubs. In 1879 an addition was pur- 

 chased which occupies the triangular area between 

 the walled cemetery proper and the arroyo to the 

 east. This area has an uncertain number of 

 unmarked graves (it is essentially the "potter's 

 field"), and is overgrown with weeds and brush. 

 The main panteon is extremely unkempt, with 

 weeds everywhere, many graves gutted, head- 

 stones askew, etc. The oldest date we could 

 locate was 1861, but a number of the dates were 

 illegible, and many of the headstones had been 

 re-used. The most pretentious monument was 

 that over the grave of Colonel Jesus Villanueva 

 (a hero of the Wars of Reform and the French 

 Intervention), but most of the graves were marked 

 by a simple wooden cross. 



The present municipal building or Palacio 

 Municipal in the second block of cuartel I, just 

 south of La Concepci6n church, occupies all the 

 area from the 46-meter frontage on the Calle Na- 

 cional back to Calle Degollado. The lands upon 

 which it was erected 1884-1904 were a part of La 

 Guatapera or hospital which belonged to the Indian 

 community as late as 1869. Some time between 

 1869 and 1873 the lands of La Guatapera were ac- 



