60 



INSTITUTE OF SOCTAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



of property are indicated merely by addition or 

 subtraction of the money presumably involved. 

 Considering the imderestimations of areas and 

 values the tax rates are not high. In recent years 

 (1940-43) the rate was 12.50 on the thousand, 

 and at present (1944-) the rate is 13.50 pesos for 

 each 1,000 pesos of capital. Despite the fact that 

 the average capital valuation was less than 650 

 pesos, a great number of accounts were in arrears 

 for a number of years. An indication of this 

 condition is the notification form in use in 1945 

 which had spaces for the arrears beginning with the 

 year 1935. In addition to the regular land tax, 

 there are collected at the same time a surcharge 

 of 10 percent of the amount of the tax which is 

 earmarked for the State road fund, another 10 

 percent which goes into the general State treasury, 

 and 5 percent of the amount of the tax which 

 goes to the Federal treasury. 



On the basis of the records in the tax office, 

 there are 475 parcels of rural land in Quiroga and 

 its ranches which are owned by 291 persons, and 

 which are valued at 199,980 pesos. Undoubtedly 

 these figures do not cover all of the lands and 

 landowners in the area, but the amount of omitted 

 land is quite smaU. The ejidal parcels and their 

 owners have not been included in the above 

 figures, although the valuation of the cultivated 

 ejidal lands is Lacluded in the valuation sum. 

 There are actually a greater number of owners on 

 record since we have considered each account to 

 represent but one owner, although there were 4 

 groups of heirs, 5 groups of associates, 2 listings 

 for minor sons, 4 simple partnerships, and 21 

 groups of brothers and sisters. The largest parcel 

 of land was in La Tirimicua, valued at 14,300 

 pesos, and owned by a man and his wife. There 

 were 10 other persons who owned lands valued at 

 more than 4,000 pesos, and a total of 43 persons 

 owned lands valued at more than 1,500 pesos. 

 More than 50 percent of the rural property in 

 Quiroga (102,010 pesos) is owmed by 36 individ- 

 uals. The chief landowners are Quiroga mer- 

 chants, the heads of family in the mestizo ranches 

 (Sanambo, Icuacato, Caringaro, and Atzimbo), 

 and several absentee landlords (chiefly residents 

 of Morelia and Patzcuaro). If we accept our 

 1945 figures of 797 households, 931 families, and 

 a population of 4,159 for Quiroga and its ranches, 



the percentages and averages are: About 36 

 percent of the households and 31 percent of the 

 famihes own lands, and the total rural valuation 

 of the Quiroga area averages 48 pesos per person. 

 A study of the taxroUs and the family names indi- 

 cates that certain families (at least individuals 

 having the same surname) own lands out of pro- 

 portion to their position within the total popula- 

 tion. In the following tabulation the first column 

 has the family names in the order of population 

 represented, and the second column has the family 

 names (followed by the number of individual 

 landholders) in the order of the value of lands 

 owned. 



Population 



1. Barriga. 



2. Herrera. 



3. Gonzdlez. 



4. Fuentes. 



5. Chdvez. 



6. Garcfa. 



7. Calder6n. 



8. Rodriguez. 



9. Campuzano. 



10. Coria. 



11. L6pez. 



12. Medina. 



13. Pena. 



14. Valdovinos. 



15. Ortiz. 



16. Herndndez. 



17. Estrada. 



18. Torres. 



19. Giizmdn. 



20. Ponce. 



Valuation 



1. Ponce (16) $16,750. 



2. Barriga (21) 815,030. 



3. Torres (9) $11,910. 



4. Fuentes (12) $11,240. 

 6. Herrera (16) $8,810. 



6. Rodriguez (6) $8,000. 



7. Chagolla (12) $7,610. 



8. Diaz (19) $7,500. 



9. Villasenor (2) $7,240. 



10. Gutierrez (5) $6,800. 



11. Milidn (4) $6,370. 



12. Calder6n (12) $6,300. 



13. Villaneuva (1) $5,990. 



14. Paramo (1) $5,360. 



15. Medina (6) $5,320. 



16. Villalobos (4) $4,830. 



17. Arias (5) $4,670. 



18. Chiivez (7) $4,340. 



19. Sierra (3) $4,240. 



20. Ruiz (9) $4,190. 



It will be noted that the family names associated 

 with the old Hacienda Itziparamuco and its suc- 

 cessor haciendas and ranchos (Ponce, Barriga, 

 Herrera, Diaz, Milian, Chavez, Ruiz, and Sierra) 

 own lands out of proportion to the population 

 they represent, while the Indian families (Pena, 

 Valdovinos, L6pez, Estrada, Guzman, and Cha- 

 golla) own comparatively little land. Some of the 

 figui-es are slightly misleading since in some cases 

 a man's property will be listed separately from 

 that of his wife (who has a different surname), and 

 also in some cases nearly all of the land in a given 

 family-name group actually will belong to but 

 one or two individuals (e. g., one Rodrlquez owns 

 $6,000 of the Rodriguez total, and one Fuentes 

 owns $8,300 of the Fuentes total). Three-fourths 



