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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AJ^THROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



Qiiiroga early in the sixteenth century, and this 

 parish was secularized 1786-87. However, no 

 registers were found for dates earlier than 1781. 

 We can only guess that the earlier registers may 

 be with the archives of the almost extinct Fran- 

 ciscan province of Michoacdn (in Acdmbaro or 

 Celaya) or in the sequestered archives which are 

 scattered from Moreha to Mexico City and frag- 

 ments of which are to be found in foreign libraries. 



The present archives of the parish of Quiroga 

 contain Libros de Bautismos (Baptismal inscrip- 

 tions) Nos. 1 to 17 (excepting books 7, from 1865 

 to 1871, and 9 to 11, from 1884 to 1889) which 

 cover the period 1781 to date; Libros de Matri- 

 monios or Casamientos (Marriage inscriptions), 

 from 1782 to date; Libros de Entierros (Burial 

 inscriptions), from 1806 to date; and other types of 

 record. Possibly copies of the missing material may 

 be found in the episcopal archives in Morelia, since 

 canon law requires that annually copies of all parish 

 registers (excepting the status animarum) be sent 

 to the secretariat of the bishopric. As mentioned 

 in a later section on Names and Ethnic Origins, 

 beginning in 1781 the baptisms of the various 

 castes were kept in three different books. We did 

 not have the time to scan the different books and 

 determine when the segregation of castes ceased 

 actually in the Quiroga parish books, but it was 

 some time within the period 1831-87. In the 

 Libros de Entierros de Muertos were given the date 

 of death, name of the deceased, cause of death, 

 age, name of some near relative, and where 

 buried — at least from 1856 onward. 



In the period 1857-59 various laws were passed 

 by the liberal Mexican Congress in an attempt to 

 break the hold of the Roman Catholic Church on 

 the social-political-economic Ufe of the people. 

 Among these laws were some which established a 

 municipal registro civil or civil register, removed 

 the cemeteries from ecclesiastic control, and legal- 

 ized a civil form of marriage. Between 1871 and 

 1874 additions were made to the law of civil 

 registry, but since that period no fundamental 

 changes have been made. The registro del estado 

 civil concerns births, maiTiages, and deaths and 

 burials. The municipal president is the honorary 

 judge of the civil register and is supposed to sign 

 the various books. The actual work of inscrip- 

 tion is entrusted to a scribe or secretary, who, in 

 Quiroga, has been Don Rafael Huape since Jan- 

 uary 6, 1936. Because of clerical opposition, the 



cost and time and difficulty involved in going to 

 the office of registry, and the lack of personnel 

 and supplies, the records in the registry books are 

 never complete. This is especially true for the 

 period 1859 to 1929. Mexican statisticians cal- 

 culate (on the basis of comparisons of civil register 

 entries with those in the parish registers) that 

 between 1859 and 1895 less than one-third of the 

 births were entered; the percentage rose to about 

 70 for the period 1895 to 1900; was 81.4 percent 

 from 1921 to 1930; and is now more than 95 per- 

 cent. The requirement, since 1929, of a certificate 

 from the civil register before a child may be en- 

 rolled in school or baptized in church has brought 

 about almost complete registry of births. The 

 chief exceptions are stillbirths and babies who 

 die within a few days after birth. Since no one 

 may be buried in the cemetery without a certificate 

 from the civil register the record of deaths has 

 consistently been the most complete, excepting 

 always the stillbirths and the very young. The 

 matrimonial data are the most incomplete since 

 there can be three forms of marriage — common- 

 law or union libre with no ceremony of any kind, 

 just the religious marriage, which is officially 

 considered no better than a common-law mar- 

 riage, and the civil marriage which is registered. 



The tendency has been to have only the rehgious 

 marriage or no ceremony at aD, but in recent 

 years a majority of the marriages combine the civil 

 and the religious. Beginning in the period 1882- 

 92 national vital statistics began to be compiled 

 on the basis of data from the civil register. In 

 the State of Michoacdn such records began about 

 1880. 



The civil register office or juzgado del estado civil 

 in Quiroga is located on the upper floor of the 

 municipal building where it occupies a dingy un- 

 lighted room in which is also located the office of 

 the State telephone network. In this room are 

 kept all the current books as well as all that exists 

 of the civil register archives. Apparently a civil 

 register was opened in Qunoga in 1860. At that 

 time the register area covered essentially what is 

 the present municipahty of Quiroga. In 1871 

 Tzintzuntzan and its dependencies were added, 

 and they continued to report to the Quiroga office 

 until September of 1930. When we checked the 

 archives we found the following records: Libros 

 de actus de nacimientos 1862, 1863, 1868, 1873-91, 

 1893, 1895-97, 1899-1905, 1907-15, 1919 to date. 



