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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AjS'THROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



and the leading plazas, is dominated by mestizo 

 and white families. This mestizo-white district 

 also embraces all of euartel IV and the eastern 

 district known as the Pueblo Nuevo. Just as 

 Indian Quiroga can be thought of as occupying 

 the northern and western portions, so the mestizo- 

 white zone can be said to comprise the remaining 

 central and southern and eastern portions which 

 contain the exits of roads leading to Morelia 

 and P^tzcuaro and which border on the lands of 

 the former hacienda of Atzimbo. The ranchos 

 derived from the former hacienda (Atzimbo, 

 Caringaro, Icu^cato, and Sanambo) make up a 

 third recognizable division which is dominated by 

 families of mestizo origin. There has been much 

 intermarriage between individuals from the ranchos 

 and from the mestizo-white division of Quiroga, 

 and a number of essentially rancho families have 

 become established in Quiroga during the past 

 80 years. On the other hand, there apparently 

 has been very little movement from Quiroga out 

 to the aforementioned ranchos. The remaining 

 two ranchos can be considered appendages of two 

 of the ethnic districts — La Tirimicua is Indian 

 and mestizo and properly can be tied in with the 

 Calvario district to which it is adjacent, and 

 Zirandangacho is but an outpost of mestizo-white 

 Quiroga with which it is connected. 



The four mestizo ranchos presumably contam 

 the descendants of the former hacienda laborers, 

 who have acquired title to the lands of the extinct 

 hacienda. It is known that the inhabitants are 

 a mixture of white, Indian, and Negro, so amal- 

 gamated that the present product can best be 

 referred to as mestizo. An aberrant element is 

 the conspicuous presence of some gray and blue- 

 eyed individuals, often with red or fair hair, and 

 commonly with light or florid complexions. This 

 is especially true of some past and present inhab- 

 itants of Atzimbo. It has been suggested that 

 this white element is derived from the presence 

 of French and Belgian troops in the area during 

 the French Intervention in the 1860's. Charac- 

 teristic rancho surnames are such as Barriga, 

 Herrera, Chavez, Campuzano, Ruiz, Diaz and 

 Diaz Barriga, and Aguilar, which are the most 

 numerous famUies in the ranchos and over half 

 of whose representatives in the Quiroga region 

 are to be found in these ranchos. Among other 

 families, all or more than half of whose members 

 live in the ranchos, are the Arriaga, Magos, Milidn, 



Olayo, Ortiz, Pineda, Ramirez, and Sierra. It is 

 noteworthy that the leading Indian family names, 

 such as Anita, Estrada, Fabidn, Flores, Mexicano, 

 Peiia, Salmer6n, and Valdovinos, are not repre- 

 sented in the ranchos, not even in the maiden 

 name of a married woman. Also, such family 

 names as Chagolla, Guzmdn, L6pez, and Rangel, 

 which are well represented in the Indian families, 

 have but a slight representation in the ranchos. 

 In connection with the local concentrations of 

 certain surnames in the ranchos or among the 

 so-called Indians, we should consider the results 

 of a survey of all surnames listed for sixteenth- 

 century Spanish conquerors, colonizers, vecinos, 

 encomenderos, corregidores, and the like, in New 

 Spain. We failed to find for sixteenth-century 

 Michoacan and its borderlands (Jalisco, Colima, 

 Guanajuato, etc.) 75 of the 252 family names 

 listed in the 1940 census. Thirty-one of these 75 

 surnames were represented in 1940 by 5 or more 

 persons, and the most important among these were 

 (in the order of their importance in the Quiroga 

 region): (1) Barriga 219, (9) Campuzano 72, (14) 

 Valdovinos 64, (23) Chagolla 48, (28) Anita 41, 

 (36) Farias 32 (unless this name is derived from 

 Frias), (44) Magos 25, (46) Sierra 25, (47) Olayo 

 24, (51) Servin 21, (54) Saucedo 20, (56) Sixtos 

 19, (58) Mexicano 18, (64) Villa 16, (65) Castro 

 14, and (68) Reyes 14. Our conclusion is that 

 the families having such names were either Indians 

 or else comparative latecomers. 



The determination of the white or practically 

 white population of Quiroga is quite difficult. No 

 antliropometric study was carried out, or ever has 

 been done, in Quu'oga. Furthermore, physical an- 

 thropologic study alone, without support from 

 genealogic records, is never sufficient. An indi- 

 vidual may appear to be completely white in 

 physical racial characteristics and yet he may have 

 one or more known ancestors who were nonwhites. 

 It is possible that, with the exception of the Ital- 

 ian family, there are no absolutely pure whites in 

 the Quiroga area. On the other hand, there are a 

 number of families with prestige and comparative 

 wealth and education, many or all of whose repre- 

 sentatives physically could be classed as whites. 

 Fi'om a study of the municipal records, tax rolls, 

 histories of Michoacan, and other sources, we have 

 compiled a list of all the families whose members 

 have dominated the political, economic, and social 

 life of Quiroga during the past one hundred and 



