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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



years, Quiroga has been in the second electoral 

 district of which Patzcuaro is the center or most 

 important community. Usually the State con- 

 gressman or diputado from the second district is a 

 native of Patzcuaro. Very often he will suggest 

 to the ayuntamiento and political leaders of Qui- 

 roga whom he would like to have elected presi- 

 dent or syndic of the ayuntamiento, or someone 

 whom he would like appointed secretary of the 

 ayuntamiento or president of the electoral council. 

 The legislature of Michoacan is unicameral, and 

 consequently there are no senators. The elections 

 for diputado and governor are carried out locally 

 much as are the municipal elections, excepting 

 that the election day is on the first Sunday in 

 June, and the State congress constitutes the final 

 electoral court to judge the validity of the elections. 

 There are only two regular State offices in 

 Quiroga, that of the State telephone network 

 (housed in the municipal palace and attended by 

 the scribe of the civil register) and the State tax 

 office or Beceptoria de Bentas. Since the State 

 owns no building in Quiroga, the tax office moves 

 aroimd with the tax collector and usually is a 

 front room in a rented house. Since the State 

 taxes collected by this office are chiefly on real 

 estate the details of the office's work are given 

 with the discussion of land ownership. 



FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 



The Federal Government is directly represented 

 in Quiroga only by the personnel of the post office 

 and by the Federal stamp agent. The local post 

 office is a full Administracion de Correos (to which 

 is attached the sub-adminisfracion in Tzintzun- 

 tzan). It is housed in a rented office a few yards 

 from the Municipal Building. The personnel 

 consists of the postmaster or administrador de 

 correos, one or two assistants, and a cartero or 

 mailman. The postmaster for the past several 

 years has been our good friend Don Jose Medina 

 Gaona. The most widely applied Federal tax is 

 the stamp tax which is in the form of stamps that 

 must be attached to a great variety of legal, 

 commercial, and industrial papers such as in- 

 voices, receipts, each page of account books and 

 ledgers, etc. The local representative or agente del 

 timbre maintains the municipal agency or agenda 

 del timbre (which depends from the regional office 

 in Patzcuaro) in his home, which also contains a 



store, and which is located on the Calle Nacional 

 nearly opposite the post office. Although Manuel 

 Robles Fuentes is the appointed agent, Francisco 

 Fuentes and Francisco Fuentes Rojas have per- 

 formed the duty for many years. Probably we 

 should include the two Federal primary schools and 

 their personnel. Since the revolution all the public 

 schools in Quiroga have been maintained by 

 Federal funds. There is a Federal coeducational 

 primary school in a rented building on the Calzada 

 Ram6n Corona half a block from the principal 

 plaza, and there is a Federal rural primary school 

 in the former chapel of San Miguel in the Calvario 

 barrio near the northern outskirts of town. This 

 latter school is primarily for the children of the 

 Comunidad Ind'igena and of the ejidatarios. The 

 personnel consists of 10 teachers. These Federal 

 primary schools are administered from the Federal 

 educational office for the State of Michoacan in 

 Morelia. 



Naturally, there are dozens of other ways in 

 which the Federal government, its laws and its 

 organizations, affect the municipality of Quiroga. 

 According to the constitution and definitive 

 decrees, the wealth of the subsoil, Lake Pdtzcuaro 

 and its affluent streams, and other natural 

 resources, belong to the Federal government. 

 Since most of the municipahty of Quiroga which 

 borders Lake Patzcuaro falls within the lands of 

 the three western dependent pueblos, there are no 

 navigation lights or other Federal installations 

 on the lands of Quiroga proper. Formerly 

 Quiroga owned a boat landing to which periodic 

 visits were made by lake steamers and other 

 vessels, but this has been abandoned so completely 

 that it is now impossible to even locate the former 

 site of the muelle. The forests and their products 

 are subject to Federal control and tax, but this is 

 handled by remote control out of Moreha and 

 Ptitzcuaro. There are no mines of minerals which 

 would come under Federal control. The Federal 

 Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Obras Publicas 

 controls not only the post office and the navigation 

 of the lake, but it has contributed much to the 

 development of the main oiled road which passes 

 through Quiroga from Mexico City and Morelia to 

 Guadalajara, and also the oiled road which 

 branches south at Quiroga to Pdtzcuaro and 

 southward. Federal, State, and municipal funds 

 have been involved in the development of the 

 Quiroga road network. However, there is no 



