186 



INSTITUTE OT SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 11 



was formerly known as the Hotel Vasco de Qui- 

 roga, and it has existed as a hotel for more than 

 40 years. However, it has but six rooms and is 

 not much patronized. The largest rooming house 

 is the Posada Escobedo, formerly the home of 

 one of the wealthiest men in Quiroga, which has 

 21 rooms. This posada is well situated a few 

 doors down Juarez from the intersection of the 

 Patzcuaro and Guadalajara highways and within 

 sight of the stopping places of all the busses. The 

 front of the ground floor is occupied by a res- 

 taurant, a butcher shop, a shoe-repair shop, the 

 zagudn or entrance to the posada, and a small 

 store. All of the rooms that are rented are on 

 the first floor (second floor in our terminology) 

 which is reached by one narrow stairway. The 

 central or inner patio, with its fountain and mod- 

 eled frogs, and its shrubs and potted plants, was 

 once one of the finest in Quiroga, but it seems to 

 have been neglected in recent years. This posada 

 was opened for business in 1940 as a result of 

 the entry of the improved highway in 1939. The 

 associated restaurant or/onda (which is nameless) 

 is run independently of the posada. Here, in one 

 small room with one large and two small tables, 

 Dona Julia Rivera and her niece Chucha (aided 

 by ever-merry hunchbacked little Placida) serve 

 the best meals in Quiroga. Doiia Julia opened 

 this Jonda in 1941. A few doors down Calle 

 Nacional from its intersection with Zaragoza is 

 a nameless "Restaurant y Cafe," established in 

 1939, which is the oldest formal eating place in 

 Quiroga and which does the most business thanks 

 to its location where the busses from Tacambaro 

 and Patzcuaro to Morelia and Mexico City make 

 their stops. A block and a half down Zaragoza 

 is a four-room casa de huespedes (lodging house) 

 kept by Dona Josefina Dominguez. Although the 

 1944 commercial census of Quiroga states that 

 this house was opened in 1943 we know this to be 

 an error, since we stayed here in 1939, at which 

 time we discovered that Dona Josefina was a 

 niece of the great Mexican anthropologist Nicolas 

 Leon who was born in Quiroga. The most recent 

 of the formal lodging and eating places (opened 

 1943) is the Restain-ant Atzimba and associated 

 casa de huespedes on the corner of Zaragoza and 

 Reforma. The above-mentioned places cater to 

 the transient stranger and the wealthier visitor. 

 People from the ranchos and nearby pueblos and 

 arrieros in passage stay in the mesones (inns), of 



which there are four. In the nineteenth century, 

 when arrieria was important, there were several 

 fairly good mesones (such as La Libertad and La 

 Providencia) which provided both sleeping space 

 and food for man and beast, but now these places 

 are little more than stables where stalls (macheros) 

 or floor space (piso) are available for animals at 

 5i to 10^ each per night, and wheat hay or straw 

 is available at 10^ per kg. The owner of the 

 animals commonly sleeps here also, but he gets 

 his meals at puestos on the streets and at stalls 

 in the market plaza. In such cities as Morelia 

 and Patzcuaro there are still places known as 

 posadas and mesones which provide both bed and 

 board for travelers, but most of them have ceased 

 to provide for animals. Such places in towns 

 were stops for the stagecoaches, which began to 

 leave the picture when the railroads entered in 

 the 1880's. The equivalent of a meson in the 

 country was known as a venta, and such a place 

 formerly existed some 10 miles east of Quiroga 

 in the present community of El Correo. In the 

 market plaza (Plaza de los Martires) by the 

 church there are four semipermanent food stalls 

 with roofs, hearths, deal tables and benches, 

 where meals are served on market and feast days, 

 and morning, noon, and evening on most other 

 days. In the morning and evening several women 

 set up tables on the south side of the Plaza 

 Principal and serve hot drinks (coffee, atoles, 

 chocolate), beans, and a variety of meat and fish 

 dishes. On the adjacent corner, near the princi- 

 pal bus stop, there is a puesto for the sale of 

 roasted and boiled meats — chiefly pork, and oc- 

 casionally mutton, goat, beef, chicken, and turkey. 

 There are perhaps 10 women (fonderas) who 

 commonly prepare and sell meals in this fashion, 

 or who specialize in some one dish; e. g., atoleras 

 who sell atoles, pozoleras who sell pozole, etc. 

 Wheat breads are usuaUy retailed by the women 

 who sell meals, but tortillas must be purchased 

 separately from a toriillera one or more of whom 

 associate themselves with each dispenser of meals. 

 There are at least a dozen women who prepare 

 and sell tortillas in this fashion, although our 

 census yielded only five. The explanation of this 

 discrepancy is that commonly no occupation is 

 given for a woman unless she is the head of the 

 house. The 1940 census provides a good example 

 of this sort of thing since practically all of the 

 women had their occupation listed as household 



