194 



INSTITUTE or SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



TRANSPORTATION AND 

 COMMUNICATION 



HISTORY 



There is very little information concerning the 

 status of transportation and communication in 

 Cocupao-Quiroga during the colonial period. Its 

 position on the most direct route from P^tzcuaro 

 and Tzintzuntzan northward to the hot springs 

 of Chucdndtro and Purudndiro, the great estates 

 of the ViUasenor family centering on Huango, and 

 the mining communities of Guanajuato, un- 

 doubtedly produced a considerable amount of 

 through traffic during the sixteenth century. How- 

 ever, the substitution of Valladolid-Morelia for 

 Pdtzcuaro as the most important settlement in 

 Michoacdn in the last quarter of the sixteenth 

 century undoubtedly reduced this traffic to a small 

 fraction of what it had been. The main roads 

 from Pdtzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan to Valladolid 

 led to the east of Cocupao throughout the colonial 

 period and until the 1920's; and the two main high- 

 ways crossing Michoacdn from east to west went 

 to the north and south. Until the modern high- 

 way was constructed the chief route from Morelia 

 to Guadalajara went thi-ough Tiristardn, Tecacho, 

 Caurio, Tlazazalca, and Zamora to the north; and 

 the southern alternate route went via Capula and 

 El Correo or by way of Santiago Undameo and 

 Jesus Huiramba to Pdtzcuaro, and thence west- 

 ward through Pich^taro, Sevina, etc. Effectively 

 the entire northern portion of the Pdtzcuaro Lake 

 Basin, from Tzintzuntzan around to Erongaricuaro 

 became a peripheral or "offside" area which was 

 practically never visited by strangers or foreigners, 

 and which was traversed only by a fairly local 

 traffic. Although a few individuals who have 

 written of their travels in Michoac^n did make an 

 effort to visit Tzintzuntzan from Pdtzcuaro, no one 

 visited or went through Cocupao-Quiroga. For 

 example, Alexander von Humboldt in 1803 went 

 through Capula, but he continued on directly to 

 Pdtzcuaro; in 1826 G. F. Lyon passed through 

 Tiristardn to the north; and the many travelers 

 from the 1830's on (such as Madame Calder6n de 

 la Barca, W. H. Bullock, E. Seler, and C. Lum- 

 holtz) got no closer than Pdtzcuaro and Tzintzun- 

 tzan. 



However, despite its offside position with 

 reference to main highways, Cocupao-Quiroga be- 

 came an important point on a secondary trans- 



portation network. A number of communities to 

 the north of the Pdtzcuaro Basin continued to be 

 in the political jurisdiction of Patzcuaro, and the 

 trails from these settlements (such as Coeneo, 

 Huaniqueo, and Teremendo) converged on Cocu- 

 pao. Furthermore, wheeled traffic between the 

 mining settlements of Guanajuato and the rich 

 agricultural communities of the bajio to the north 

 and the tierra caliente and Pacific coastlands to the 

 south virtually was lacking until the twentieth 

 century. One of the leading arriero routes from 

 Acapulco and Zacatula on the coast to Guanajuato 

 went through Patzcuaro and Cocupao. This route 

 was of considerable importance until the railroad 

 network began to develop after 1880. The old 

 Mexican National Railroad, buUding out from 

 Mexico City, reached Toluca in 1880, Acdmbaro in 

 1883, Moreha on September 12, 1883, Lagunillas 

 on November 16, 1885, PAtzcuaro on June 1, 1886, 

 and Uruapan on February 13, 1899. In 1934 an 

 extension southward from near Uruapan was 

 begun, which was plaimed to reach the coast at 

 Petatldn or Sihuantanejo, but so far it has been 

 completed only to Apatzingdn on a western lateral 

 from the main route. Also in the 1880's the 

 Mexican Central Railroad was built between 

 Mexico City and Ciudad Judrez, and a western 

 lateral was extended from Irapuato via Penjamo to 

 Guadalajara. In 1909 these railroads and others 

 were consolidated into the National Railways of 

 Mexico, and between 1910 and 1914 a branch line 

 was built from Penjamo through Zacapu and 

 Comanja and a short distance west of Opungio 

 and Erongaricuaro toAjuno on the railroad between 

 Patzcuaro and Uruapan. These railroads cut 

 heavily into the carrying business of the arrieros, 

 reduced the trade area of Quiroga, and converted 

 the bulk of the carrying business into a short haul 

 over the 13-km. route from Quiroga to the nearest 

 point on the railroad at La Cacana, or Estaci6n 

 Chapultepec as it is now known. 



HIGHWAYS 



During all of these years Quiroga depended 

 primarily on pedestrians and on pack animals to 

 move its goods. The prehistoric Tarascans lacked 

 pack animals, and humans packed everything on 

 their backs, shoulders, and heads. Although the 

 Spaniards introduced the horse, the burro, and 

 the mule in the 1520's and 1530's, apparently 

 wheeled vehicles were not used in the northern 



