QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MUNICIPIO — BRAND 



199 



munication with the outside, in addition to the 

 ubiquitous "grapevine telegraph." By at least 

 1843 a post office {qficina de correos) was estab- 

 lished in Cocupao-Quiroga. In 1868 mails went 

 out and came in three times a week, through 

 Patzcuaro and ^^lorelia. At some uncertain time 

 in the nineteenth century the office was raised to 

 the rank of a first-class post office {administracion 

 de correos). At present it is a full-fledged first- 

 class post office with a postmaster, one to two 

 clerks, and one postman (carfero). There are two 

 dependent postal agencies, one in Tzintzuntzan 

 and the other in Santa Fe (unpaid and unofficial). 

 Office hours are from 9 to 13 (1 o'clock) and 15 to 

 18 on ordinary days, and 9 to 13 on Sundays and 

 holidays (with curtailed service). Mail is de- 

 livered to houses twice daily. There is one mail- 

 box (buzon), in the Portal Hidalgo, whence mail is 

 collected at 7:30 and 15:15 daily. The mails are 

 carried under contract with the Sociedad Micho- 

 acana de Auto-Transportes del Suroeste. Alails 

 go out daily to Morelia at 8, 9, and 15:50, and to 

 Patzcuaro at 9:15 and 16:15; and mails come in 

 daily from Morelia at 9 and 16:15, from Patz- 

 cuaro at 8 and 15:45, and fi'om Coeneo at 9. As 

 mentioned previously, there is no Federal building, 

 and the post office is in the home of the post- 

 master who for many years has been Don Jos6 

 Medina Gaona. This post office does an un- 

 usually heavy business in domestic and inter- 

 national money orders due to export of chairs and 

 other regional handicrafts, import of wheat, and 

 remittances from braceros to their families in the 

 northern part of the lake basin. However, the 

 movement of letters and periodicals is relatively 

 small (table 30). 



The movement of monies into and out of Qui- 

 roga indicated by the above statements of money 

 orders sold and cashed does not represent more 

 than a major fraction of such movements in 

 Quiroga. Several of the merchants and indus- 

 trialists serve as private bankers, and both issue 

 and accept letters of credit and a variety of drafts. 

 Furthermore, quite frequently the monies involved 

 in the export and import of commodities by the 

 carload (through Morelia and Patzcuaro) are 

 handled by drafts on banks. We were unable to 

 obtained adequate information concerning such 

 transactions. However, the cash involved in the 

 movement of one carload often equaled an entire 

 month's transactions in postal money orders. 



Table 30. — Movements in the Quiroga post office, 1944—^5 



A Federal telegraph line reached Patzcuaro in 

 March of 1871 and was extended to Quu-oga in 

 September of 1878. In 1893 changes were made 

 in the system; the line between Morelia and 

 Pdtzcuaro became a combined railroad and State 

 telegraph line; and the telegraph in Quiroga was 

 replaced by a State telephone office. In 1899 a 

 connection was made with a telephone line which 

 came down from the north through Puru^ndno, 

 Huango, Huaniqueo, and Coeneo. At present the 

 office of the Tel^grafos y Tel^fonos del Estado de 

 Michoac^n is in the Municipal Palace, and the 

 scribe of the civil registry is also in charge of the 

 telephone. In addition to this office there is one 

 private subscriber in Quiroga. 



There are no radios in the ranchos, since bat- 

 tery radios are unknown in the municipality, and 

 all 62 radios in the town of Quiroga are operated 

 by electricity obtained by plugging into electric 

 light vents or sockets. These radios were dis- 

 tributed in 1945 among the cuarteles as follows: 

 I — 22 radios, II — 11 radios, III — 15 radios, and 

 IV — 14 radios. Naturally, these are only in 

 houses wired for electric lights. Radios are found 

 not only in the homes of the wealthier citizens, 

 but also in a number of the stores (where they 

 serve as sources of entertainment and information 

 for a large part of the residents of Quiroga), and 

 in an increasing number of homes of handicrafters 

 (weavers, painters, et al.). The radio undoubted- 

 ly has been a great boon to Quii-oga since it serves 

 as newspaper and novel for the illiterate, and helps 

 to compensate the workers for the increased com- 

 mercialization of the handicrafts. We made no 

 study of the subject, but the results of studies 



