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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



assembly. A complicated "bell language" was 

 developed to take care of the many periodic and 

 special religious and secular calls. The first 

 reduction in the use of bells was brought about by 

 various anticlerical laws since 1859. In Quiroga 

 the need for bells to indicate the time of day was 

 eliminated by the installation of the town clock 

 in 1895. Cheap watches, radio time signals, pub- 

 lic order, newspapers, a reduction of religious 

 fervor, and other factors have combined to reduce 

 bell ringing to a mere echo of what it once was. 

 Bells are rung at the discretion of the priest and, 

 rarely, at the request of the ayuntamiento. The 

 three Angeluses or Avemarias {toque de alba about 

 6 in the morning; toque de las dace at noon; and 

 toque de la oracion de la tarde about 6 in the 

 evening) are not commonly rung excepting for the 

 call to noon prayer, which consists of 12 strokes 

 on one bell (on Sundays and feast days this is 

 followed by a repique or series of peals). Ap- 

 parently the alba, doce, and oracion or rosario are 

 indicated by ringing three strokes, pause, four 

 strokes, pause, five strokes, pause, and one final 

 stroke. A misa cantada or sung mass on Sundays 

 and feast days is indicated by three calls or 

 llamadas rung at about 15-minute intervals. 

 These llamadas are initiated by three, two, or one 

 stroke of the campana mayor (according to the 

 time remaining before mass), and then a clamor 

 of belfry bells and hand bells. An ordinary misa 

 rezad.a or low mass is indicated by three llamadas 

 of about 30 strokes or campanadas each followed 

 by 1 , 2, or 3 strokes. Quiroga, like most churches, 

 has no high masses, since adequate personnel is 

 lacking. In addition to the main calls to mass 

 and prayer (which employ the larger bells), there 

 are numerous minor calls of but a few strokes on 

 one of the smaller bells which are addressed to 

 particular segments of the population, such as the 

 catechism classes and the members of the various 

 confraternities or sodalities. Our general im- 

 pression was that the bell language in Quiroga was 

 quite abbreviated and corrupted; at least it 

 differed quite a bit from usage we had observed 

 in such other areas as Guerrero, Sinaloa, and 

 Chihuahua. Undoubtedly a combination of local 

 tradition or custom (differing among the Fran- 

 ciscans, Augustinians, Jesuits, regular clergy, et 

 al.) and the personal bias of the curate conditions 

 the natiu-e of the vocabulary of the bell language 



from one parish to another. It would be most 

 interesting to make a current comparative study 

 in different parts of Mexico to determine (a) 

 actual status of campanology, (h) differences from 

 one part of the country to another, (c) relative 

 use for religious and secular purposes, ((/) influence 

 of the different orders in regional differences, and 

 (e) changes from the nineteenth century and from 

 the colonial period. At present in Quiroga the 

 chief secular use of the church bells is to ring the 

 queda or curfew. 



THE CLERGY 



Owing to such factors as the authority of the 

 church, the office of confession, and control of 

 education for more than three centuries, the local 

 priests have exerted a great influence for both 

 good and bad in Quiroga. Local opinion concern- 

 ing the church and the local exudates varies greatly. 

 The majority of the inhabitants are good Catholics 

 who criticize neither the church nor the priests. 

 However, a minority (chiefly the ejidatarios of 

 El Calvario) claim that the priests have always 

 been in league with the merchants and large land- 

 holders to keep the common people in ignorance 

 and to take away their lands. In any case the 

 curate has always been a highly influential person. 

 Since the parish priests have been the principal 

 molders of character and arbiters of society in 

 Quiroga, it seems pertinent to provide a list of 

 these men. Owing to the lack of the Franciscan 

 archives we do not have the names of the various 

 friars who served in Cocupao-Quiroga excepting 

 Fray Lucas Rincon, who was guardian of the 

 convent in 1774 and possibly was the last Fran- 

 ciscan in Cocupao. At the death of the last friar 

 (about 1786) Cocupao was entrusted to a teniente 

 de cura who represented the proprietary curate of 

 Tzintzuntzan. The first secular curate of Tzin- 

 tzuntzan was Manuel Gregorio Gonzalez de Anzo, 

 1780-83, who was succeeded by Juan de Dios 

 Malagon 1783-86, Dr. Gabriel Bartholomeo 

 Gomes de la Puente 1786-87, and Geronimo Sandi 

 1788-1804. These and nine later priests were the 

 proprietary curates of Tzintzuntzan, Ihuatzio, 

 and Cocupao until 1853 when Cocupao-QuLroga 

 was erected into an independent curato. Despite 

 the fact that the ecclesiastic historian Romero 

 gives the date of 1853, a notation in the church 

 records of Quiroga states that Quiroga was 



