100 



INSTITTTTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



lent to approximately $2.06 an acre. Cash rentals, 

 however, are relatively rare, most farms which are 

 rented being leased for a fourth, third, or half the 

 crop, depending upon whether the owner furnishes 

 seed, a house, and other considerations and pays 

 for the plowing. 



Milk is being sold in the community at present 

 (1948) for 1.55 cruzeiros a liter and in Boa Vista 

 at 2.50 cTuseiros a liter. The price of firewood 

 delivered to the rail line at present is 65 to 70 

 cruzeiros a cubic meter. One man, however, has 

 a contract of several years standing with the rail- 

 road company to furnish a large quantity of fire- 

 wood at 55 cruzeiros a cubic meter. The prices of 

 the principal agricultural products have been given 

 in the section on Decline of Agriculture (p. 71) 

 and the prices of the principal items purchased 

 at the village stores, in the section on Vendas 

 (p. 93). 



The difference between prices today and prices 

 some years ago is a recurrent subject in the con- 

 versation of local residents. "The tempos de 

 dantes,''^ ^^^ remarked an elderly farm woman, 

 "were much better. You got little for your pro- 

 duce in those days but it was enough to buy every- 

 thing you needed because everything was so cheap." 

 Remarked a 70-year-old villager : 



When I was a young man, around fifty years or so 

 ago, times were much better than they are today. 

 Everything costs so much now that it seems like — God 

 forgive me — a punishment has been sent upon us. I once 



sold a pig weighing 5 arrobas '^^^ for 20 milreis. I sold 

 sacks of beans, sacks of a hundred liters, and delivered 

 them in Sao Paulo for a little over a milreis a sack. I 

 paid all the expenses of getting them there. Today, a 

 hundred-liter sack of good roxinho beans costs 300 in Sao 

 Paulo. Even a sack of ordinary beans costs 200. We used 

 to get a 60-kiIo sack of carolinho rice for 9 milreis; today, 

 you can hardly buy the empty sack for that price. Cod- 

 fish used to be 500 reis a kilo; only 100 reis would buy 

 enough for a meal. As God is in heaven and I am on 

 earth, this is the truth. 



Remarked another villager: 



Forty years ago, when I was a young man, I remem- 

 ber selling an arroia of pork for 9 milreis and chickens 

 at 1 milreis, 200 reis each. Maize was very cheap, too; 

 only 2 milreis an alqtteire [50 liters]. You could buy a 

 steer to butcher for 60 milreis; today, they sell for 1,000. 

 You could buy a young burro for 25 milreis, or a full-grown 

 one for 130 ; today they are selling for 4,000 to 5,000. 



Land at that time wasn't worth much. Almost no one 

 wanted to buy it. If someone did, he could get it for 10 

 milreis an alqueire [about 6 acres]. One of my neighbors 

 sold a farm at that time for 3,500 milreis; today it is 

 worth 55,000. The fazenda here by the village was put 

 up at auction and sold for 8,000 milreis; the other day, 

 the man in Sao Paulo who owns it was offered 1,000,000 

 for it, but he wouldn't sell. 



I built that little house up the street. The bricks cost 

 me only 25 milreis a thousand ; large bricks, well-baked 

 and made of real clay, not just of dirt like many bricks 

 you get nowadays. They weighed three times as much 

 as the bricks they put out now ; and still you have to pay 

 today 500 to 600 a thousand. 



Once when I was a boy, I had 1 milreis, 200 reis. My 

 brother-in-law found it out and wanted to whip me ; he 

 thought I had stolen it. In those days, that was a lot 

 of money !" 



""LiteraUy, "the times of before;" that is, "formerly.' 



' 32 pounds. 



SOCIETY AND CULTURE 



Consideration has been given to the three pri- 

 mary elements of the local community : the popu- 

 lation group, the habitat, and the ways in which 

 this population group has accommodated itself to 

 its habitat so as to obtain the satisfaction of basic 

 needs. 



Attention will now be given to the conditions 

 and forms of association and the concerted activity 

 in which these forms are revealed, as well as to 

 the common meanings and common expectations 

 of behavior which channelize and to a considerable 

 extent determine this activity. Of primary con- 

 sideration will be the interaction of local indi- 



viduals, which is the mechanism of concerted action 

 (or, in other words, of the society) and which pro- 

 ceeds in keeping with common meanings and com- 

 mon expectations (or, in other words, in keeping 

 with the culture) ; while, at the same time, it is also 

 the means by which these common meanings and 

 expectations are renewed, as they are handed on 

 from one generation to the next, and changed, 

 either during this process or otherwise. These 

 two complementary aspects of human life are so 

 intricately related — concerted activity being not 

 only determined to a considerable extent by cul- 

 tural forms but also the means by which new 



