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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 2 



struggle, however, is probably not as great today 

 as formerly. A local resident recalls : 



Many years ago, when I was a young man, people were 

 more wild over politics than they are today. There were 

 all sorts of trouble at election time. All the musicians in 

 the village band belonged to the same party. At night 

 they would get together and march out into the street and 

 play, while their friends shot their guns off into the air. 

 The leader of the other party was a man named Juca. 

 He was a resolute fellow. The day after the band came 

 out for the first time, he went to Sao Paulo and brought 

 back musical instruments and gave them to persons in his 

 party who also could play and then there were two bands 

 in the village every night, trying to drown each other out. 

 Each party also had its own soccer team. There were 

 fights almost every day. Four soldados were stationed in 

 the village then, instead of only one, as there is today. 

 But if they had tried to interfere, they would have gotten 

 into serious trouble. Both parties had lots of followers 

 and the men were all fighters. One night the leader of 

 one party thought his house was going to be attacked. 

 He heard an awful racket. He blew out the lantern and 

 grabbed his gun and waited. But nothing happened that 

 time. There were killings, though. It's a good thing it's 

 not that ba i any more. 



Strife between political factions probably still 

 is, however, as also has been indicated, the greatest 

 single force making for disunity in the community. 

 At the same time, the old alinements are being 

 broken up by the comparatively recent emergence 

 of new political forces, represented by new politi- 

 cal parties. The former clear-cut and relatively 

 permanent division in the community is no longer 

 evident. 



At present, factional rivalry does not seem to 

 divide neighbor against neighbor to the point 

 where the ordinarily intimate, personal relations 

 common to the village are significantly disturbed, 

 unless there are also present, in one or more of the 

 disputants, certain psychic or social characteris- 

 tics which at the same time increase difference 

 and tend to focus attention upon it. 



This is the situation in the case of the present 

 leader of the minority party in the community. 

 Many persons think that both he and his wife 

 give evidence of an air of superiority toward their 

 associates which is strongly condemned in the 

 local mores. The man and his wife are both 

 resolute persons who are accused of disparaging 

 most other persons in the community and of seek- 

 ing to force their will upon them. Tlie resentment 

 this arouses is intensified by the fact that the wife 

 tends to assume a role in local political and other 

 activities which is out of keeping with the accepted 



pattern of behavior on the part of a woman. On 

 the occasion of the last election, for instance, she 

 was much criticized for electioneering activities. 

 A village woman remarked : 



I and Dona Franeisca, the wife of Miguer, were 

 great friends until she began to try to force her ideas 

 about politics upon me. That's something I won't permit. 

 And so we quarrel and we tight. Everything I want to 

 do she puts a stop to it if she can, and everything she 

 wants to do I put a stop to if I can. She comes here in 

 the house of my neighbor and begins to say nasty things 

 about me. She knows the walls are thin and I can hear 

 everything she says. That's why she does it. I've just 

 told my neighbor that if she lets that woman keep on 

 insulting me In her house, I'm going to do something about 

 it. 



Another woman remarked : 



She's a "bone" here in the village. She just makes 

 me sick ! One day I heard her shouting out there in the 

 street that her husband was the only man here who had 

 any character. It made me so mad I wanted to go out 

 and fight with her. My husband also has character ; hers 

 is not the only one. 



The principal source of conflict in this case, 

 however, would seem to lie, not in the fact that the 

 man and his wife are political opponents of most 

 persons in the community, but rather in their fail- 

 ure to seek to maintain primary relations with 

 their associates. The fabric of local society is so 

 tightly woven that all elements must either be as- 

 similated or expelled. There is no middle ground. 

 Mere differences of opinion can be tolerated; 

 unfriendly attitudes, however, are definitely 

 against the mores. (See Solidarity, p. 197.) The 

 man in question, although of the same economic 

 and educational level as members of the commu- 

 nity, worked for several years as a truck driver 

 and thus had considerable contact with the out- 

 side world. He tends to inject into his relations 

 with persons in the community a secondary char- 

 acter which is alien to it and hence difficult to 

 understand ; and, since it is difficult to understand, 

 it is feared and resented. 



The ambition and concern for money evidenced 

 by this man, both of which characteristics also are 

 alien to the local mores, increase a resentment with 

 reference to him which sometimes is voiced in al- 

 most violent terms. "He would squeeze money out 

 of his own mother," a villager remarked. "That 

 fellow is an emhruido (shyster)," said another vil- 

 lager. "He doesn't cheat Christ only because 

 Christ has never been here." "Yes," remarked a 



