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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



these has been described.^^^ Of another, a vil- 

 lager said, "The farm of comfadre Henrique is 

 very well set up. He buys almost nothing but salt 

 and the clothes for his family. Everything else 

 he takes out of the ground." The former system 

 of bartering products "always carried on with 

 honesty where everybody knew the value of the 

 things they traded," as one man put it, has now 

 largely been substituted by a system in which 

 transactions carried on with the owners of trucks 

 who come into the region to take farm produce 

 to the urban market and who, as another man put 

 it, "are accustomed to the complex, if not to say, 

 dishonest business practices of the city," figure 

 prominently. "It used to be we hardly ever saw 

 money," recalls a villager. "We traded what we 

 had left over with someone who needed it for some- 

 thing he had too much of and we needed." The 

 principal vestiges of the old system are the liqui- 

 dation of a farmer's debt, contracted at a village 

 store, by means of a delivery of onions, beans, po- 

 tatoes, or other produce; and the exchange of 

 maize, at the two mills, for maize flour. 



These changes in the techniques of the com- 

 munity, however, have set the stage for social 

 change rather than constituted it. At the same 

 time, the old mores are beginning to be, at least 

 to some extent, under strain, as is borne out by 

 remarks occasionally heard. A storekeeper, for 

 example, recently said, rather exaggeratedly, "A 

 man of his word no longer exists." Another vil- 

 lager complained, also rather exaggeratedly, 

 "There is no longer any respect for parents; you 

 hear children saying 'I'oce' to their father." ^^ 

 "This thing of a woman giving the orders in the 

 house," remarked another villager, referring to a 

 local woman who tends to assume a role not 

 ordinarily accruing to her sex, "of taking the 

 place of the rooster in the yard, is something 

 new." 



Farmers complain that the men they hire to 

 work on their farms today do not always care to 

 work as hard as men did in the past. "Twenty 

 years ago," a farmer remarked, "everyone was a 

 hard worker; but today, they're not as good as 

 they used to be." This criticism extends also to 

 the young women. "These girls today aren't any 



good," said, rather exaggeratedly, a woman in the' 

 village. "There was one in to help me after mj 

 last childbirth. She came from a farm near here 

 She didn't like to work ; she wanted to lie in bed 

 until 9 o'clock in the morning and then sleep some 

 more during the day. All she cared about was 

 having a good time. It's too bad these girls are 

 that way. What can they gain by it?" 



The younger women are beginning to react, 

 perhaps in large part unconsciously, against the 

 restraints upon their sex. Any alteration in be- 

 havior, however, still comes under immediate re- 

 proof and ridicule. At a recent dance, three girls 

 remained in the center of the floor conversing 

 with their partners after the music had stopped, 

 an act which is not in keeping with the foinner 

 custom. A man was heard to remark, "Look at 

 that ! Women are losing all sense of shame." 

 When one of the girls suggested discreetly "that 

 there be a frivilegio^'' ^" a man remarked, "These 

 women are getting to be so forward no one can 

 stand it any more." When a girl and a boy went 

 outside the house in which the dance was being 

 held to walk in the street, where other young 

 people also were walking, although the sexes re- 

 mained separated, a man was heard to remark, 

 "When did anyone in the olden time see a girl go 

 out like that, at night, with a boy?" "Qudl the 

 world is lost," replied his companion, with a show 

 of disgust. Knowledge regarding sexual be- 

 havior apparently is becoming somewhat more 

 extensive among young women and girls than 

 formerly. "Girls today know things that a mar- 

 ried woman never used to hear," remarked a mid- 

 wife. "Sometimes a little girl will say something 

 that makes you want to turn your face away and 

 never look at her again. But she is merely re- 

 peating what she's heard someone else say." 



Politics probably occupies a smaller portion of 

 the thought and activity of the men and a slightly 

 larger portion of the thought and activity of the 

 women than formerly was the case. As has been 

 indicated,"" the attitudes and sentiments related 

 to religious behavior and to belief in such phe- 

 nomena as the almas and the assomiragoes, as well 

 as folk treatment of disease, are beginning to 

 change, especially among the men. 



"' See Agriculture, p. 63. 



353 yoc(', it will bp recalled, is the familiar term used eitlier 

 between equals of great intimacy or in addressing persons of 

 inferior status. 



^* A brief reversal of the usual roles of men and women at a 

 dance so that the woman invites the man. 

 =«« See Sljepticism, p. 182. 



