54 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 13 



In 187G, and attended by considerable blood- 

 shed, 83 the Federal Government opened a great 

 stretch of territory to settlement (p. 45), includ- 

 ing not only the present Tajin, but extensive areas 

 to the west, south, and north. This expanse of 

 lowland was divided into lotes, equivalent to our 

 subdivisions ; and these in turn were divided into 

 parcels (parcelas). The lote which included 

 modern Tajin was known as Ojital y Potrero. 89 



8S Modesto Gonzalez gives the following version : "When I was 

 a boy I lived with my mother on land which is a little beyond 

 the parcel [No. 115] which Pablo Gonzalez now has. But in 

 these days there were no parcels ; they had not yet divided the 

 land. Everyone built his house wherever he liked, and he planted 

 wherever he wanted. For that reason, there were many 

 squabbles. 



"In those days, there were no authorities in Ojital y Potrero, 

 but there were in Papantla. In O.iital y Potrero — it still was 

 not called Tajfn — there were only two apoderados. They watched 

 that the people did not cut the sapote trees and that they took 

 the chicle [to Papantla?]. They charged rent for the fields and 

 the houses ; I think they delivered the money to the treasury in 

 Papantla. 



"Then engineers arrived and they began to put signs with 

 numbers along the trails ; they said they were going to divide the 

 land. Some people were not agreeable. Here, yes — but those 

 of Polutla, of Poza Larga, and of other places, did not want the 

 land divided. So they 'pronounced' (se pronunciaron) . 



"There were many who rebelled. The chief of all was a 

 ranchero named Silva. He and his men fought with Federal 

 troops. On one occasion they even entered Papantla, when the 

 troops were elsewhere. 



"The people in Tajfn were afraid. The Federal troops took 

 the men to fight against the rebels. Only the old men, and the 

 women, and the children were left. Nobody wanted to sleep in 

 his house ; at night, the people gathered and went to the monte 

 to sleep. 



"The political chief O'e/e politico) in Papantla gave the rebels 

 to understand that he wanted to arrange difficulties. They 

 talked, and it appeared that they were to settle a truce. So the 

 rebels made a fiesta to celebrate the end of hostilities, and they 

 invited the political chief. He attended, but with soldiers. 

 Then the political chief arranged another celebration in Papantla, 

 and he invited the rebels. Silva went — he was the very chief of 

 the rancheros. But they detained him and killed him. 



"With this, the rebels lost much strength. They had to retire 

 to the monte, where they assaulted people and hid from the troops. 

 Then their ammunition gave out and they were being killed. 

 Whenever the soldiers found a rebel they killed him. To escape, 

 they disguised themselves as women and they mixed with the 

 women. But the soldiers touched the bodies of all [the Totonac] 

 until they detected a man ; then they killed him. 



"At last, the rebels said they would deliver themselves volun- 

 tarily, if they were not killed. So it was. They were sent to 

 serve the Government 5 years in a battalion, far from here. 

 Those who did not deliver themselves were killed, one after 

 another. 



"So they divided the land in parcels. Not only in Ojital y 

 Potrero, but also in lands which now belong to Tlahuanapa. 

 Then came the authorities: a sub-rcgidor, a tcniente de justicia, 

 and a ministro de. consenacitjn, with four assistants. The first 

 had the functions of the agente of today ; the second, of the juez 

 auxiliar. And the ministro and his helpers were like a corps of 

 police." 



<" Potrero means field or pasture. Our guess would be that the 

 name was applied because of a small stretch of level laud south 

 of the archeological site. However, Modesto Gonzalez thinks 

 the name was given because of a nearby plot of grassland, known 

 as the sabana. 



Government-appointed engineers were sent to 

 surve}'. They cut narrow openings (brechas) 

 through the forest, to serve as property lines, and 

 these still are maintained. Not all the subdivisions 

 had parcels of the same size. Ojital y Potrero con- 

 sisted of 205 parcels, with few exceptions, each of 

 31 hectares, 7 ares, 95 square meters. This is a 

 generous amount of land, equivalent roughly to 

 76.8 acres. 



Once the survey was completed, parcels were 

 offered for sale at a hundred pesos apiece, plus the 

 cost of registering the title. Most of the purchasers 

 were Totonac. 90 Some already were living in the 

 area, but many were newcomers, chiefly from 

 other Totonac settlements in the Papantla zone. 

 The provenience of the modern population is dis- 

 cussed in some detail a few pages below. 



The original survey provided for a plot of 

 ground destined to become the fundo legal, or 

 center of the community, where, in time, the new 

 settlement was to have a plaza, a school, and an 

 administrative building. In Ojital y Potrero, two 

 such centers were set aside, each equivalent in area 

 to half a standard parcel. 



One of these plots, the core of the now more or 

 less defunct Ojital, lies on the northwest extreme 

 of the subdivision (in parcel 61, maps 6, 8) . There 

 is no level land and the fundo is situated on a hill. 

 At present, its residents are confined to one family ; 

 the school is closed for want of a teacher; and a 

 building labeled "municipal agency" appears to 

 be abandoned. Ojital has been largely replaced 

 by three new centers, formed elsewhere in the 

 northern and western parts of the subdivision.'' 1 



M Problems did not terminate, once the Totonac had legal 

 title to the land, for there seems to have been a large-scale em- 

 bezzlement shortly thereafter. Uncertain what to do with their 

 newly acquired titles, many delivered thorn for safekeeping to a 

 certain Sim6n Tiburcio, an army officer "of great confidence." 

 He promptly sold the titles to one Pedro Tremari, of Papantla ; 

 and he, in turn, sold them to "the oil company" (Aguila?). Many 

 of the Totonac thus lost their lands. As punishment, Tiburcio 

 is said to have been "sent to the battalion" ; he remained 5 years 

 in the army, then returned "more important then over. He now 

 was a colonel. He had good luck until his death." 



Apparently this same embezzlement extended far west, to the 

 lands of Palma Sola. Documents concerning Ihe land problems 

 of this latter Totonac community are said to be filed in the 

 archives of the Suprema Corte de Justicia, in Mexico City. We 

 have not had opportunity to consult them, but it is possible that 

 these records contain information concerning the lands of Ojital 

 y Potrero. 



01 These are San Antonio, immediately north of Tajfn, estab- 

 lished about 1933 ; and La Lagunilla and Rancheria, farther 

 west. The latter wore in the process of being formed during our 

 stay in Tajfn, in 1947 and 1918. 



