70 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 13 



of our acquaintance suffer severely from varicose 

 veins ; and among the younger women, childbirth 

 takes a considerable toll. We know personally of 

 six such fatalities, four previous and two subse- 

 quent to the official records given above. 



EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL 

 RESOURCES 3 



Tajin is essentially an agricultural community, 

 and exploitation of natural resources is focused 

 upon the cultivation of the land. However, be- 

 fore considering agriculture, we shall see in what 

 other respects the Totonac take advantage of the 

 resources at hand. 



WATER SUPPLY 



The highest land in the community lies toward 

 the north and northwest (in the vicinity of parcel 

 No. 97, map 8) . Here, a number of minor arroyos 

 rise and flow south or southeast, to enter the 

 Arroyo de Tlahuanapa, which forms part of the 

 southern boundary of Tajin. None of our maps 

 indicates the course of these minor streams, and 

 relief is so complex and the courses so meandering 

 that we did not attempt to add them to the base 

 maps. Although these arroyos are, for the most 

 part, annual, they provide the chief water supply 

 during most of the year for the entire community. 



Paradoxically, despite high humidity and rela- 

 tively heavy precipitation, there is a shortage of 

 water almost every spring (p. 47) . Papantla faces 

 a chronic water problem; and in Tajin, during 

 years of insufficient rainfall, families who live in 

 the northerly parcels may have to travel between 

 one and two hours, to obtain water from the per- 

 ennial Arroyo de Tlahuanapa. For those who have 

 beasts of burden, this is an inconvenience; but for 

 those who must travel on foot, it is a genuine hard- 

 ship. It is said that because of the shortage of 

 water several families have left Tajin, to settle 

 elsewhere (in Talaxca, for example). However, 

 since many own their lands and their homes, the 

 bulk of the population endures the inconvenience. 



There is scant hope of making water available 

 for the fields in time of scarcity. The zone is so 

 rugged and there is so little running water that 

 irrigation is virtually out of the question, except 



8 Numbers in parentheses following the name of a plant refer 

 to the herbarium catalog in Appendix C. 



on a very minor scale. About the only gesture 

 made at present to alleviate the situation is to 

 bring the image of St. Joseph from the neighbor- 

 ing Totonac village of Espinal each spring. Con- 

 siderable ceremony surrounds this visit, and it is 

 thought that if the saint is well treated, he will 

 intervene, and the rains will come in time to save 

 the crops. 



The obvious answer to the problem of drinking 

 water would be wells, and several have been at- 

 tempted, with indifferent results. Two brothers, 

 Lorenzo and Bernabe Xochigua, with the assist- 

 ance of six or eight neighbors, excavated to a con- 

 siderable depth in the floor of the Arroyo de 

 Ortiga, which passes near their houses in the 

 fundo legal. They were unable to penetrate the 

 hard subsoil (in this case, tepeiate), and although 

 their "well" retains water for some time after the 

 flow in the arroyo has dried, it cannot be considered 

 successful. It is used only in times of shortage, 

 and, ordinarily, water is taken from a small cavity 

 dug in the bank of the arroyo, into which the water 

 from the latter filters (pi. 4, a). A well in parcel 

 No. 91, dug in the floor of a now dry arroyo, has 

 water in abundance during the rainy season, but 

 in time of scarcity, it too fails. Ing. Jose Garcia 

 Payon attempted a well in the nearby archeological 

 zone but, again, without success. 



Tajin is not far from the famous oil fields of 

 Poza Rica, and formerly (from the early 1930's to 

 1940) there was an oil camp in Tajin, near the 

 pyramids (apparently in parcel No. 76). For the 

 use of the camp, water was piped from the Arroyo 

 de Tlahuanapa, and although the oil company had 

 promised to supply water to the fundo, the system 

 was dismantled when the camp was abandoned. 

 In the course of drilling, the company is said to 

 have hit water — at a depth of 500 m., according to 

 one informant. At such depth, water is of little 

 practical advantage to Tajin, owing to the cost oi 

 boring and to the mechanical difficulties of bring- 

 ing in the necessary machinery. Moreover, one or 

 two wells would be of limited benefit to the com- 

 munity at large, for the majority of the populace 

 is widely scattered on individual parcels of land. 



The problem of potable water in Tajin was dis- 

 cussed with Mr. Richard Greeley, who felt that 

 the only solution would be to pipe from the arroyo, 

 with supply stations at given intervals. This 

 would require the installation of a pump and a 



