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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 13 



Lime seldom is required in quantity, since domes- 

 tic architecture is not of masonry. But when the 

 stone schoolhouse was built, lime was hauled from 

 El Chote and Mesillas, where there are commer- 

 cially exploited deposits. Formerly, there were 

 at least two ovens for burning lime in Taj in, one 

 at the house of Magdaleno Mendez and the other at 

 that of Donato Santes. 



There is no mining, and the brief flurry of oil 

 exploitation, in the 1930's, has been mentioned pre- 

 viously (p. 46). Of this intrusive petroleum ele- 

 ment, little trace remains in Taj in, although the 

 1940 Federal census lists a number of extraneous 

 individuals as employees of the oil company. The 

 ruins of the old camp are effectively hidden by 

 dense vegetation; and, culturally, the enterprise 

 seems to have left surprisingly few scars. The 

 Totonac, it is said, had little direct contact with 

 the outsiders, and their efforts were confined to 

 work on the trails. A couple of parcels in Taj in 

 (Nos. 76, 126) remain officially in the name of 

 Petroleos Mexicanos, and the threat of drastic 

 acculturation, which would convert Taj in into a 

 miniature Poza Rica, is not entirely past. In fact, 

 now, in 1949, it is an imminent danger, since two 

 new wells are being exploited successfully in San 

 Antonio, one of the Ojital centers, on the very 

 borders of Taj in. In a way, it has been fortunate 

 for us that the zone potentially is oil land; only 

 for this reason has it been possible to obtain local 

 maps to large scale, with individual holdings indi- 

 cated (map 8, for example). 



HUNTING 



The sixteenth-century Relacion de Papantla re- 

 ports an abundance of deer and rabbits, as well as 

 "many parrots and many monkeys {micos) and 

 martens, and very beautiful macaws." These days 

 are long since past. "Years ago, it was not neces- 

 sary to go to Papantla for meat," because there 

 were deer, peccary, and armadillo. Now only 

 small game is found near Tajin, and it is not 

 plentiful. For deer or peccary, one must go to 

 monte alto, usually to the great stands to the west, 

 about Palma Sola. 



Of the big game animals, deer was the most 

 plentiful. Two types are recognized: one large 

 (venado, ju-ki ?) , and one small (temasate, cuachi- 

 choco; skatan, stakan). As recently as 15 years 

 ago, a few deer could be found along the borders 



of Ojital and Tajin (parcel Nos. 97, 98, etc.). 

 Some still frequent the lands of Gildardo Mufioz, 

 which adjoins Tajin on the south, but these are 

 strays which have wandered from monte alto. 



We were told of several methods of hunting 

 deer, all with firearms. In his 3'outh, Juan Bau- 

 tista used to go forth at night, with a (commer- 

 cial?) jack light. Nowadays, it is more popular 

 to hunt by day, in groups, either with or without 

 dogs. In the latter case, three or four hunters 

 enter the virgin forest, leaving a distance of 80 

 to 100 meters between one another. Thus sepa- 

 rated, and with firearms ready, the}' advance, side 

 by side, toward a road or clearing, "breaking the 

 forests," as they go. Walking is not difficult, 

 because monte alto has little undergrowth. The 

 hunters make a great clatter, to startle the game, 

 and each toots on a whistle — a simple length of 

 cane, open at one, closed at the other — so that his 

 companions may not lose track of him. Such a 

 drive may last 8 or 10 hours. 



When dogs are used, more hunters are neces- 

 sary. A man who knows the ground and the trails 

 of the deer directs the drive. He stations a com- 

 panion at each of the trails, forming a large, ir- 

 regular circle of spaced hunters. When each is 

 in his place, a horn is blown and the dogs are 

 freed. They run into the forest, scattering the 

 deer. The latter try to escape along their usual 

 trails but are intercepted by the stationed hunters. 



Four hundred years have passed since the first 

 contacts with European culture, and in Tajin 

 there is no recollection of hunting with the bow. 

 However, the second husband of Dorotea de la 

 Cruz, one Miguel Andres, was a Totonac from the 

 vicinity of Comalteco. 8 He used to tell the grand- 

 children of Dona Dorotea how they hunted in 

 Comalteco in the old days, and one of these, Pedro 

 Perez, recalls the following : 



For deer, the root of the fig {higuera, No. 222) was 

 twisted well, to form a noose, which was attached to a 

 flexible stick set in the ground, presumably along the deer 

 trail. 



Deer also were impaled. Several stakes, made from the 

 heart of the zapote chico (No. 191), were planted in the 

 deer trail, with the exposed tips well sharpened. 



The stakes seem to have been set diagonally, so that 

 one point went upward, to the right, and the alternate 



8 Today, Comalteco has an insignificant occurrence of Totonac 

 speech : no other native language is reported in the census. On 

 the chance that the information left by Don Miguel may shed 

 light on former Totonac hunting techniques, it is included here. 



