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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 13 



this practice evidently is most unusual. One 

 mother invariably serves her children, starting 

 with the youngest, before she herself eats. 



Virtually every family has at least one table. 

 Seldom, however, is it covered with a cloth. This 

 gesture is made only for very special occasions — 

 for example, when the house is honored by a visit 

 from the image of a saint. The use of a table- 

 cloth is so infrequent that a woman guest is able 

 to recall, with startling precision, in just which 

 households and upon what occasions during the 

 past few years she has seen the table so covered. 



Dishes are, for the most part, of cheap commer- 

 cial crockery. The favorite form is a soup plate, 

 which serves either for liquids or solids, and a 

 handleless cup. Crockery and enamel ware, which 

 also is popular, are bought in Papantla. One old 

 gentleman is said to be excessively fussy. If his 

 dishes are not rinsed with lime (limon) juice, to 

 remove the odor of previous foods, he refuses to 

 eat. Children usually have their special dishes of 

 homemade pottery, which is so porous that it un- 

 doubtedly absorbs bacteria like a sponge. 



The universal eating implement is the tortilla, 

 broken and doubled to form a sort of scoop in 

 which the food is carried to the mouth. In this 

 maimer, even soup is eaten with neatness and dis- 

 patch, although occasionally we have seen a woman 

 raise a plate of soup to her lips and drink directly 

 from it. Often, meat is held in the hand and 

 nibbled. One family boasts a set of spoons, pur- 

 chased in honor of a visit from the priest of Pa- 

 pantla. This unique equipment was removed from 

 storage for our benefit when we were guests in the 

 house; but both the host and hostess disdained the 

 cutlery and evidently found it more agreeable to 

 eat with a tortilla. 



Children eat informally and with a minimum 

 of discipline. A gourd of tortillas is placed so 

 that they may help themselves as they like in the 

 course of the meal. One woman breaks a tortilla 

 in small pieces and drops it into the dish of food 

 prepared for her small child. The youngster then 

 fishes out the tortilla with his fingers and eats it, 

 together with adhering food — egg, beans, or what- 

 ever the plate may be. In one house which we 

 visited, the children did not sit down to eat. They 

 ran hither and yon, playing, and nibbling pieces 

 of fried tortilla and hunks of a fresh corn bollito, 

 which someone had sent the family as a gift. Dur- 



their supper, they Avere outside the house as much 

 as within it. 



"A woman eats somewhat less than does a man," 

 and a child eats proportionately still less. Long 

 before a child is completely weaned, he begins to 

 eat adult food. There is, of course, no cow or goat 

 milk, and small children are fed atole. Before a 

 youngster is a year old, he is eating tortillas and 

 egg. All children drink "coffee," the beverage 

 made of charred maize kernels and sweetened with 

 brown sugar. Preparation of food for children is 

 difficult when the mother works in the field. One 

 woman, whom we know, leaves tortillas and coffee 

 for her youngsters and gives them a more substan- 

 tial meal about 4 o'clock, when she returns from 

 the milpa. 



Despite the fact that a child has supplementary 

 feeding from a relatively early age, the prevalence 

 of earth-eating among small children implies a 

 major dietary deficiency. We personally are ac- 

 quainted with three j r oungsters who eat earth and, 

 by hearsay, know of several more. One mother 

 punishes her child for this practice; a stepfather 

 is apathetic, saying that the child "will die any- 

 way, for there is no cure." 



Like everyone else, the individual Totonac has 

 likes and dislikes in food : 



a. Don Mauro does not care for fermented atole made 

 of purple corn (a standard dish), hence he plants no maize 

 of this kind. 



ft. Don Manuel ate only four enchiladas at dinner one 

 day because they were seasoned with wild chili. He was 

 tired of that flavor and preferred that known as pico de 

 p&jaro, but none was available. 



c. When Don Modesto eats soup ( caldo ) or fried egg, he 

 drinks no coffee, because it nauseates him. 



d. Moreover, he eats an egg only if it has been fried the 

 moment he is ready to eat ; if it stands, "he does not like it" 



e. Don Pablo prefers tortillas and meat to all other 

 foods. r ' ' ' ' 



FEASTS 



Feasts are frequent. Almost every house has 

 several small-scale fiestas during the year, when 

 men are helping in the fields, to clear, to plant, or to 

 cultivate. Moreover, some days following the 

 birth of a child, there is a small celebration, at- 

 tended chiefly by the members of the family. In 

 addition, a good many men in Taj in are members 

 of dance groups or of groups of musicians. These 

 little bands of 10 to 20 men meet for all-night 

 practice once a week during much of the year, and 



