v

 

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY
or- AREA PERSONALITY: .AN EXAMINATION .-
OF A KROEBERIAN PROPOSITION I '

Thesis for the Degree of M; A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY ' ‘
Michael T. Mickl’in‘ "'

1962

ABSTRACT
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE
STUDY OF AREA PERSONALITY: AN
EXAMINATION OF A KROEBERIAN PROPOSITION

by Michael T. Micklin

This thesis is concerned primarily with an examination of the
utility and relevance of Kroeber's ”area personality type” in culture
and personality studies. Area personality is defined as consisting
of “the dominant value orientations that characterize the behavior
patterns of a given set of individual human beings, sharing a given
geographical locality; these value orientations being persistent enough
that they characterize the major socio-cultural unit.“

The writer's sole concern is the existence or non-existence of
areal personality and whether or not the data supports the hypothesis:
In certain well-defined, historically related and geographically limited
culture areas a systematic investigation of character traits should
reveal an area-wide ethos, or modal personality.

Several studies in the areas of Spanish America, Peru, Guatemala,
and Columbia are then reviewed and value orientations discussed therein
are abstracted. Value orientations which are evident in four of the ten
studies examined, provide the core of the Mestizo American Ethos by
which all countries are then re-evaluated. Eight “core'I value orientations
are presented; viz., personalism, kinship, emotion, status hierarchy,
national orientation, fatalism, age, and Spiritualism. More Specialized

value orientations, those which are found in three or less studies,

Michael T. Micklin

relevant to Specific areas include; non-manual labor, manipulation of
words and idea, materialism, centralized action, traditionalism,
dramatism, gaining advantage on an opponent, in-group solidarity,
witchcraft, religion and enjoyment, paternalism, sanctity of the home,
security, distrust of other individuals, being a correct person, and
liquor as a pre-requisite to social functions.

Lewis's Children of Sanchez is examined as a recent comprehensive
study of Mestizo psychological orientations and cultural ethoses. The
majority of the I'core" value orientations are found to be present, in
addition to other specialized value orientations_

The data presented and examined support the presence of the Kroe-
berian concept of area personality type or ethos for the Latin American
culture area, and affirm the hypothesis stated by the writer-

The methodological problems in cross-cultural studies of culture
and cognition are discussed and the ambiguity in the literature is
partially attributed to the lack of a meaningful and universally appli-
cable analytical approach. Formal Analysis is presented and briefly
discussed as a possible solution to the problems incurred in investigating

phenomena along these dimensions of culture and personality.

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE
STUDY OF AREA PERSONALITY: AN
EXAMINATION OF A KROEBERIAN PROPOSITION

By
Michael T. Micklin

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology and AnthrOpology

23247
/ :>
H/Z/(Ew

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Drs. Herbert P. Phillips and Richard N.
Adams who provided the initial stimulus for this study. Their suggestions
and criticisms, along with those of Dr. William Faunce, Dr- lwao lshino
and Dr. John Donoghue, have added appreciably to Its content. It should
be understood that the above named individuals are in no way reSponsible
for any misconceptions contained herein, and that the Opinions expressed
are explicitly those of the writer.

Above all, I would like to thank my wife Barbara whose devotion

and understanding have always been an inspiration.

Chapter

I I I 9‘

NOTES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Nature of the Problem
The Analytical Techniques

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON CULTURE AREA AND AREA
PERSONALITY

The Etiology of the Problem
Methods of Culture and Personality Investigation

AREAL PERSONALITY TYPES IN MESTIZO LATIN AMERICA .

Latin America as a Culture Area .

Ethos Components in Latin American Culture .

Charles Leslie on Mitla.

Ethyl Albert on Atarque

Munro Edmonson on RImrdck . .

Arthur Rubel on the Mexican-Americans in Texas

John Gillin on San Carlos

Willlam Sayres on the Popayan of Southern Columbia

John Gillln on Moche . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ozzie Simmons on Lima

Ozzie Simmons on Lunahuana

William Mangin on Lima . .

Latin American Ethos: An Overview . .

The Children of Sanchez: A Case Study in Mestizo
American Ethos.

The Area Personality of Latin America in RetrOSpect:

Conclusions . . .

A FINAL EXAMINATION OF AREAL PERSONALITY TYPES:
THEORY AND TECHNIQUES

Theoretical Foundations of Areal Personality Types

The Formal Analysis of Behavior

BIBLIOGRAPHY

l5
28

28

33
ho

53
55
58
6i
64

70
72

77
82

84

84
86

88
92

Table

LIST OF TABLES

A SAMPLE OF ETHOS COMPONENTS IN LATIN AMERICAN
CULTURE .

Continued .

73
7h

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The Nature of the Problem
This study will be concerned primarily with an examination of the
usefulness of A. L. Kroeber's concept of “area personality type." This
concept is only one of a number of such constructs to be found in the

anthropological literature on culture and personality.-1

The data to be
examined will be drawn from a critical review of selected culture and
personality studies from a geographically and historically consistant
culture area, that of Latin America. These studies will be reviewed
with the primary purposes of:

I) examining whether there are certain psychological and/or
cultural variables which appear consistently enough to
indicate the existence of an area personality type within
the culture area being investigated;

2) examining the methodological problems involved in doing
empirical research involving culture area and area
personality;

3) evaluating the usefulness of such a concept, and

A) suggesting an approach which might further enhance the

cross-cultural validity of such studies.2

-2-

I have selected this problem for the following reasons:

i) The culture and personality studies that have been done in

2)

3)

these two areas are relatively few, and those that are
available are widely scattered throughout the anthropological,
psychological, and sociological literature. The unification
of these studies under a single analytical framework will
further both our understanding of the cultural areas per se,
and also our understanding of the psychological dispositions
of the individuals involved in these cultural systems.

The primary stimulus for undertaking this study comes from a
set of statements made by A. L. Kroeber. (Kroeber, 1955:
302-05.) Because of Kroeber's great influence on the nature
of contemporary anthropological thought? It is necessary

that his propositions and implications be tested whenever
possible. This paper will be addressed to this task.
Scientific concerns with cross-cultural relations, that
fifteen years ago would have been faced only by a few
individuals other than anthropologists, are now the concern
of many non-anthropol09ists, e.g., government officials,
peace corp workers, exchange teachers, businessmen, etc.

With the many recent advances in communication and trans-
portation, as well as increasing interests in the so-called
”underdeveloped countries,” the notion of a "world community”

is becoming even more realistic.“ However, a world community

-3-
is not built through cross-cultural contacts alone; there
must be some understanding of a respect for very different
ways of life. One problem that individuals encounter in
their contact with members of a foreign society is that of
generalizing from one society to others that “seem to be
similar," a generalization that is often arrived at from
the fact that these societies are contigious to one another.
Often this ”blanket approach“ to human relations has led
to trouble for Americans in foreign cultures.5 Hence we
are faced with the question, “How much can we generalize
from the psychological prediSpositIons of a particular
people to those of their neighbors?” Here we are faced with
an ”applied” problem of the usefulness of areal personality
types; and further knowledge on the subject would seem to
be potentially quite valuable.

In general, the methodological procedures will involve (i) a
review of the culture and personality studies done in the selected
area, (2) a comparison of the results of these studies within the
area, (3) the identification of personality consistancies evident
from these studies, (A) a discussion of the methodological problems
involved in doing emperical research centered on problems involving
culture area and area personality, and (5) the suggestion of a more
uniform approach that might be used in future studies. The next

section will deal with these procedures in more detail.

The Analytical Techniques

The available data on character structure in the selected area
comes from a wide variety of sources. The investigators have differed
in, among other things, amount of professional training, familiarity
with the culture being studied, techniques used, and ultimate goals
or purposes of the investigation. These four factors, as well as
others, must all be taken into consideration when evaluating these
studies. Following this tendency toward diversity, the majority of
these studies may not make plain any existing areal ethos. Each
society will, at least at first glance, naturally appear to be quite
different from any other society.

However, as we will see, Kroeber's definition of ethos is quite
general, and based primarily on descriptive materials as was the
greater part of his other work. Therefore, the results of Specific
psychological techniques are only one source of data for the testing
of this particular hypothesis; the other being the more general
ethnographic description of the community under study.

Another methodological problem that must be faced concerns
getting an adequate representation of societies throughout each
cultural area. Within the area chosen for examination the available
data seems to be limited to a few societies; e.g., there is a wealth
of data from Peru and Mexico. Certainly some societies are much more
accessible and less dangerous to get into, but these rationalizations
do not alleviate the fact that the material at hand by no means

presents a valid picture of the entire area. it is assumed that once

-5-
into the data a number of unforseen problems will also arise. These
will be dealt with as they come up.

Before getting into the Specific analytical techniques to be
used, there are two concepts that will be referred to throughout this
study and which should be defined before we go any further; those
being culture area and area personality. By culture area, I mean,
essentially as Kroeber did, “a geographically defined area that has
historical continuity in the cultural content of the human groups
residing within.” Personality is a much more difficult concept to
define theoretically, let alone Operationally. It is one thing to
conjecture what m§x_be the nature of human personality and an
entirely different thing to put some aspect of this highly evasive
concept to empirical test, which is what this writer is attempting
to do. Moreover, as has already been demonstrated, Kroeber himself
was highly ambiguous about what he considered to be the empirical
elements of personality. He defined his version of the concept
(i.e., areal personality) in terms of an "ethos,“ or “the system of
values that dominate a culture.” Following from Kroeber's character-
ization, for the purposes of this study, I will define area person-
aflj£x_to consist of ”the dominant value orientations that characterize
the behavior patterns of a given set of individual human beings,
sharing a given geographical locality; these value orientations being
persistent enough that they characterize the major socIo-cultural
unit.” it should be remembered that any theoretical imputations that

are made from this study will be based on these two definitions.

-5-

The following procedures will be adhered to in the analytical

section of this section:

(l) It will first be demonstrated that Latin America may
legitimately be referred to as a culture area. The relevant
literature pertaining to this culture area will be reviewed
and the criteria used for making such a delineation will be
evaluated.

(2) A selected sample of studies dealing with psychological
phenomena will be drawn from the literature on the area;6
the criteria for selection being (a) the over-all complete-
ness of description,7 and (b) the number of studies avail-
able for each community. At least one, but h0pefully not
more than two studies will be drawn from the work of each
author in any one community, the object being to obtain as
representative a sample of each culture area as the available
data will permit.

(3) Each study thus selected will be reviewed in terms of this
writer's previously stated operating definition of areal
personality (p. 6). Then, I will extract the dominant value
orientations for each of the communities under study and
compare them, attempting to demonstrate that the culture
area has a consistent personality type.

If we can find an apparent consistancy in the value orientations

delineated within each culture area and an apparent difference in

value orientations between culture areas, than we can accept our

-7-
hypothesis. If not, we must reject it. However, it must be remembered
that should we reject this hypothesis for one or both of the culture
areas we happen to be concerned with here does not mean that the
concept of areal personality type is completely void. It would only
mean that it does not hold for this area, but might be perfectly
correct for some other area as yet not tested.

Another consideration to be kept in mind is that the authors
involved have differed in many reSpects regarding how they approached
the data; e.g., the express purpose in doing the study, the theoretical
assumptions the study is based on, and the field techniques used. If
these investigators were not looking for the same kinds of psychological
phenomena one would hardly expect them to come out with highly compar-
able results. It should also be noted that within any area defined
solely in geographical terms there may be found social groups belonging
to different cultural traditions. in Latin America, for instance,
there are many Indian groups that do not belong to the Latin America
culture area, the reason being that they have not been influenced to
any great extent by the Spanish American value system, traditions,
etc. Hence these groups that do not conform the dominant cultural
standards of the area will not be considered to be within the range
of this study.

it may be recalled that Kroeber suggested some variables that
might be used In the study of cultural ethoses; e.g., competition,
degree of tension, timemindedness. (Kroeber, l955: 305.) The value

of using variables of this nature lies in the fact that they would

-3-
seem to be applicable to any culture, or culture area and thus would
be of great value to any study aimed along the same lines as the
present one; ie. variables of this nature would be much more amenable
to use cross-areal and cross-cultural comparison because of their
relatively objective nature. The closing section of this paper will,
in part, be concerned with recent deveIOpments in this direction by
anthropologists and with the possibility of the further extension of

these techniques into the area of cultural psychology.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON CULTURE
AREA AND AREA PERSONALITY

The Etiology of the Problem

The Interest of American anthropologists in areal typologies of
culture began in the late ninteenth century. They were then faced with
the problem of classifying the vast collections of materials housed in
the American museums. The original concept applied primarily to North
America since there existed little documentary history for the American
tribes and also since there was relatively less cultural variation and
complexity in the Western hemISphere, hence making the task much easier
than It might have been In some other area.

Clark Wissler was one of the first American anthropologists to
attempt to clearly define a concept of this nature,8 although it appears
that his construction of the ”age-area“ hypothesis stemmed directly
from Sapir's statement of the problem of interpreting a "continuous
distribution from the culture centre” and his Ideas on culture-area
were mainly derived from various earlier sources. (Herskovlts, l9h8.)
Wissler defines culture area as "an aggregation of tribes confroming
In whole or in part to a type of culture defined In terms of Specific
culture traits.“ (Wissler, l929: 352.) He was concerned, then, with
classifying certain geographical areas in terms of certain traits which
are functionally related to a complex. As such, a complex radiates
from Its point of dispersal (culture centers) it becomes more attenuated.

The "age-area” concept referred to "a method of inferring relative time

-10-
sequences of stages of culture-trait or culture-complex developments
from the more or less concentrically zonal distribution of phases of
such developments." (Kroeber, I93i.) Kroeber published a paper con-
cerned with culture areas in l90h, two years earlier than Wissler;
however, he does not appear to be seriously concerned with the matter
until after Wissler had formulated his point of view. His early con-
cerns dealt with the classification of sub-cultural areas in California
and later, of the Northwest Coast. The theoretical comments made by
Kroeber are much like those he and Wissler developed later.

Of course any culture-area or ethnographical province

is relative. It rarely has sharply defined Boundaries.

To hold that what is important about it is not its external

limits, but its internal center of dispersion, IS good

doctrine, but impracticable, in most cases owing to lack

of historical material. (Kroeber, l908: 28l-90.)
In the Introduction to a later paper, Kroeber made a crucial methodolo-
gical point. In essence, he noted that in gaining new insights a
student often utilizes both Specific facts and Imagination, and one

must never confuse the two.

The requirement which integrity Imposes on these
ventures is that knowledge and fancy, fact and fabrication,
be kept as distinct as possible, least one come to pass
for the other. (Kroeber, l923b: l25-h2.)

This point would seem to apply to all constructed types, of which

culture area is only one of many used In the social sciences. Kroeber

sums up his characterization of culture areas as a

non-phIIOSOphical, Inductive, mainly unimpeadhable
organization of phenomena analogous to the natural
classification of animals and plants on which system-
atic biology rests. (Kroeber, l923a.)

-1]-
In summarizing Wissler's point of view he notes that

Wissler has done a broad piece organization where chaos
or Indecision prevailed before, and perhaps should not
be held too heavily responsible for failing to carry
his pioneer work into greater detail. The danger is

in StOpping with his often sketchy and diagrammatic
formulations, when they ought to serve as a stimulus
for revision and surer knowledge. (Kroeber, l93l.)

Kroeber in I939 published a book that put an end to the extreme determin-
istic conceptions of culture area. In Cultural and Natural Areas of

Native North America, Kroeber, by carrying the culture area argument

 

to Its logical limits, demonstrated that although there may be such
things as culture areas in terms of Specific traits, there was generally
as much diversity among many of the so-called areas as between them.

In this work he makes three important points:

I) While it is true that cultures are rooted in nature...
they are no more produced by nature than a plant is
produced or caused by the soil in which it IS rooted.
The Immediate causes of cultural phenomena are other
cultural phenomena.

2) The concept of a culture area is a means to an end.

The end may be the understanding of culture processes
as such, or of the historic events of culture.

3) ...the present study deals with culture wholes, and
not, except incidentally, with culture elements or
I'traits," nor with those associations of elements
which are sometimes called ”culture complexes" but
which always constitute only a fraction of the entirety
of any one culture. (Kroeber, l939a.)

By culture wholes he means, apparently, Qatterns or configurations. We
will return to Kroeber and his concerns with culture area concept in
the latter part of this section.

Following the apparent lack of interest in psychological phenomena

that characterized the formative years of anthropology, interests In

-12-
the relationship between culture and individual personality began to
develop. Between i920 and i935, the ideas inherent in such an approach
were not only actively discussed, but “field research was undertaken
and collaboration between anthropologists and psychiatrists was begun.“
(Singer, l96l.) During this period Margaret Mead made her initial
field expeditions to Samoa and New Guinea; Ruth Benedict wrote her
widely read Patterns of Culture, and Edward Sapir published his highly
stimulating articles on the relationships between anthropology and
psychiatry.9 It was also during this period that Malinowski challenged
Freud's postulation of the universality of the Oedipus complex in his
classic work The Féibfir in Primitive Paychology.

During the late thirties and the forties the number of social
scientists involved in studies of this nature increased both in quantity
and In quality. Hence, we find Kardiner, Linton, DuBoIs and West
collaborating first in a theoretically oriented Seminar, and later in
the analysis of field date gathered by the latter three. It was also
in this period that anthrOpologIcaI field workers such as Clyde
Kluckhohn, Alexander and Dorothy Leighton, John Dollard, A. I. Halloweil
and Jules Henry began to employ psychological techniques (e.g.,
Rorschach's Test, T. A. T., Life Histories, etc.) as aga'important
tool in their studies of nondwestern culture and personality.'0

Following World War II the “projective fad” was tempered by
concentrated efforts on the part of some anthropologists to increase

the “objectivity,” i.e., the validity and reliability, of their studies.

-13-

Notable for contributions of this nature have been Melford Spiro and
A. F. C. Wallace, along with Kluckhohn and Henry from the pre-war
era. (Cf., Kluckhohn I953, Spiro l95h, Wallace l96la, l96lb, l962.)

In its conception culture and personality theory was largely
based on psychoanalytic theory. The conceptual framework outlined by
Freud, was by and large, the only psychological theory of the time
that was amenable to reformulation In terms of cultural processes.
LaBarre, in commenting on Freud‘s influence on anthropology, has written
that, ”culture is not a mere descriptive congeries of 'tralts' that
mechanically 'diffuse' geographically, but is rather a configuration
of dynamically meshed and significantly interrelated parts operating
always In individual human beings--that culture in short has psychologi-
cal dimensions and psychiatric meanings--is here to stay, a revolution
accomplished.” (LaBarre, i958: 275-328.) Although culture-personality
studies are still largely concerned with the same kjaga_of things
Freud emphasized the scape of these studies has been expanded much
beyond the limited range of Freudian interests.

Singer has outlined five major problem areas for culture-person-
ality researchers to concern themselves with. (Singer, l96l.) The
first three sound very much like the three logical possibilities

ll That Is, (I) the relation of

postulated by Kluckhohn and Murray.
culture to human nature, (2) the relation of culture to typical person-
ality, and (3) the relation of culture to individual personality. In

addition, Singer pr0poses (h) the relation of culture change to person-

ality change, and (5) the relation of culture to abnormal personality.

-14-
These five categories would seem, in general, to cover the logical
relationships between culture and personality.

When doing any scientifically based investigation one must
necessarily begin with certain assumptions concerning the nature of
the phenomena to be studied. A lack of such preconceived notions
would imply a random rather than a systematic approach; and in most
cases such a random approach would not appear to be too fruitful. In
the early days of culture and personality studies the basic assumption
was that homo saplens were completely “plastic,” i.e., their behavior
patterns could be and were molded by the pressures of the cultural
norms.‘2 This view has prevailed until recently when some anthro-
pologists (e.g., Halloweil, Spiro, Kroeber, Wallace) have taken another
look at the age-old conception of "human nature.” (Cf. Spiro, l95#;
Kroeber, I955; Halloweil, I954.) Wallace stresses the importance of
the biological capacities of homo saplens in relation to “the psychic
unity of all men.“ ''For human nature,” he writes, ”is far from being
a constant parameter of cultural events; Indeed the biological mechanism
upon which culture depends is exquisitely variable in reSponse to
genetic and ecological processes which in part, are radically indepen-
dent of culture per se." (Wallace, l96lc.)

The aims of contemporary culture and personality studies, and in
varying degrees of past studies, can be seen, then, as attempts to
systematically relate the human organism's biological capacities with
super-organic cultural processes in such a manner that the relative

weight of each on the formation of personality patterns can be assessed.

-15-
Once this relationship is understood it will be much easier to make

some meaningful statements about the five problem areas that Singer

delineated.

Methods of Culture and Personality investigation

The methods of investigating the relationships between culture and
personality vary greatly. Some investigators try to use as many differ—
ent "tools” as possible (e.g., DuBois), while others seem to use few,
If any. The most widely used techniques have been the various and
IB

sundry types of projective techniques.

There are a number of problems which are involved in the selection
of the appropriate test. The test must, Ideally, satisfy the following
requirements: (Henry and Spiro, I953.)

(I) it must measure the personality "as a whole."

(2) The test must not be culture-bound.

(3) It should allow the Investigator to study a much larger

number of persons than he would normally be able to do.

(4) The test should be relatively short, relatively easy to

administer, and be capable of analysis by persons other
than the investigator.
For the most part, projective tests seem to approach meeting these

criteria. However, many anthrOpoIogists seem to have gotten the idea
that projective tests are a necessary part of any field situation,
regardless of the nature of the problem being investigated or the‘
investigator's understanding of the use and meaning of the test. Some

of the projective tests that have been used in culture and personality

studies are:

(I) The Rorschach Test
(2) The Thematic Apperception Test
(3) Free Drawings

-I6-

(A) Doll Play

(5) The Bender Gestalt Test

(6) The Goodenough Draw-A-Man Test

(7) Sentence Completion Test

Other methods that might be used to collect data that might be
used in this type of study Include (I) life histories, (2) naturalistic
observations and (3) essay writing. Each of these methods can be;
useful jj.the investigator understands their limitations and does not
try to read more ”out of them“ than Is warrented.

A. L. Kroeber had the advantageous position of being able to
observe the growth to the culture and personality movement from its
inception until, at the time of Kroeber's death, it was a fundamental
concern of contemporary anthropology. Kroeber himself took no active
part in the development of culture and personality theory. Indeed,
among his five-hundred and thirty-two publications one finds no more
than a dozen which have any remote concern with psychological problems,
and of these, most were highly critical reviews of other's attempts to
psychologlze culture.

Kroeber's first reaction to psychological interpretations of
culture Is seen in his highly critical I920 review of Freud's 1232E.
and Taboo. This set of essays was Freud's attempt to explain the birth
of culture; i.e., ”that primitive man lived in small bands, from which
the strongest male drove off all the less mature males, normally; his
sons, so that he might have all the women to himself; the sons banded
together, killed and ate the father, and took the women for themselves;

later they had feelings of remorse and guilt and therefore set up a

totem animal, symbolizing their father, that must not be eaten, and

-17-
also denied the women to themselves; hence, we have the beginnings of
religion and the initiation of the incest taboo." As Kroeber puts it,
“in condensation, Freud's own theory is that 'the beginnings of religion,
ethics, society, and art meet in the Oedipus complex.” (Kroeber, l9h8a.)
Kroeber laid out eleven distinct points on which this theory could be
attacked using known anthropological evidence. In closing, Kroeber
casts a warning to psychologists that may follow in Freud's footsteps
to the effect that ”there really is a great deal of ethnology not at
all represented by the authors Freud discusses,“ (e.g., Frasier,
Goldenweiser, and Robertson Smith). (Kroeber, I920: 55.)

In l939 Kroeber published a second review of Freud's work which is
a little less harsh. (Kroeber, l939.) In this second review Kroeber
notes that Freud's argument Is ambigious as between historical thinking
and psychological thinking. If one subtracts the historical aSpect,
he is left with the proposition that certain psychic processes tend
always to be Operative and tend to find expression in widespread human
institutions. This version of Freud's thinking, says Kroeber, is
acceptable, and is worth serious consideration. However, in Spite of
all his verbal ”jockeying,” Kroeber remains unconvinced as to the use-
fulness of Freud's theoretical foundations.

in I935 Kroeber reviewed Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture. The
review is, essentially, highly lauditory. This might seem paradoxical
to anyone who, with the advantage of hindsight, knows Kroeber's ambiva-
lence concerning ”cultural psychology.” However, Kroeber did not see

Benedict's book as primarily a study of culture and personality per se;

-l8-
he saw it as dealing with ”culture patterns psychiatrically-delineated
'configurations' which she discussed some years ago in the American
Anthggpologist.“ (Kroeber, l935.) Seen in this light, Benedict's
presentation would be much closer to the historically-oriented interests
of Kroeber than most works generally classed as dealing with culture
and personality.

Again in I9A6, Kroeber reviewed another of Benedict's books, this
time The Chrysapthemumaand the Sword, her post-war study at-a-distance
of Japanese culture and personality.

Kroeber seems to review "around” the book, failing to question
either the approach or the results, except for the last paragraph of
the review where he says "on the whole, Benedict stresses strongly those
aspects of Japanese culture and character which are reciprocal, have
to do with the interrelations of persons. She passes much more lightly
over those which are primarily expressions of the self. Perhaps that
is why there are only transient illusions to the obtrusive and compulsive
Japanese cleanliness, neatness, frugality, economy of means, finish:
these are primarily self-satisfying qualities, as shame, obligation and
hierarchy are turned toward others.‘l (Kroeber, l9h7b.) Other than this
one ”reminder" as Kroeber called it, the review is again full of praise.

Thus far It would seem that Kroeber had no real differences with
the culture and personality approach, or possibly he didn't consider the
movement strong enough for him to concern himself with. However, in
his I9A8 review of Geoggrey Gorer's The American People: A Study in
National Character, Kroeber started to clarify his position. (Kroeber,

l9h8b.) His fundamental concern with this book, although he admits it

-19-

is, in general, reasonably convincing, is that ”alternative causal
explanations of prevalent attitudes have not been sufficiently con-
sidered.“ (Kroeber, l948b.) The book is written with a heavy
psychoanalytic orientation which, needless to say, does not appeal to
Kroeber. But, above this fact, Kroeber bases his attack on the fact
that Gorer fails to consider important historical factors. Gorer
explains American Character as being due to limited number of variables;
e.g., the ”rejected fathers.” Kroeber points out certain historical
factors that may also play a part in the formation of the American
character saying,

The Strength of these historical factors can be estimated
somewhat variably, and there may be others equally influential.
But they cannot all be essentially left out in favor of the
psychoanalytic father and his pathetic failure: that is the
basic criticism to be made of Gorer's book as a scientific
study. (Kroeber, l948b: 55A.)

Later on in the review he concludes that:

When it comes to national psychology, the historical factors
simply cannot be left out, because every culture is in its
essence a historical product with a long and ramifylng root
system. A national temperament is just one facet of such a
historical product. One can concentrate, If one prefers,

on the merely contemporary aSpectS and immediate mechanisms

of such a product, wholly suppressing the time dimension. But
in that case a serious study would mention the suppression and
would give indication of awareness of what was being ommitted
thereby. Just as it is axiomatic that because of its uniqueness
and complexity no history can be reduced to a formula (even
though Freud did try to supersede the whole of the history of
culture by a single stab of formula), so even a momentarized
cross-section of any one culture cannot be adequately explained
by any one mechanism. (Kroeber, i9A8b: 555.)

Thus we again see Kroeber's historical emphasis permeating his approach

to the study of human behavior.

-20-

In his I9A9 review of Kluckhohn, Murray and Schneider's Personality

 

in Nature, Society and Culture, Kroeber finally makes clear his position
on culture and personality as a scientific endeavor. (Kroeber, l9h9.)
This book, was thought, at the time, to be the most systematic and com-
prehensive approach to human psycho-cultural behavior yet prepared,

and IS still considered in that light by many contemporary behavioral
scientists. The majority of Kroeber's review is purely descriptive.
However, In the concluding paragraph he asks the question, ”What are

the underlying Interests that have led and lead to development of the
field of personality?” He answers himself In the following manner:

One factor undoubtedly is the unprecedented growth of
psychiatry largely set going in turn by the insights as

well as the excesses of Freudianism. Another is the attitude
of formal psychology, much of which willingly accepts heavy
sterility if only it can be scientifically correct. Anthro-
pology contributed recognition not only of the variability

and reality of culture but of culture as a determinant--and
then in turn personality offered an outlet to those anthro-
pologists who might be uneasy or resistive at concerning
themselves with the formal and historic aspects which bulk
themselves so large in actual cultural considerations. But
there is obviously something more at work than all these
factors, something that might be called an affective climate
in which it IS pleasant both to live and to function. To

this climate the ”field approach“ certainly contributes,

with its stimulus interaction and the multiplication of
conceptual categories. Clarification and order may temporarily
recede, but there is a sense of great things burgeoning the
press and welter of ideas. The phenomena largely lie in

the familiar light of here and now, but of their determinants
many come from afar and are new and fascinating. To the zest
of recognition there is thus added the zest of discovery;

and expectation of early and useful application comes to hover
in the air. To those accustomed or addicted to the more
closely channeled ways, such a field approach may savor also a
field day, and its bustle suggest that of a market place.

But the activity is stirring, and infectious, and eager; and
one cannot but watch its progress with interest and sympathy.
If Its Sponsors realize half of what they envision, they will
accomplish much. (Kroeber, I949: ll8.)

-2]-
Kroeber seems to be casting a warning, saying that although the culture
and personality advents were numerous at the time, they were dealing
with problems much too complicated to handle scientifically.

In the introduction to the brief I'psychologically slanted“ section
of his collected writings, published in I952, Kroeber makes the analogy
that the relationship of psychology to anthropology is Similar to the
relationship holding between paleontology and genetics, admitting the
two formerly mentioned fields are much less developed than the latter.
He notes that

...psychology is apparently less developed than anthropology.

At any rate, very few of Its findings are of a nature that can

be Specifically tied to with profit by students of the emergent

outlines and principles of the history of culture. The recent

"culture-and-personality” movement represents an effort, or at

least a hape, to supply just such a genetic or ultimate explanation

of culture in psychic terms. The endeavor is surely warranted;

but it has so far been marked by more enthusiasm than clarity,

and it seems to have achieved little in the way of either specific

method or definite results: psychology has just not yet got

enough results to differ...my negativism toward "culture and
personality” is the result of disillusionment rather than pre-

judgement. (Kroeber, I952: 299-300.)

Kroeber's chief criticism of the culture and personality movement, one
that is evident throughout all of his comments on the discipline, is
that it completely lacks any notion of historical perspective. It
naturally follows that one would expect to find an attempt to consider
historical influences as a major tenet in each of the few Kroeber
papers concerned at all with cultural psychology. This is exactly

what one finds. Kroeber's main, If not his only theoretical statements

which are in any way psychological, concern his conception of "regional”

or ”areal" personality types. The congruity of this notion with a

historical orientation will soon be apparent.

-22-

Kroeber's first evident concern with the possibility of an areal
personality type appears in his l9h7 paper ”A Southwestern Personality
Type.“ Throughout the majority of the paper he contrasts a small number
of autobiographies of southwestern American Indians, primarily his Kuni,
a Walapai, and Kluckhohn's Mr. Moustache, a Navaho. it is only toward
the end of the paper that Kroeber raises any important theoretical
questions.

At any rate, the rather striking similarity of the untutored,

unguided self-depiction of a particular Navaho and a particular

Walapai raises the question whether the likeness is a coincidence

(which I do not believe); or mainly due to a regional though

supertribal resemblence of culture; or whether perhaps it is

generally expectable In folk cultures as a recurrent type
definable In social-psychological terms, although varying some-
what In Its outer cultural dress. In the latter case the essential
recurring element would probably lie in the attitude of thorough
acceptance of one's parents, kin, society, and their cultural
values and Standards. (Kroeber, I952: ll3.)

In his classic Anthropology (I9h8) Kroeber includes a section on
cultural psychology.lu in it he compares some of the work done on
national character, specifically Geoffrey Gorer's attempt at describing
Burmese character and Ruth Benedict's wartime study-at-a-distance of
Thai Culture and Behavior. In his closing remarks on national character
he concludes that:

...the psychologies seem in part to vary independently of

of the cultures. If this Is correct, then recent attempts

to assign each culture a strict counterpart in a ”basic

personality Structure” or "modal personality” type go too

far. There can be little doubt that some kind of person-

ality corresponds to each kind of culture; but evidently

the correSpondence Is not one-to-one: it is partial.

(Kroeber, l9h8.)

Writing in W. L. Thomas' Current Anthtgpology on the ”History of

Anthropological Thought,” Kroeber devotes a comparatively large section

-23-
of his discussion to “culture and personality.” (Kroeber, I955: 302-05 )
Using Honigmann's Culturetagd Persggajity as his main point of refer-
ence, he states that:

It is evident from Honigmann's volume that what culture
and personality studies pre-eminently lack is a large
corpus of coherent informational fact. (Kroeber, I955:

303.)
He seems to feel that there Is no consistence among the studies pre-
sently being conducted In this area of anthropological investigation.
Kroeber then suggests an overall plan to remedy the seemingly unfor-
tunate state of affairs that presently exist In the Study of culture
and personality. His argument consists of the following points:

Culture is one component of the culture and personality
field and most of what we know about culture is organized
by classifications on a spatial basis...characterlstics

of native cultures of areas like the American Southwest,
American Northwest, Plains, and Mexico are well recognized;
a productive procedure would be to define corresponding
ethoses or modal personalities, from which as a body of
systematized findings it would be profitable to take off
both to more extended comparisons and to further "testing“
of the principles revealed. A beginning has been made by
Benedict in her first comparison of Pueblo and Plains
tribes as "appoionian" and ”dionysian“ reSpectIvely...
Devereaux (l95l), as Honigmann points out, has emphasized
a "plains area ethos” which embodies and historically
underlies the ethos of a Plains tribe. .Honigmann himself
recognizes that a “relatively homogenous personality'I

can be discerned throughout the subarctic confferous
forest belt of North America

...With the perspective derivable from characterizations of
two or more such ethoses, it would then be possible to go

on to look for definite correlations with environment, food
supply, population density, and settlement patterns. This
Information would provide not only descriptions but reliable
partial explanations. (Kroeber, I955: 303-304.)

Kroeber uses the Yurok-YukI-Yokut-Mohave-WaiapaI-Navaho-Zuni-Arapaho

complex as an example. He points out that one can differentiate clearly

-24-
between those groups that have a surplus food supply and those that
must constantly be concerned with the quest for food; and one can see
dichotomous groupings in terms of both culture aag_personality; e.g.,
the hungrier cultures in this complex had colorless, drab personalities.
Continuing his suggestions Kroeber states that:

The present need is for a steady step by step extension of

observations over geographically (or historically) coherent

areas. (Kroeber, 1955: 304.)
Assuming that he has established the need for and the feasability of
such Studies, Kroeber goes on to Specify the techniques that might be
used. He criticizes Levinson and Inkeles' suggestion that the study of
national character should be drawn from the ”psychological study of an
adequate sample of persons studied individually.‘5 Kroeber thinks this
kind of analysis IS dependent on an adequate theory of personality, of
which there is none so far. He suggests that perhaps the best thing
to do is to consciously limit efforts to "psychocuitural studies'I of
Mead's type. (With this suggestion Kroeber casts a work of warning,
saying that Mead often goes too far, making assumptions and drawing
conclusions that the data just doesn't support.) Kroeber mentions

l6

LaBarre'S Studies of Japanese and Chinese culture, two cultures which
are generally thought to be very similar, but which differ in, among
other things, ”degree of tension.“ ”Degree of tension” is one of a
series of polarities which Jakobson and associated modern linguists

have recently set up as a frame within which to define the variety of

phonemes in human language, some others being duration, tonality, and

-25-
voicing. Kroeber suggests that:

The possible character axes would of course be quite

different for personality than those from Speech, but, for

descriptive and organizing purposes, might not a series

of them be useful? I think for Instance of polar qualities

like order and organization, or cleanliness and finish

(both of which might bracket with tension or again might

not); or comgetition; or retractility, timemindedness,

verbalization, etc....This suggestion rests on the

assumption that organized, analytic description ordinarily

must precede causal-functional determination, and that

we have had a pre-mature excess of attempts at the latter

In this and related fields of psychic and cultural Inter-

Impingement. (Kroeber, I955: 305.)

The essence of these three discussions by Kroeber seems to contain

the following points:

(I) Anthropological data would seem to suggest the existence of
geographically and historically based “cultural personality
types.’'

(2) The acceptance or rejection of the existence of these con-
structs should be based on studies of cultural ethoses within
a given geohistorical cultural area.

(3) These studies should employ systematic variables (e.g.,
competition, timemindedness, etc.) based on observable psycho-
cultural characteristics.

In attempting to construct a workable hypothesis from the many implica-
tions contained in Kroeber's work, one must resort to paraphrasing him;
so much of the essence of Kroeber's writings is like the iceberg, lying

l7

for the most part beneath the surface. However, the hypothesis

suggested by Kroeber In the preceding discussion is as follows:

-26-
In certain well-defined, historically related and geographically
limited culture areas a systematic investigation of character
traits should reveal an area-wide ethos, or modal personality.
Kroeber, In his l9h8 Anthropology, attempted to define the rather
amorphous concent of ”ethos.“ He used this term with reference to a

society to mean:

Their ways or customs, correSponding nearly to the Latin
"mores.” Like that term, It carries an implication of what
is sanctioned or expected...We refer not so much to the
Specific ethics or moral code of the culture as to its
total quality, to what would constitute diSpositIon or
character in an individual; to the system of values that
dominate the culture and so tend to control the type of
behavior in Its members...The difference between Western,
Indian, and Far Eastern civilizations obviously consists
of more than a diversity of content as exemplified by
items of the order of eating with forks, fingers, and
chopsticks reSpectively. Beyond these concrete facts,
there is a pervading difference of character and out-
look in the three cultures. This IS what Is meant by
ethos. (Kroeber, I9h8a: 293-9h.)

Although Kroeber never did define his use of ”modal personality,” it
seems evident from his discussion of it and related tapics that he
was using the term in the same manner as Cora DuBois, who Is generally
given credit for coining It. For DuBois, modal personality referred
to a modification of Kardiner's ”basic personality type.“ (Kardiner,
l939, l9h5.) In The PeOple of Alor, she notes that:

It is quite possible that some societies permit the indivi-

dual less leeway and pattern him more highly than do other

societies. But in Alor both the results of test material and

my own impressions indicate a wide range of variations.

Ranges, however, are measured on a common base line. On

such a base line data will show central tendencies that
constitute the modal personality for any culture. (DuBois,

l9hh.)

-27-
This concept, then, is used in a statistical sense; it does not refer
to any crucial underlying factor in the character structure of a people,
only to those traits which are numerically most prevalent.

As has been shown above, Kroeber was extremely cautious about
making any Statements concerning psychological phenomena. From his
discussions of areal personality, and the hypothesis that has been
constructed from them, one can clearly see that he was not interested
in making any causal statements relating culture and personality; his
sole proposition concerned the possible existence of certain broadly
defined, yet empirically determined, types of character structure
within a given geo-historical area. In the same tradition, this
writer cares not one whit how these types came to be there, the sole
concern is whether they are or not, and If the available data does not
support the hypothesis, a question arises as to why such types are
not evident; i.e., isn't the data accurate, is there no such thing as

an areal personality type?, etc.

CHAPTER III
AREAL PERSONALITY TYPES IN MESTIZO LATIN AMERICA
Latin America as a Culture Area

When referring to the Latin American culture area one must designate
clearly just what are the boundaries and what are the criteria for
making such a distinction. In Speaking of "Latin America,“ in a very
general sense, many writers confuse the culturally defined entity with
the geographical and the national. It should be made clear that this
writer Is referring to an area defined primarily in cultural terms,
secondarily in geographical terms, and with references to national
alliances being used only for purposes of grouping the data.

A number of writers'8 have made attempts to delineate some sort
of cultural continuity in those parts of the American land mass which
lies, more or less, south of the United States-Mexican border. As it
shall be shown though, this dividing line may in some instances be
moved further north.

In the closing section of a monograph on a Peruvian community,
Gillin attempts to Identify what he calls “creole” or "criollo" culture.
Gillin argues that students of Latin American society must recognize
that here we have a distinctly unique complex of culture elements. In
fact he notes that

...one of the reasons for the failure of North Americans

to understand completely the Latin Americans is our fail-

ure to recognize or identify prOperly the cultures of
Latin America as cultures in their own right. (Gillin,

I945: l5l.)

-29-
Gillin criticizes other authors for using the term ”Mestizo“ culture
saying that this term has too much of a biological connotation;]9 that
there Is no reason to believe that biological fusion does or will
proceed at the same rate as cultural fusion and development. He states
that one can see pure Indians, pure whites and Mestizos participating
in the ”development and performance of creole culture.”

Throughout the Central and South American countries he sees a
common general cultural framework which allows individuals adhering
to this framework to be Spoken of collectively as belonging to the
creole culture.

These similarities, says Gillin, are due to the Spanish

elements which are common to their composition and which

were involved in their development during three centuries

or so under Spanish Colonial rule. (Gillin, I9A5: l53.)
He points out, for example, such cultural consistancies as:

(i) all individuals are nominally catholic,

(2) the prevailing ideology is humanistic as opposed to

being puritanical,

(3) the Spanish language is a necessity to participate
in the culture,

(A) manipulation of symbols (as in argument) Is more
cultivated than the manipulation of natural forces and
objects (as in mechanics),

(5) in town planning, the ”plaza plan“ is typical rather
than the ”main Street“ plan,

(6) in family organization, male dominance, a double sex
standard, and patterns of ceremonial kinship prevail,
and so on.

In general, this creole culture IS a synthesis of elements from many
sources (e.g., indigenous cultures, Western European culture,) and the

Spanish stamp gives to this general mode of life a certain external

-30-
uniformity. Gillin expresses the fact that areal, regional and local
forms of creole culture vary and are distinguishable among themselves,
but all follow this same general framework.

Writing four years later, in Ralph Linton's Most of the World,
Gillin expands and modifies his thinking on Latin American culture.
He now reverts to the very term he earlier had refuted, that of “Mestizo
culture.” In this paper Gillin defines Latin America to include:

...all of the politically independent territory of the

Western HemISphere outside of Canada and the United States

that was originally colonized by either Spaniards or Portu-

guese. (Gillin, I949: l57.)
Again he mentions the trend toward “Mestizoization,” with the ultimate
extinction of the Indian (both culturally and physically) as being
definitely possible, if not probable. Mestizo culture has, as Gillin
points out, sometimes been called Modern Latin American culture, or
"creole“ culture, or “criollismo” culture, or "Latino” culture. The
usage varies with time and place and, for purposes of this paper, may
be thought of as equivalent, with the exception of "creole” or ”criollo”
culture, which, according to Gillin, is a specialized form of the more
general structure.

In commenting on the continuity prevailing through all of Modern
Latin American culture Gillin notes that

To the casual visitor or the tourist, it is difficult to

see much similarity between the culture of, say, a mestizo

settlement in the jungle and a mestizo town at an altitude

of l2,000 feet on the cold intermountaln plateau. But

residence in the various types of mestizo communities will

convince one that a strong common fabric of belief, attitude,

and patterning of activity runs through all of them. (Gillin,
I949: I70.)

-3]-

In I956 Richard N. Adams published a paper that was an attempt
to deal explicitly with the cultural components of Central America
which, judging from Gillin's statements, could be postulated to be
representative for much of Latin America. Adams drew his material from
a set of cultural surveys he had completed In five Central American
countries. For the purposes of this paper it will be necessary to
consider only a portion of Adams' article.

Adams equates the previously mentioned concepts of ”Mestizo,‘I
"creole” and "Modern Latin American” cultures to what he calls the
”Spanish American Cultural Tradition,” which indicently, he breaks
down into three regional traditions. A cultural tradition is defined
as

a class of cultural components which are distinguished
by historically similar cultures. (Adams, I956: 883.)

It Should be noted that a cultural tradition does not presuppose a
unilineal heritage derived from a single source. Such traditions
generally have common cultural origins but ”these origins may in them-
selves be diverse.” When cultural components of distinct cultural
traditions become more similar through acculturation, as have some
Colonial Spanish components and some indigenous Indian components,
they become part of the same cultural tradition, i.e., In this case,
the ”Mestizo" cultural tradition.

It should be clear by now that what has happened In Latin America
Is the following: two distinct cultural traditions, i.e., the Colonial
Spanish and a rather heterogeneous indigenous Indian complex, have

come together and become intertwined, the result being, (I) an all but

-32-
complete loss of the pure Colonial Spanish tradition, (2) a vast com-
plex of culture traits that contains many new components as well as
innumerable borrowings from the two original traditions, and (3),
scattered throughout the new ”Mestizo” complex, small I'pockets" of
surviving Indigenous traditions, only minimally affected by the Spanish
heritage.

The secondly named group, i.e., the Mestizos, pervades so much of

20 it may be

modern Latin America that, for all practical purposes,
deemed representative of the area as a whole.“ Within this large
complex, however, one may distinguish a number of sub-groups. One
might visualize a continuum running from the minimally Mestizoized
Indian groups, on the one hand, to the group of descendents of the
Colonial Spaniards who have been minimally affected by indigenous cul-
ture, on the other. The vast majority of groups will lie somewhere
near the center of the continuum, the number of groups being completely
dependent upon the criteria used by the investigator.22

The important point to remember is that Indians, descendents of
the Colonial Spaniards, and descendents of unions of the two original
groups are all racially represented In the Mestizo cultural tradition.

The crucial distinction is between cultural, not racial, genetic,
biological, or physical, entitles. As Gillin has noted in one of his
earlier discussions of Latin America,

The most important distinction is that between Indian

cultures and those of Latinos, Mestizos, or whatever

one wishes to label the carriers and practitioners of
Modern Latin American Culture or civilization.

-33-

The question may now be asked, ”What are the geographical boundar-
ies of Latin American culture?” There has been some dISpute concerning
the “marginal” regions, e.g., the Carribean islands and the Spanish-
speaklng groups of the American Southwest. However, taking the term
“Latin” in its broadest sense, I will take the area to include “all
politically independent territory of the Western Hemisphere outside of
Canada and the United States that was originally colonized by either
Spaniards, Portugese or French."

With the purpose in mind of getting as representative a sample

as possible, the data will be drawn from four Spatially separated areas.

These are:
(I) Spanish America,
(2) Guatemala,
(3) Colombia, and
(4) Peru.

A major factor in the choice of these four areas was the relative

availability of data as compared to other Latin American countries.

Ethos Components in Latin American Culture
"General”

In accordance with the hypothesis that has been offered, i.e.,
the existence of an areal personality type, it would seem wise to
delineate some frame of reference within which to structure the analysis
of any Specific society. Fortunately, there have been several attempts
to describe the “Latin American Ethos” or some comparable entity.
(Gillin, l952, I960; Whyte and Holmberg, I956; Smith, I956.) These

attempts, in agreement with the formulation offered by this investigation,

-34-
have been Structured around various value orientations that are hypothe-
sized to characterize Latin American ethos.

We will first examine the major components of the Latin American
ethos, as determined by these studies, and then will review the selected
Studies with the purpose of determining whether these value orientations
apply to the four selected areas.' It may well turn out that other
orientations come out that are also characteristic of the Latin American
culture area as a whole, or there may in fact be no dominant value
orientations. The purpose of using these predetermined components as
a frame of reference is purely for guidance; they are not in the least
meant to be confining or deterministic.

The selected value orientations have been grouped according to the
following classifications:

(I) ”predominant'value orientations”: those Specifically

delineated in two or more studies, and

(2) ”lesser value orientations": those not Specifically
delineated in two or more studies, but implied or
otherwise suggested.

Each such orientation will be characterized before getting into the
actual data.
”Predominat Value Orientations”

(I) Persggalism: this concept emphasizes the inherent uniqueness
of each human being; each individual has his unique inner
worth regardless of status. Often this inner essence Is
spoken of as the ”soul,” or sometimes as ”dignidad de la

persona,” or, literally, dignity of the person. Consequently,

any insult to the individuals inner worth Is taken seriously,

and may result in physical violence.

(2)

-35-

Various types of admired or idealized personalities are
related to ”personalism,“ e.g., the ”macho“ (literally, “maie”)
type is highly valued. The l'Macho" is expected to Show
”sexual prowess, zest for action, including verbal 'action,'
daring, and, above all, absolute self confidence.” (Gillin,
I960: 3i.) The “macho" may become a "caudillo" (leader) if
he is fortunate and Shows enough "macho” qualities;

Also related to personalism Is the tendency to limit
one's trust to those he shares an intimate, personal relation-
ship with. This element carries into the religious sphere
where one does not pray to God, an ambiguous entity with no
personal characteristics, but to various saints who have
names and individual characteristics. In essence, the
individual outranks society.

The Strength of FamilyATies (kinship): It is generally the
case that one's intimate personal relationships are limited to
his extended family and only a very few close friends. The
average Latin American has close personal ties with relatives
several generations removed, affinal as well as consanguineal.
Even those ”outsiders” with whom one has close personal con-
tact are often brought into the family circle via the
”compadrazgo" (co-godparenthood). If one is ever in any

sort of difficulty he always can turn to his family for

help; a families responsibility for their children ends only

with death.

(3)

-36..
Importance of Hierarchy: In Latin American culture all things
seem to be grouped in a Stratified sequence. Latin Americans
do not believe that all men are born equal; they, in accord-
ance with the ”personalistic“ value already mentioned, see
each human being as "unique." Therefore, it is easy for them
to view some Individuals as being ”above“ them in the social
hierarchy and others as “below“ them.

The ”Patron” system, and its modern variants seem to be
an extension of the paternalistic oreintation of kinship group-
ings. It should be noted that a "patron” is not to be con-
sidered an equal of those he supports; rather the relationship
is like that of protector, the protection being granted for
some reciprocal obligation, e.g., faithful service from an
employee. Small ”Patrons” usually have "patrons" of their
own; political leaders are expected to play the ”patron” role
toward their constituents--thus there exists a network of
reciprocal relationships connecting the various social Strata
within Latin American societies.

Even in family affairs there is a definite hierarchical
structure. Different values are applied to each sex, e.g.,
men are Idealized as being free, romantic, fearless and author-
itarian; women should be sacred, subordinant and pure. A
definite double sex standard operates which protects women

from outsiders' immoral desires, but allows men to roam in

(4)

(5)

-37-

search of sexual pleasures with single women or married women
of a lower class. There seems to be a universal acceptance
of the social inequality of human beings.

A Variant of Materialism: Gillin terms this variety of
materialism as ”tangible materialism,” i.e., they seem to
value only that which they can '...put their hands on.' (Gillin,
i960: 38.) For example, most Latin Americans view stocks and
bonds as mere pieces of paper, they are not tangible. Among
all classes “land and buildings are regarded as the most
tangible types of property. Investments are few, regardless
of the rate of intereSt returned to the investor. This
seeming lack of incentive to "play the market“ has been
largely responsible for the domination of Latin American
business opportunities by foreigners.

interest in Spiritual Values: For Latin Americans the uni-
verse and human experience is held to have a deeper, some-
times ambiguous, meaning. Life is perceived as having an
aesthetic tone; a deep humanistic cloud pervades the cultural
atmosphere. 0ne writer has characterized Mexicans as valuing

23

”truth, goodness, justice, beauty, and saintliness.” News-
papers may lack stock quotations, but will devote a full page
to literature. Gillin has concluded that “it is surely these

values that in large measure make life worth living for many

Latin Americans of middle status.“ (Gillin, I960: 42.)

-38..

(6) Emotion as fulfillment of the Self: One of the few truly
Spanish heritages that remains in Modern Latin American cul-
ture is value of free emotional expression. A Latin American's
feelings may range from deep depression to high euphoria.
Certain institutionalized occasions, such as fiestas and
I'death wakes“ serve as outlets for the Latin Americans highly
emotional states. Latin Americans seem to value, at
apprOpriate times, the extremities of human emotional
experience.

(7) A Sense of Fatalism: A value that seems to cross-cut the
other values held by the Latin American is a fatalistic accep-
tance of whatever experiences he may encounter. Gillin sees
this value as taking two general forms, (a) heroic defiance,
and (b) passive resignation. Each person must live and die
with dignity, whatever the odds, and yet one's fate must be
accepted as preordained and beyond the control of man. ”The
elaborate cult of death, funerals, and graveyards are further
expressions of the value attached to this fatalism.” (Gillin,
i960: 46.) In each instance where a Latin American has “done
his best“ and failed, the failure is attributed to ”fate,”
or ”the will of God," not to the individual.

(8) Disdain for Manual Labor: The Mestoized Latin American, for
the most part, places a very low value on manual labor, at
least as far as he is concerned. He Is quite willing to let

the lower classes take care of the physical drudgery while

(9)

(l0)

(ll)

-39-
he looks after the ”thinking.“ Those individuals successful
in this "break from the soil,” whether through education or
some other means, usually holds what will probably be called
a ”middle-class“ occupation, or higher. This level of exis-
tence signifies a certain minimum ”decency” beyond the lower
class Standard of living. It should be noted that all
Mestizos do not reach this level, but practically without
exception they strive for it.

Importance of Words and their Manipulation: There seems to
be a high value placed on the ability to ”convince“ another
individual through long elaborate arguments, which are some-
times centered on insignificant points. ideas are emphasized
over things, abstract theory over empirical research, arm-
chair speculation over precise experiment, and deductive
reasoning over inductive thought.

”Less Obvious Value Orientations”
Reapect for the Aged: As in most extended family systems, the
aged command the reSpect of the entire household. As it is
the parents' duty to care for their young children, so also
is it the grown childrens' duty to take care of their aged
parents. Thus, if an individual has any family left at all,
he will have no use for any social welfare plans.
Centralized Action: In any matter that involves conflict, or

decision making, the Latin American prefers to pass the

4+0 .-
reSponSibility on to a higher authority. This value is con-
sistant with the “patron“ system which provides a source of
support in such matters to most individuals.

(l2) National Orientation: Latin Americans, as opposed to Indians,
feel themselves as a part of a National group, not just a
local community or village. 'They know there are other areas
of the world and understand, for the most part, that through
education and hard work (non-manual) that they may one day
see such places. They are interested in national political
affairs and usually operate local elections in a serious
manner.

The preceding concepts characterize what, from the available literature,
seem to be the important value orientations for Mestoized Latin Amer-
icans. These values provide a way of looking at the world and at peOple.
They form a frame of reference into which experience can be ordered
and life thus made comprehensible.

The next task is to examine a set of studies for each of four
areas and see if the previously mentioned value orientations apply to
Specific social systems within the Latin American culture area.

“Spanish America”
Charles Leslie on Mitla

In I960 Charles Leslie published a monograph concerning the world
view of Mltla, a community of Mestizoized Indians living in North-
central Mexico. (Leslie, i960.) The purpose of this study was to

discern the world-view (sometimes known as ”ethos“) of this group.

-4]-

The Mitlenos had been studied some twenty-five years earlier by
Elsie Clews Parsons. Thus there was reason for Leslie to concern him-
self to some extent with social change, which he does in a rather
unsystematic way. The first chapter of the monograph is devoted to
a brief survey of recent Mitla history. The Mitlenos, according to
Leslie have gone through an extensive cultural change between I929 and
l953. The townSpeOple changed their collective self conception from
a poor, humble village to that of ''a commercially oriented community
of urbane townSpeOple capable of asserting and protecting their
interests.” (Leslie, I960: l7.) Another index of change was the local
inhabitants application of doubt to traditional myths and folktales.

However, as was stated, the primary purpose of this study was to
get at the world view of the Mitlenos. From the way in which the
material is presented, it is very difficult to establish which variables
Leslie concluded to be focal to the world view of this community. His
methods, and this is not necessarily a criticism, were completely
intuitive and impressionistic. It seems that one must conclude that
Leslie was primarily concerned with beliefs rather than yalgaa; however,
it is possible to extract a limited set of value orientations from the
ethnographic description.

For instance there seems to be a high value placed on being a
member of the national community. In many instances Leslie quotes
the villagers as comparing the contemporary village community with
the one of past generations and concluding “now we are civilized.” A

value that seems to be highly protected concerns Mitla as a peaceful

4.2-

community. The Mitlenos see themselves as being characterized by
industry, patience, indurance, honesty, and above all they perceive
their social relations as involving no interpersonal conflict aaua
community level; all conflicts are particular and personal, and are
usually caused by some Individual from another village. Leslie, how-
ever, notes that there is a great deal of community conflict and that
the Mitlenos “humanistic” characterization of their peaceful little
community is completely false. Related to the preceding rationaliza-
tions is an apparent value on the manipulation of words. Elaborate
l*ying is characteristic of the entire community, as well as a constant
sstream of gossip that pervades the social atmosphere.

Personalism is represented in a limited form. It is not evident

‘t:hat human beings are thought of as being particularly unique, but
eaaach person has a soul and every soul has unique characteristics which
are quite evident after the Individual has died. Elaborate preparations
a re made after death for providing the soul with all he needs for his

-i‘<>IJrney to the afterworld and once each year on ”All Souls Day'l food
and drink are provided for all returning souls.

Fatallsm is evident In the usual form, I.e., any misfortune is
e>‘<|:Iained away by saying "thus IS life," or "it was god's will.‘l There
i 53’ also evident a modified value on centralized action. Leslie quotes
Pa rsons as saying "the townspeople...are...unwilllng to take responsi-
t’ i Iity contributes to the fact that townspeople refuse to take any

a“:it:ion on civic matters, even very serious ones. They pass the re-

s‘l5=’<:iI'Isibility up to the appropriate level, e.g., the town officials,

-43-
even when they know that no action will be taken. The town officials
demonstrate the same characteristic, except in their case they won't
even pass the trouble to a higher level, they just do nothing about
most matters.

Examples of the value placed on emotional aSpects of life are seen
in the many fiestas that are undertaken, as well as the deep reverence
that is shown toward the “saints” and “souls.”

The materialistic values shaped by members of this community are
discussed by Leslie in his chapter on the “Acquisitive Society.’I He
lwotes the extremely high value given to money and all things that it
(:an purchase. Leslie States that

...the townspeople strove to acquire wealth Simply because

they enjoyed material well-being, and because prestige was

gained by wearing clothing that was stylish as well as decent,

by maintaining a household that was well equipped, and by

iavishing one's means on festivals. (Leslie, l960: 69-70.)

'711e Mitlenos considered the scramble for advantage in the market place
1:<> be a dominant element in their lives.
One other dominant value that Leslie focused on concerned the
[3 lace of witchcraft in the life of the Mitlenos. Outwardly, the majority
‘:>‘f= townSpeople scoffed at such practices and made fun of those who did
tDiselieve, but in privacy they protected themselves against any chance
‘ZD‘E= being afflicted by such afflictions as ”mal ojo” (evil-eye) or
' 'GEespanto“ (soul loss). I

Thus for Mitla we find most of the predetermined value orientations

FDII-esent, at least in modified form. The lack of presence of the others,

E3nd the presence of some not Included in the general description of

-44-
Latln America, may be accounted for as resulting from (i) the idiosyn-
cratic nature of every village, and (2) the fact that Mitla was only
partly Mestizoized, as evidenced by the fact that Spanish was only

spoken by about 60% of the towns adults.

Ethyl Albert on Atarque

As a part of the Harvard University Cross-Cultural Values Study,
Ethyl Albert did a study of the value system of the Spanish Americans
of Atarque in the American Southwest. (Albert, M.S.) Her methods are
not explicit but the results of the study are in large agreement with
the general value orientations outlined previously for Latin America.

Albert designates three focal value premises, (l) tradition,
(2) In-group solidarity, and (3) religion and enjoyment.

Under ”tradition“ we may examine several value orientations.

(I) There IS a definite social hierarchy. Interpersonal relations
are always between ”patron“ and villager, “jefe politico“ and
constituent, and so on. Male and female are thought to be by
nature different and to have different social roles and functions.
The female must remain close to home, display good manners, and
be the “foundation" of the family's religious life. Males, on
the other hand, express a dual morality. It is the familiar
pattern of the faithful husband and conscientious father in the
local community, as opposed to the "macho," the philandering
”man about town” when outside the native village.

(2) The spiritualistic, humanistic nature of life Is also a part of

the Spanish American tradition. “Beauty, sadness, humility and

-bs-
exhiliration intermingle in religion and in life.’I The belief
that “good will triumph over evil“ is a noticeable aSpect of local
folk tales, hymns and poetry.
(3) The high value placed on age is evident in supreme
authority given the advice of elders. The greatest
prestige is attached to the ”veijo," the oldster.
The respect awarded the aged, especially males, is
a traditional element of the Spanish American value
system.

Under “in-group solidarity” is included the great value given to
“closeness“ of family and community. Close human relationships appear
to be the chief or sole basis of whatever security is enjoyed. One of
the greatest sins imaginable in this society would be for a parent to
fall to provide for a parent in need, or visa versa. Here too the
Icompadre system is a fundamental element of the social system. The
rnost important commandment for these people is ”Honor thy father and
thy mother ."

”Religion and enjoyment“ encompasses three different value

Orientations.
(l) Emotional expression plays an important part In the lives of
these people. ”The emotional life, rather than the spiritual,

IS the primary object of concern." The fiestas with their

excitement, pleasure and celebration, typify this Side of the

value system. Enjoyment includes, aside from mere conversation
and visiting, the excitement of both the tragic and festive

aSpects of life, sadness, drama, romantic love, in short,

highly-charged experience;

-46-
(2) Related to this value for emotional experience is a disdain for
work just for its own sake. Work is clearly a necessity, not

a virtue. One works because he is obligated to support his

family, for no other reason. It is not surprising that work

Is easily laid aside in favor of other, more pleasurable,

activities.

(3) Religion is given a central position in the value system. When
one is in difficulties of any sort he reverts to prayer to see

him through the crisis. All celebrations are centered around

some religious event.

There are three other value orientations that have not been sub-
sumed under these three focal values. A major value is concerned with
the ”personalistic” nature of human relations. According to Albert,
"it is through the personal and emotional bonds that continuity and
solidarity are achieved in family and village..." For example, even
tine dashing ”macho“ would never think of sleeping with a young maiden

from his own village; he would have too much reSpect for the girls'
ffeathers.

In this society the “person” is the locus of free will. Each

i Individual is seen as unique and having a dignity of his own, no matter
""Inat his position in life may be. “The dashing young man is valued
‘53 Essentially for what he IS, not for the outcome of his actions.“ Men
‘3=:3pecially, take very seriously the individual pride and honor of them-
ES-Qelves, their friends and their families. It is one thing to kill a

"iean, but it is quite another if a matter of honor was involved. The

-47-

saints are Spoken of and to in a very personal manner. One must be

very careful not to offend a Saint lest he be striken with misfortune.
To a certain extent the manipulation of language is also valued.

There is a low level of concern for proof and evidence; arguments are

often based on the “logic of the heart.“ Arguments are concluded with

statements such as ”it has always been so,“ or “Parents know best." An

individual who Is clever Is very often a man of high prestige.

The preceding discussion has concerned certain values that seem

to be central to the Spanish American social system. However, the

'value orientation that pervades all aSpects of life and apparently is

a! factor In all human action is that of ”fatalism.” All events are

seen as uncontrollable and unpredictable. Chaos rather than orderliness

[3»revails. Each and every human being is subject to some greater force,
aalwd the fate of any person Is a matter of chance. Both good and bad

fiiappenings are expected and accepted. A very appropriate summary

<>“f’ this fatalistic attitude Is evident in a much repeated Spanish

Arnerican phrase, "what will be, will be."
The Spanish Americans, then according to Albert's study, lack only
t?*1 t-ee of the general value orientations, and display only one extra,

tIITI<Ee high value placed on strict adherence to the religious beliefs.

Th Is group may be a little atypical of Latin America because of the

131: l~ong influence of Anglo-American culture. However, the data does

r“: ‘1: Show any major disruptions of the areal personality pattern.

Ellfingro Edmonson on Rimrock

Another study done in conjunction with the Harvard Values Project

-43-
was carried out by Munro Edmonson. (Edmonson, l957.) This study, like
the preceding one, was done In the American Southwest, this time in the
Rimrock area of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.

Although the majority of the monograph Is relegated to outlining
the content and structure of "Hispano Culture," Edmonson states his
primary aim as being an analysis of the I'value configurations implicit
in the culturally distinctive social structure of the rural Spanish
Americans of New Mexico." (Edmonson, I957: 7.) Most of his data was
gathered through participant observation over a twelve month period in
the field. He adopts Kluckhohn's definition of value, that is:

A value is a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive

of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the de-

sirable which influences the selection from available modes,

means, and ends of action.” (Kluckhohn, l95l: 395.)

In the interest of defining values empirically Edmonson used institutions
ass his units of analysis, describing the resulting configurations as
Fr1stltutional values.”+ Edmonson goes on to say that,

Having thus decided to 'hoid Institutions constant'... I

needed an element which would vary from culture to culture

but which would nevertheless provide a reliable means of

surveying the distinctiveness of culture. After some con-

sideration I selected status...l do not believe that

another investigator who elected to follow my proceedures

would arrive at the same words I have used to describe

Spanish American values, but I do believe he would come

close.“ (Edmonson, I957: 9.)

I I‘I essence, what Edmonson has done is to select some empirical referents
a Qalnst which he can document those systematic choices made by Spanish

‘n\11nerlcan culture in handling the problems of human experience. Al-

tZl'fiough the descriptive coverage of Hispano culture is Interesting and

-49-
illuminating, it is not of central concern to our problem and will
therefore be omitted; rather, what are crucial to this study are the
value dimensions that are arrived at.
Edmonson states three criteria that ”served as lndices to the
general Importance of the orientation under study:” (Edmonson, I957:
53.)

(i) pervasiveness: the regularity with which a given orien-
tation appears in different institutional contexts,

(2) intensity: judged from the appearance of Strong affect
or the provision of Strong rewards and punishments, a
kind of “economic“ criterion of value importance, and

(3) elaboration of cultural forms: an Indication of long
term value emphasis on the form.

He notes six general value orientations that Stand out with some degree
Iof consistency and clarity. They are:

(I) Traditionalism: traditionalism may be seen in almost every
Institutional sphere of life. It may be seen In the persistence
of generalized behavior patterns such as diet, song tradition,
and patterns of curing and witchcraft. It is equally strongly
expressed in the value placed on age seniority. The traditional
"dual sex standards,” i.e., faithfulness and obedience on the
part of women, and promiscuity and authoritarianism on the part
of males, are strongly resistant to change and provide bones of
contention between conservatives and radicals, and between men
and women. Traditionalism in family organization Is strong, so
strong says Edmonson that ”three centuries of separation have
resulted In no major differences between this institution in New

Mexico and In rural Spain.“ (Edmonson, I957: 54.) Loyalty to the

(2)

-50-
extended family, prearranged marriages, and the intense ”compadrazgo“
system are still highly salient aSpects of life. In the religious
sphere the reason for performing a ceremony in a particular way, or
indeed for performing it at all, IS that “It has always been: it
Is the custom.” Although there is greater pressure for change in
the economic Sphere, there has been enough resistance to cause
serious value conflict for many Spanish Americans.

Familism and Paternallsm: A prime example of the familistic nature
of Spanish American culture is seen in the Spanish language.

The Spanish terms which are derivatives of the Latin

”pater” are like a summary of the key positions in

the social structure and ethos: ”padre“ (father,

priest, God), ”papa" (daddy), “Patron” (boss, mayor,

employer, political leader), ... ”compadre” (co-

parent, co-godparent, "buddy,” friend). (Edmonson,

1957: 55.)
Another source of evidence is the prevalence of arranged marriages.
Marriages are not seen as the union of two individuals, but as
the beginnings of new families. A man's position In status
structure depends In large part on his success as the head of
a household. Strangers entering a Spanish American community
soon become aware of the value given kinship ties; the Spanish
American's reaction to strange non-kin usually varies somewhere
between shyness and outright hostility. The patron system may
be attributed to the value placed on familism and the respect
accorded to the “pater-familias.” Closely related to the patron

system Is the value placed on ”having a relative in the right

place" in order to get a job or receive a political favor.

-5]-

(3) Dramatism: Dramatism, too, may be evidenced from an examination

(4)

of the Spanish language. Such forms as “valiente” (brave, hero),
”morena” (dark, brunette), “es muy hombre“ (he is very much a man)
and many others indicate a dramatic representation of peOple and
things. Edmonson notes that,

Within the limits apparently imposed by other

value orientations, HiSpano culture is dra-

matic. (Edmonson, I957: 57.)
Each Spanish American must inevitably experience Important life
crisis rituals, from baptism to mourning. Each of these is tinged
with emotion and dramatics. The nature of the definition of sex
roles is dramatic; e 9., the “coquettish and naive girl, the proud
macho boy.” It Is In the religious rituals that the true dramatism
characteristic of the Spanish American comes out. The bystander
is awed by the pagentry of the church, and the highly emotional
behavior of the participants. Even the behavior of the ”patron“
seems a little dramatic In his display of wealth and the pride
he takes In his position. Thus, to the newcomer, Spanish American
life may seem to be a little mysterious and more like a melo-
dramatic stage production than real-life.
Personalism: Spanish Americans think of loyalty on a personal
basis, i.e., to a particular person, rather than to some amorphous
entity such as ”the State,” or “the company." It is this
individualistic orientation that Edmonson refers to as personalsim.
It is based on the notion that each human being has a distinctive

integrity of his own, a dignity that commands reSpect from other

-52-
human beings. In the business world the Spanish American prefers
to deal with “freinds,” i.e., people he can know and trust. Leaders
in business and industry are expected to display their power and
authority. Every individual in this culture is conditioned to
believe that his personal dignity will be reSpected in his relations
with other people of whatever station in life.

(5) Eatailsm: Fatallsm may be capsulized as essentially a willing
acceptance of whatever experiences may happen to befall the
Individual. Again the language Structure provides a hint of this
notion. In Spanish we find a number of Impersonal passive reflexive
verbs such as ”se rompio“ (it broke itself), and “se perdeo” (it
lost Itself), Indicating a lack of responsibility for the causes
of such events. Also» evident In Spanish American attitudes is
complete acceptance of such things as Illness andrdeath, sexual
intercourse between unchaperoned boys and girls, floods and droughts,
and crooked politicians. All of these events are explained away
as being natural occurrences of fate, or the will of bad; it Is
expected that every Individual will have his share of good and
evil, and no amount of Interference on the part of human beings
will change that which Is inevitable.

These, then, are the value dimensions that Edmonson has delineated for
the Spanish Americans. It should be noted that under his six classifi-
cations are several of the value orientations previously defined by
Gillin and others. In this case the differences are undoubtedly affected

by the amount of contact with the Anglos. it is also evident that

-53-
Edmonson was using a distinctive approach, and thus was probably asking
questions of a different nature than previously mentioned Investigators.
However, it is remarkable that the degree of agreement obtained with

the “pilot“ frame of reference is as high as it is.

Arthur Rubel on the Mexigan-Amerigans in Texas

Arthur Rubel, in l960, published a paper based on his two-year
study of concepts of health and disease among the Mexican Americans of
Hidalgo County, Texas. He focused on five diseases that were peculiar
to the Mexican Americans who comprised three-fifths of the p0pulation
of Mecca, the largest and most heterogeneous of the three communities
studied.

Although the Anglo p0pulation "controlled“ the social life of the
community, the Mexican-American group had been able to retain their
Spanish-American culture. The five diseases involved: “caida de la
mollera,” I'empocho," “mal ojo,” ”susto,“ and "mal puesto" are Integrally
linked to the Spanish American value system. Although much of Rubel's
paper is superfluous for purposes of the present study, he does include
a Section on the Spanish American value system.

In the section on "cultural values“ Rubel deals with those values
that seem to him to be most influential on concepts of health and
disease. The value dealt with at the most length IS “kinship." Rubel
points out the great Inclusiveness of the Mexican-American extended
family, and the tightly woven unity that pervades the group.

In Mecca the Importance of the relationships found to

obtain In the three generation family Is only equaled by
the bonds between an individual and his baptismal sponsors--

-54-
”padrlnos de pila”--or by the relationship between ones'
self and the Sponsors of one's chlldrens baptisms--
"Compadres de pila” (Rubel, I960: 809.)
The values of age and male dominance are also quite evident. As

a Mexican-American housewife put it

In "Ia raza" the older order the younger, and the men
the women.’I (Rubel, I960: 8lO.)

The Mecca patriarch acts as judge, jury and policeman within the con-
fines of his home. Related to these age and gender values, is the
value placed on the sanctity of the home. In Mecca, a man's home is
truly his "castle.“

Rubel also comments on the prevalence of the double sex standard.
The female is relegated to the home for the great majority of her
activities, while the male is expected to encounter his social activities
outside the home, these activities often consisting of brief sexual liasons.
Rubel notes that within this culture the greatest emphasis is placed
upon the differentiation between the expected behavior of male and
female.

Again, here is an Instance of a study that clearly portrays a set
of cultural values, but only a limited set. The main limiting factor
again seems to be the Specialized nature of the goals of the research.

For Spanish America there seems to be a consistent patterning of
value orientations throughout our small sample, and thus, by definition,
we can postulate the existence of an area ethos, or, in Kroeber's terms,
an areal personality type. More will be said on this matter in the

concluding section of this chapter.

-55-
”Guatemala”
John Gillin on San Carlos

In Guatemala the great majority of the work that is aimed along
the lines in which we are interested has been done by John Gillin and
his students. Two monographs have been selected as representative of
these efforts.25

The majority of Gillin's Guatemalan work was done In the Small
village of San Jilotepeque, although his l95l publication concerned
life in a village called by the pseudonym of “San Carlos.” Since the
San Carlos volume contained quite comprehensive descriptions, It will
be used as the basis for establishing value orientations, the "Magical
Fright” paper being used for supplementary purposes.

San Carlos' population is made up of both Indians and Latinos
(Mestizos) who are culturally distinct, but yet share a great number of
culture patterns, both material and valuational. Gillin feels that San
Carlos, as a whole, is somewhere near the middle of the acculturational
continuum, i.e., between "pure'I Indian and l'pure" Latino, the major
distinction between the two participating groups being one of social
class. Essentially, this distinction is made on the basis of certain
social situations that are open to Latinos but not to Indians.

Following an extensive description of the Inhabitants of San
Carlos in terms of habitations, food preferences, social structure,
political and control structure, formal religion fiesta patterns, and
folk psychiatry, in which local value orientations are Implicitly
presented, Gillin elaborates on the ethos components that distinguish

Indians from Latinos.26

-56-

“Personalism” is quite evident as a Latino value orientation. Man
is seen as controlling the universe rather than being a passive agent
in the man-nature relationship. The forces of the universe, including
the supernatural, may be manipulated by human beings; i.e., God and
saints have “personalities'I and can be handled on a ”personalistic'l
basis. Individual uniqueness is held in the highest regard; the group
exists to promote Individual interests.

Kinship Is also strongly valued. Individuals are often assisted
by their families in the various enterprises they may undertake.
Children are dependent on their families for wealth and status.

A social hierarchy exists within the Latino social system. The
social structure is ordered into classes and castes. Individuals domi-
nate those who occupy lower status positions. Their is a definite sex
standard.

There is also a ”materialistic“ oreintation present. Things are
used as instruments or objects of control. For example, land is seen
as a means of acquiring wealth, not, as with the Indians, as something
one is morally committed to work.

A value of the emotional qualities of life is seen in the fiesta
system. Plays, musical events, and the other events that compose a
fiesta are often either very sad or very happy. Routine events are
seen as boring; struggle and oscillation of power is seen as being
zestful.

“Fatalism: is not stressed in the San Carlos monograph nearly as

strongly as it was In Gillin's later works. Although he Implies such

-57-
a value orientation for the Indians, he says very little about it in the
Latino material. One cannot tell from the data presented In this
monograph whether “fatalism” Is a strong value orientation or not.

Manual labor is seen as disgraceful. A Latino never carries a
burden, never walks, and never works with his hands if It can be avoided.

Again, age plays an Important part in the control structure. Older
men control politics and are accorded the highest reSpect.

The national orientation is quite evident. Latinos wish to achieve
Status and power on the national Scene and even In the United States,
Europe and other parts of the world. The home town IS merely a stepping
stone to something bigger and better.

Thus, as expected, Gillin's coverage of the value orientations,
or ethos, of the Latino population of San Carlos Is very similar to his
later generalizations of the Latin American culture area. The major
question concerns his omission of "fatalism'l as a dominant orientation.
The only other orientation that one might pick out from the data is the
striving for security that Gillin emphasizes for both the Indian and
the Latino Inhabitants of San Carlos. Gillin presents a number of
”threats and anxieties of life” and shows how security is preserved
through cultural means of handling such threats.

Guatemala has been represented by only one monograph on the
assumption that Since John Gillin is the primary ethnographer to con-
cern himself with value orientations, or cultural ethos, and since his

work has been previously represented In the general orientation to

-53-
Latin America as a whole, it would be tautological to attempt to
characterize this society any further.

l'Columbia“

William Sayres on the Papayan of Southern Columbia

In the Columbian material we encounter a condition that exists for
our knowledge of many societies In Latin America, i.e., the ethnographic
research which has been done has been done by a single investigator.
Hence, the four papers that have been selected as examples differ only
in Specifics, the general cultural plot being the same for each one.

William Sayres carried out field work In the Popayan district of
southern Columbia between l95l and l958. He dealt with three com-
munities: (I) A community of Indians: the ”parclalldad" (reservation)
of Coconuco, (2) A community of Mestizos tracing descent from Mestizos:
the pueblo of Coconuco, and (3) A status-transition community of
Mestizos tracing descent from Indians: Zarzal. It is noted In each of
the four papers selected that communities (2) and (3) share the general
culture pattern described by Gillin for Latin America. Thus these are
the communities with which we shall be concerned.

In an early paper Sayres concerned himself with the transition
process by which Indians became Mestizos, and the relationship of this
process to the phenomenon of ”magical fright“ or "susto." (Sayres, l955.
The aim of this paper Is to present data from rural Columbia that
indicates that although magical fright Is generally thought of as a
"common Indian ailment,” there are certain types of status situations

in which non-Indians are more susceptible to those beliefs than Indians.

-59-
This seems to be the case in the Zarzal community, where the population
has only recently completed the transition to Mestizo, and many indigen-
ous beliefs, e.g., l'magical fright,” are still held as very real.

In another paper Sayres concerns himself with the changes and
Individual's ”philosophy of life“ undergoes as he makes the change
from Indian to Mestizo. (Sayres, I957.) The small group of ”thinkers“
In Zarzal have pondered over the question of man's Intellectual deveIOp-
ment, and have come to see the process as consisting of three stages:

(I) a ”pure Indian“ stage, (2) a ''civilized Indian” Stage, and (3) a
non-Indian stage. They see the process being affected by two forces,
(I) the Indigenous culture and (2) HiSpanic Influences. This process
IS seen as unidirectional, Irreversible, and progessive. It also
features elements of "predestlnation, natural growth, and cosmic
regularity.“ (Sayres, l957.)

Another Sayres paper deals with patterns of consumption of
alcoholic beverages among these three Columbian groups. (Sayres, I956b.)
Drinking IS institutionalized In a number of sacred and ritual contexts,
with the qualification, however, that consumption be limited to one or
two glasses. Supplementary drinking patterns are not nearly so uniform,
with the “pure” Mestizo group outdrinklng the ”pure” indian group and
in turn being surpassed by the transitional group. The conclusions seem
to be that the indian group has fairly close adjustment between levels
of aSplration and levels of achievement; the Mestizo group has aSpirations
that cannot be achieved in the present cultural Situation; and the

transitional group cannot settle on which aSpirations are desirable,

-60-
i.e., the Indian values or the Mestizo values. Sayres' datasupports
Horton's hypothesis that there Is a direct correlation between the
level of anxiety In a society and the pattern of Insobriety. The
evidence also serves to question Bales hypothesis that ritual drinking
may Inhibit alcoholism.

The fourth paper to be considered deals with problem of ”trastorno“
(literally, ”derangement") in the transitional Zarzal community. (Sayres,
l956a.) "Trastorno" Is characterized by symptoms such as wild, Irregular
frenzy and dull, passive withdrawal. An Individual afflicted with
”trastorno” may alternate between these two states for anywhere from
a few days to a few years. Sayres set about testing the relationship
between Status change and the incidence of trastorno. He compared
the traditional Zarzal community with the other two more regular
communities, which had not undergone the Indian-Mestizo status shift.
Again he found that the discrepancy In value orientations postulated
for the Zarzal community could well be responsible for psychic stress
among community members. The other two communities did not seem to
harbor any “trastorno” Individuals.

Thus it would seem as If the majority of Sayres' concerns have
been directed at assessing the psychological stress placed on Individuals
Iwho undergo a status change, such as was the case In Zarzal. His
limited concerns have also confined his coverage of dominant value
orientations, but since it Is the closest thing available for this

particular group, It will have to do.

-6I-

The ”personalistic” value iS evident in each of the Sayres papers.
Both Mestizo communities place high value on man's right to personally
deal with the universe, i.e., to change what he can and to do it through
personal communication with the saints. Personal ambition Is held
desirable and not improper.

The "fatalistic” orientation is characteristic of the Zarzal
”thinkers" Ideas concerning the change from Indian to Mestizo. They
felt this transition to be part of "el destino del hombre," the
destiny of man. They feel that the change may be likened to the process
of human growth and Is l'all part of the business of growing up.“
(Sayres, I957.)

A nationalistic orientation seems to be an identifying trait
among Mestizo communities. They know the difference between I'social-
ISmo,“ "communismo," and ”capltalismo.“ They do not really understand
the three systems but are able to identify, for example, ”capitalismo”
with the United States and "communismo" with the Soviet Union.

Most of the other general value orientations are Implicitly but
not explicitly stated in the Sayres papers. It Is reasonable to
assume, since in each case he commented on the cultural similarity to
Gillin's general description of Latin America, that only a concern
with highly specialized problems excluded the mention of other Important
value orientations.

”Peru“

John Gillin on Moche

Peru has been the locus of a number of studies which have, In

C

-62-

varying degrees, dealt with cultural ethos. One of the earliest of
these studies was John Gillin's work in Moche, a small community on

the norther Peruvian coast. (Gillin, I945.) Moche's population Is
composed largely of ”mestizoized Indians,’I the influence of the indigen-
ous culture being seen only In a very minimal sense. Moche, at the

time of the study, was rapidly being absorbed Into Peruvian national
life.

The Moche study IS one of the more difficult to assess in terms
of value orientations. The majority of the book Is phrased In terms
of Murdock's Outline of Cultural Materials. However, a number of such
orientations do appear in implicit form in the categorical descriptions.

The section on religion clearly points out the “personalistic”
orientation. As we have seen in the other studies, the saints are
approached on a “personality” basis. In another section It is noted
that regardless of Status, each individual is credited with possess-
ing a unique quality of his own that deserves the respect of other
human beings.

Kinship ls probably the most evident value, the stress again
being placed on those aspects of the kinship system that other writers
have concerned themselves with. As Gillin notes

...the fact that one can call by name without difficulty

a certain number of relatives may be taken as a rough

indication that his social relationships with the indivi-

duals named are fairly frequent and meaningful to him.

(Gillin, I945: l03.)

Gillin eSpecially stresses the importance of the ”compradazgo” or

”ceremonial kinship” relationship. Of all social relationships,

-53-
inciuding "blood'I relationships, the ceremonial type are the most
enduring. The extended family does not exist as a functioning group
in Moche.27

In his discussion of fiestas Gillin brings forth both their
“Spiritualistic” (I.e., aesthetic, humanistic) nature, and their
"emotional” qualities. For instance, in describing the celebration of
the Fiesta de Ramos (Palm Sunday), through the eyes of a true Mochero,
Gillin points out the intricate ritual, the alternate galety and
reverence, the pageantry, the crucial role of the music fitted
appropriately to each Situation and tendency to forget one's troubles
for the time being. Following the fiesta comes Holy Week, with ”its
mantle of grief (which) will cover the town with an aching pain,
silence, and sadness.“ (Gillin, I945: I48.) Gillin's description of
funerals also points out the truly dramtic nature of life in Moche.

Other value orientations are hinted at (e.g., fatalism, age), but
it would be reading too much Into the data to posit them as definitely
being present.28 Moche, as Gillin points out In his introduction, is
only in the latter stages of becoming “Mestizoized.” Although the
culture of Moche is definitely not Indian, it IS also not "pure“
Mestizo. Gillin's comments on the social organization of Moche may be
applied to many other aSpects of culture.

It would not be fair to suggest that In social organization

Moche Is necessarily typical of all the Small rural communi-

ties of Peru. Its proximity to the city, Its rapid and

recently established communications with the outside world,

its peculiar land problems, and probably certain Imperfectly

known features of Its cultural development are all factors

which combine to form a configuration the details of which
may be unique to Moche. (Gillin, I945: II5.)

-64 -

Moche is a prime example of a community which, at a glance, is
phenotypically Mestizo but, on closer examination, still dISplays
traces of its Indian genotype.

Ozzie Simmons has a good deal of field work in Peru, both in
Lima, the capitol, and in Lunahuana, a small community located l25
miles south of Lima in one of the river valleys that periodically
interrupt the Peruvian coastal desert. For purposes of this study,
his most important paper deals with the ”criollo outlook,“ or modal
personality, of the inhabitants of coastal Peru; two supplementary

papers on drinking behavior will also be covered. (Simmons, l955.

I959. I960.)

Ozzie Simmons on Lima

Simmons' I955 paper deals with a rather limited set of components
that characterize "Criollo'I culture, primarily in Lima. His main
objective seems to be to distinguish the Criollo outlook from those
of the other cultural groups In the area. Simmons sees the Criollo
cultural pattern as being a sub-set of the Mestizo pattern as outlined
by Gillin in I949; i.e., the criollo pattern consists of a modification
and Specialization of the more basic Mestizo configuration. Simmons
points out that some writers have attempted to limit the criollo out-
look to upper-class culture.29 He terms this position as mistaken and,
quite rightly, points out that a given cultural group will vary in

class affiliation depending on the Structure of the regional sociocultural

-65 -

context. For example,

while Crioliismo is associated with only lower- and

middle-class status in Lima, it is a mark of upper-

class status in the rural mestizo communities.

(Simmons, l955: ilS.)
This interpretation is in essential agreement with the view advanced
earlier in the present study which placed Mestizo culture near the
center of a continuum, varying somewhere between the extremes of ”pure“
lndians and ”pure” Colonial Spanish. The point is that Mestizo culture
always contains elements of both "parent'l cultures, and in doing so,
gives rise to unique value orientations.

Simmons dwells on the value aSpect of criollo culture summarily.
One orientation he clearly brings out concerns the value given verbal
manipulations. One of the qualities attributed to the "true'' criollo
is the ability to I'palabrea," to be very good at verbal suasion. The
epitome of this quality is seen in the individual who ”gets away" with
something, e.g., the politician who I'talks his way into office,“ or
the lover who overpowers a young lady with his smooth verbal facility.

The aversion to physical labor is also seen as being a dominant
value orientation. Leisure time activity is far more important than
any occupational task. One example of a highly valued criollo is the

”comechado" (literally, one who eats lying down), who can,

through one artifice or another, draw salary by obtaining

a slnecure in the state bureaucracy or, more rarely, in

private enterprise, or who can get by successfully with
only a minimum expenditure of effort on the job. (Simmons,

l955. ill.)

It is little wonder that graft and bribes are characteristic of criollo

politics.3O

-66-

According to Simmons criollismo is a source of, and at the same
time reflects, nationalistic orientations, and in this right, dif-
ferentiates the Mestizo most sharply from the ”indigena." Simmons'
emphasis is laid on those aSpects of cultural and institutional life
that are concerned with the use of leisure and largely ignore what
the Mestizo regards as the ”grim business of getting a living.“ Where
work is inevitable, techniques for assuring minimal effort are prescribed.

Personalism is implicitly evident in the descriptions value
given to such individual characteristics as “a quick and brilliant
mentality; a facile creative talent and a profound sense of humor.”
I'Viveza" (shrewdness), ”ingenio” (ingenuity) and ”picardia“ (rogueishness)
are qualities attributed to the Mestizo thought to be very criollo. A
value on "Dramatism" is also evident in the bullfighter or trainer of
fighting cocks, i.e., any individual who triumphs through sheer skill,
in a dramatic way against great odds, is hailed as very criollo.

Pervading the entire value structure of criollo culture, at least
in the truncated form presented here, is the value placed on gain or
advantage over some Opponent (defined in its broadest terms) through
trickery, ingenuity, shrewdness, etc. Whether this is a specialized
element of Mestizo culture that is unique to the criollo outlook is not

clear, but would form the basis of an interesting study.

Ozzie Simmons on Lunahuana
The two Simmons papers concerned with drinking patterns were based
on research done in the Lunahuana community. The main village is in-

habited largely by officials and merchants with the agricultural laborers

-67 -

populating the ten I'barrios" which surround it. Although the Lunahuanenos
are predominantly Indian in physical type, they in no way identify with
Indian culture, their culture being entirely Mestizo.

in the earliest of his ”drinking" papers Simmons laid out the
general patterns of drinking behavior in Lunahuana. Simmons has character-
ized Lunahuana society as possessing a great deal of intragroup tension
and hostility for which land disputes are a prime but by no means the
only cause. Hostility is characteristic of relationships between
immediate and extended family members, neighbors and ritual kin. Drink-
ing is highly valued as a means of venting aggressions and, even more
so, of promoting social cohesiOn, i.e., since each individual mistrusts
practically every other individual, drinking bouts serve as a means of
”knowing where the other fellow is.“ it is not socially acceptable to
turn down a drink once it is offered and, once drinking, all individuals
are expected to ”stay even,” the theory being that a sober individual
may take advantage of his inebriated fellows.

Women do not participate in the male drinking pattern, nor do
boys under the age of about eighteen. The only two kinds of deviate
drinkers are those who drink alone and those who go on extended sprees
punctuated by long dry Spells. Lunahuaneo drinking behavior then per-
forms the following functions: (l) it narrows the gulf between various
social classes, (2) it reduces personal anxieties, and (3) it produces
a facsimile of group cohesion where, evidently, it does not normally

exist.

-68-

In the i960 paper Simmons dwells on a point he made briefly in the
previous paper. This point concerns the ambivalence toward drinking
deriving from the shameful consequences that may result, i.e., a drunk
may engage in ”incorrect“ behavior which may create a scandal. Specifi-
cally, this paper focuses on the learning of drinking behavior by the
Lunahuana male as he grows up. It was previously pointed out that boys
were not allowed to participate fully in the male drinking pattern
although they could drink ”moderately” under “socially obligating”
circumstances. The primary reasons advanced for limiting drinking
among adolescents were

(i) They were too vulnerable to the effects of excessive
alcohol intake, and

(2) by virtue of this vulnerability they were much more
likely than adults to engage in “incorrect" behavior.

Paradoxically, it seems that adolescents do not want to drink but are
often forced to embibe by the adults. How then, do adolescents become
the hardy drinkers of the adult generation?

Simmons, in attempting to answer this question, notes that

From early childhood on, the act of drinking is symbolically
and emotionally identified with the significant persons and
the important situations in the community so that the idea

of drinking itself becomes internalized as a normal cultural
pattern in which all males should participate. But Lunahuaneos
are apprehensive about engaging in “incorrect" behavior as a
consequence of drinking and are likely to feel ashamed if

they actually do so. Hence the charter attempts to set limits
to the frequency and amount of adolescent drinking so as to
minimize the threat such drinking would pose to the proper
observance of respect relationships that are highly valued

in the society. Once adults begin to drink, however. they
themselves take the lead in violating the charter. The con-
sequent inconsistancy between attitude and action may con-
tribute to the development of the same ambivalent feelings
about drinking in the new generation of drinkers. (Simmons,
I960: l026.)

-69-

Thus there seems to be a fairly close relationship between the adult
attitudes of ambivalence toward drinking, and the inability to gain
access to this behavior as adolescents. More clearly, this relation-
ship seems to be founded on the essential distrust that characterizes
the Lunahuana value system, i.e., the lack of trust for one's'fellows
that is a crucial factor in the very existence of such drinking pat-
terns and, secondly, the lack of trust in the adolescent's ability to
control his behavior in a drinking situation.

The two preceding studies have been emphasized primarily because
they indicate value orientations that have not yet been covered, but
are essentially supplementary to the other Latin American data. The
value of being a "correct person” is consistent with the moralistic
influence of the Catholic church in Metizo culture. This value also
indicates a ”personalistic” oreintation in that

one must never provide an occasion for others to think he

is pretentious or considers himself better than they.

(Simmons, 1959: 107.)

'TThe social hierarchy is predominant, at least in drinking patterns, as
evidenced by the fact that men do drink, adolescent males may drink,
and females don't drink. The value of kinship is implicitly evident,
a 8 children are taught to keep constantly to ones self and to one's
‘frifiirnily, that strangers are dangerous, and are punished severely for
breaking these rules; obviously this value Is related to the more obvious

Qhe of essential distrust. The value of shrewdness or trickery is noted

‘33! Simmons as he writes that although considerable aggression is built

-70-
up as a result of the indertiminate status of the adolescent,

...indirect courses for its release are available in the

competitive activities of the ubiquitous soccer matches

and of seeking to outwit each other as well as watchful

mothers in sexual conquests of girls. (Simmons, i960:

l025.)
A value which may be unique to this community, or others like it, is
the importance placed on liquor as a prerequisite to any important
social occasion. It is true that this pattern is manifested in the
fiestas throughout Latin America, but there is no evidence to indicate
that one finds liquor as a prerequisite for all social gatherings in
many other Latin American communities.

Thus Lunahuana, although evidencing a few basic components of the
Mestizo ethos, seems to be basically characterized by modifications
and Specializations of these underlying elements. Once again, the

studies presented have been rather specialized and necessarily do not

aattempt complete coverage of all value orientations.

lgLiiliam Mangin on Lima
A very brief paper by William Mangin deals with mental health
P roblems of immigrants who move from outlying Peruvian Mestizo com-
rrlllnlties to the urban centers. (Mangin, l960.) Some individuals
"1 I grated because of a change in the level of aspiration, others were
f=<>rced to under economic or political pressures. The study was per-
'f;<>rmed in the ”barriodas,” squatter settlements in the hills surround-
‘ rig Lima. These “barriodas” are characterized by such qualities as
(.l) residents who came from Lima rather than directly from the rural

areas, (2) a feeling of separateness from the city, (3) a farily cohesive

-7]-
orientation among residents, and (h) a number of “barrioda” associations,
guided by self-appointed leaders. Numerous changes are seen in these
original characteristics as time passes and the area gradually becomes
“urbanized” and blends into the city. Due to the limited nature of
this Study few value orientations were evident.

A variant of ”emotionalism" is evident in the descriptive words
used frequently in the interviews. Mangin noted the high incidence of
such words as “depressed,“ ”sad," and "pitiful.“ He states that

the humble, passive, tranquil, modest individual described

by many informants as the ideal personality type is not

strong and forbearing but rather frightened and ineffective.

(Mangin, i960: 915.)

There seems to be a perversion of the usual kinship value, probably
a result of the psychological stress resulting from the changing social
environment. ReSpondents were highly ambivalent about the desirability

<>f marriage, the value of having children, and the perceptions of one's
mother.

The value of this study seems not to be in its coverage of a
great number of value orientations but rather in being an example of
tilwe.effect situational factors can play in the cultural ethos. The

‘U'éast majority of examples presented so far have placed high value on
‘<¥I nshlp, Qg£_under much more secure circumstances. It might be
I"\rpothesized that, under severe conditions of psychic stress, those
ethos components that are most highly valued will be the first to be
<lhallenged, the underlying reasoning being that when one evaluates his

FDresent status it will be in terms of those aspects of human experience

inost highly valued, and thus these will be the most convenient conditions

-72-
to blame for the present difficulties. The affect of psychic stress
on ethos structure is an area that needs a good deal more study before

this relationship may be explained scientifically.

Latin American Ethos: An Overview
The tables on the following page present a superficial, though
useful, picture of the results of our examination for consistencies in
Latin American ethos components. Before summarizing these components,
and attempting to delineate an l'areal personality“ for Mestizo America,
it may be wise to discuss some of the reasons for the rather irregular
picture presented by these tables.
initially, one must remember that all of these studies were not
concerned Specifically with value orientations. Thus, it would be
wildly unlikely that those values that were discussed would be consistent
through all of the studies covered. For instance, an investigator con-
<:erned with religious beliefs or concepts of disease will be more
likely to discuss values than one interested in a very specific topic
sauch as techniques of manufacturing or even uses of alcohol.
Secondly, there is a great difference in techniques used by many
IInvestigators, ranging from simple conservations and life histories to
Rorschach's and Thematic Apperception Tests. Even if one is specifically
<=soncerned with values, he will arrive at variant, though usually not
<=<3nflicting, results depending upon the instrument used to elicit the
I nformation.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is rarely that two or

Inore investigators will agree to what is meant by “ethos,” or “value.“

-73-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE I
A SAMPLE OF ETHOS COMPONENTS IN
LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE*
Spanish America
I :E
E m c
E m °- 0 'o c
m -- ._ -— -— o o
-- >~ -— m to u N -—
'_ ..C m 3 E 3 mm o— p—H
('0 O. U '- U C m C '—'U '— mm
C '- wk L -- O *- m 3;. ma Cu
0) o .c :m a) x. -- —- gt. Qg LO 0C
:1 in m 44L. 44 ... u m o .... 44.- .-m
zsfisflgsgsssctsssw
StUdl > o. :4 m3: ; : 44 LL -— £ch 5:— J‘Eo
Leslie, l960 + + ' + + + + ' + ‘ + +
Albert, MS. + + + ' + + + + + + ‘ '
Edmonson, I957 -+ + + - + + + - - + + -
Rubel, l960 - + + - - - - - - + - -
Totals,fiN=h 3, A _3 I 3 3 3 l 2 3 2 l
= value present as indicated by data,
- = value not present as indicated by data.
This sample is structured in terms of the predetermined value
orientations previously mentioned.
Guatemala
E m -- o ‘o c
m -- '— —- - o 0
°- >~ '— M ‘0 H N "-
'- .c m 3 E 3 mm o— .-—4_:
c - m L L -- o ._ m a L m c c u
o o .c 3 m o L ._ -— g L 9.2 L o o c
3 m In “L H '— U Cu O 0- “0— 0—0
Ta 3 .E 3.9. 3‘3 3 8 iii 5‘8 if”. 8» 5‘8 ‘5':
§tudy > a. :4 m3: 4; : m I3._z-— _§Q < we; go.
(Sillin, l9h8, + + + + - + - + - + - +
l95l
'Totals, N=l l l l l O l O l O l O l

 

 

 

 

:o_umuco_co
_mco_umz

 

:o_uo<
ooN__mcucoo

co_u0uco_co
.mco_umz

 

 

 

om<

co_uo<
vo~__mcucoo

:o_umuco_eo
.mco_umz

 

 

 

mecoz mo
co_um_:a_cmz

om<

co_uo<
vow__mcuc0u

 

 

 

Leno—
_m:cmEncoz

mecoz mo
co_um_:a_cmz

om<

 

 

 

Em__mHmm

Loam—
_m::mEncoz

mega: mo
:o_um_:a_cmz

 

 

l

 

-74-
-- Continued

:o_uoEm

EMwaumm

Loam—
.mzcmEucoz

 

 

Peru

 

Colombia

:Em__m=s_t_am:

co_uoEm

Em__mumm

 

2 O

 

 

:Em__m_eoumt:

:Em__m=u_t_am:

co_u05m

 

l

 

0 0 0

 

TABLE l

>zocmco_:
mzumum

:Em_—m_L0um2:

:Em__m=u_t_am:

 

Total Sample

 

- + +
0

 

O

 

a_;mc_g

>zocmco_z
waywam

:EW— —M_Lmu.mz:

 

 

O

 

Em__mc0mcom

a_;mc_x

>zocmco_:
mzumum

 

 

+

 

 

Em__m:0mcom

a_;mc_x

 

+

 

—-‘—

l9S6a. I956b.

Sayres, l955.
l956c
Totals, N=l

Study

 

 

 

X,
Gillin, l9l+5

Stud

Em__mc0mcom

 

l960

Mangin, l96O

 

 

 

Eiimmons, I955
Eiimmons, i959

jrkbtals, N=h

 

3

2 h 6 h 3

5

7

 

All studies, N-lO 8

-75-
Inevitably these concepts are defined in terms of the investigator's
culture and applied randomly to what ever culture is being studied. This
lack of agreement on what is the nature of the phenomena being studied
is, in the view of this writer, a significant factor in the lack of
agreement on the nature of such phenomena in any one society, culture
area or other social unit. It was evident in the present study that
some investigators were subsuming, for example, what one writer would
term values A, B, and C under one heading and calling It value D. The
confusion caused by situations such as this is quite apparent. The
need for an unbiased frame of reference in the study of any cultural
behavior is crucial to the advancement of contemporary social sciences.

Fourthly, it would seem that some dimensions of the value structure

would be more likely to be noticed and commented on than others. For
example, those values which the informant feels least anxious about
\NOUld probably be more easily “tapped" by the investigator. Values
'that caused some degree of insecurity for the informant would probably
Inave to be obtained by implication, or by a "projective technique,"
éall at the cost of some degree of validity.

From the foregoing discussion it should be apparent that a high
‘Cieegree of agreement between investigators should not necessarily be
‘E=><pected at the present time. The particular level of agreement to
‘oiéarrent significance would seem to be entirely dependent on the judg-
n‘Ient of the individual evaluating the studies under discussion. In

1:he.present case, this writer has decided to attribute significance to

those value orientations that are evident in at least four of the ten

-76-
communities studied or, in other words, a level of agreement of .h.31
Thus the core of the Mestizo American Ethos would contain the following

value orientations:

(l) Personalism

(2) Kinship

(3) Emotion

(A) Status hierarchy

(5) National orientation
(6) Fatalism

(7) Age

(8) “Spiritualism”

These would be supplemented, in Specific areas, by the following more

Specialized value orientations:

(l) Non-manual labor

(2) Manipulation of words and ideas

(3) I'Materialism“

(4) Centralized action

(5) Traditionalism

(6) “Dramatism”

(7) Gaining advantage on an opponent

(8) ln-group solidarity (avoiding community conflict)
(9) Witchcraft

(10) Religion and enjoyment

(ll) Paternaiism

(I2) Sanctity of the home

(l3) “Security”

(IQ) Distrust of other individuals

(l5) Being a ”correct“ person

(l6) Liquor as pre-requisite to social functions

It must be remebered that these are modal value orientations.
-T11e first group are I'basic" only in the sense that they appear more
1Frequently in our sample than the others. Within any Mestizo group
‘Ebne may find only a few of these ethos components present, but the
.ngobability is that most of the first group and some of the seond group

(:an be detected jj_the apprOpriate questions are asked.

-77-
We have drawn together a number of small Studies, and a few larger
ones, to arrive at a characterization of the Mestizo, or Latin American,
cultural ethos, or in Kroeber's original terms, areal personality type.
However, these studies have been phrased in the terms of the North
American investigator. It would seem quite advantageous to examine a
reasonably comprehensive study that has been published, essentially,
in the words and thought patterns of the people being studied. The next

section will be addressed to this task.

The Children of Sanchez: A Case Study in Mestizo American Ethos
The purpose of this section will be to examine Oscar Lewis' The
Children of Sanchez in terms of the various value orientations we have
isolated as characterizing the Mestizo American ethos. (Lewis, l96l.)
In this book Lewis has attempted to capture the thoughts, feelings,
attitudes, and values of four members of a lower class Mexican family.
His technique involves letting each individual tell his own life story
in his own words. As Lewis notes,
...I hope that this method preserves for the reader the
emotional satisfaction and understanding which the anthro-
pologist experiences in working directly with his subjects
but which is only rarely conveyed in the formal jargon of
anthropological monographs. (Lewis, l96l: xii.)
This study was chosen for two primary reasons: (i) it contains
<:omprehensive descriptions of the psychological orientations of a
'fiestizo family, and (2) these descriptions are structured in terms of

the informant's cultural ethos, with minimal interference from the

North American investigator.

-78-

The main subjects of this study are four young Mexicans, Manuel,
Roberto, Consuelo and Marta, ranging in age from twenty-five to
thirty-two. Lewis met the family in l956 while conducting field work
for Mexico City. Gradually he came to know them and arranged to have
each one tell him his life story, which was recorded on tape.

The Sanchez family is caught up in that growing world phenomenon,
the urban poor, or as Lewis terms it, ”the culture of poverty." This
condition is the result of two major social forces: industrialization
and rural diSplacement. The basic peasant culture is modified to some
extent by urban conditions, but, as will be seen, the value orientations
are not much affected.

I will attempt to extract several examples of the modal value
orientations we have delineated for Latin America as they appear in the
Lewis study. Again it should be noted that, even in a study carried
out as ”objectively” as the one in question, a ”perfect congruence”
with the value structure already outlined is not expected nor even
hoped for.

The value placed on “personalism“ is evident for the most part.

The individual dignity attributed to every other human being seems to
have been largely lost in the urban context. However, each individual
still valued his own dignity and, as evidenced from all four respondents,
was willing to resort to physical violence to protect it. For instance,
in reSponse to the accusation of being impotent Manuel slapped his

female accuser. He reasoned, “my male pride didn't let me admit what

really happened.’I (Lewis, I96]: 36A.) The ”personalistic“ orientation

-79-
toward religion is also quite evident. Consuelo, when threatened with
instant death, prayed not to the ambiguous power of God, but rather to
”my mother..;and the Virgin of Guadalupe, too.“ (Lewis, l96l: 283.)
That aSpect of personalism which is most evident is the value placed

on conforming to an idealized personality type. In the case of Roberto
and Manuel the stress is on being “macho“ (male), characterized by
their great emphasis and pride over their many sexual conquests. In a
lesser sense the ”macho" ideal is represented in their self—confidence
when involved in fights and the seemingly relentless daring typical of
many adolescent and young adult behaviors. Almost equally evident is
that aSpect of personalism dealing with the tendency to form close
personal relationships of a trusting nature only with one's actual and
ritual kin. Recall that the one close personal relationship Manuel

had was with his “compadre,” Alberto. In essence, then, personalism is
clearly a central value orientation.

Of all the value orientations covered, the Lewis volume most
explicitly covers kinship. The prime example is seen in the way that
Jesus Sanchez, the father, continually cares for, houses, protects and
supports his grown children and grandchildren. The example of this
emphasis on the part of Jesus are so numerous it would be redundant to
specify even a few. His entire life, as he notes in the epilogue, has
been devoted to caring for his children. The paradoxical nature of
the kinship relationship is crystallized in the statement by Jesus that
“I am a person who bears grudges and I have a lot against three of my

children, Manuel, Roberto, and Consuelo.“ (Lewis, l96l: h8l.) Even yet,

-80-
this man continues to heed his moral obligations to these children that
he dislikes so strongly. The “compadre” system is an integral element
of the kinship system, providing a rational for extending close personal
relationships to include non-kin.

The status hierarchy is distinguishable in many of the descriptions
Lewis presents. For instance, the father, Jesus, is the dominant
influence on the lives of his children; his influence is even stronger
than his children's Spouses'. An example of this patriarchal Influence
would be the time Jesus convinced Consuelo to leave her husband, Mario,
and return to Mexico city. (Lewis, i96l: hi3.) One might read a
patron-like character into the army officer who, rather than having
Roberto prosecuted for insubordination, gave him twenty “pesos“ and
let him escape. (Lewis, l96l: 364.)

The “spiritualistic” orientation has also somehow been reduced as
a key facet of the cultural ethos. The aesthetic tone is gone from
life, leaving even the children with a realization of the hard, cold
facts of life. It is highly probable that the absence of this value
is characteristic of the extremely difficult existence individuals live
in the ”culture of poverty.”

Emotion is clearly portrayed as a central characteristic of the
Latin American ethos. Each informant vaciilates between limited states
of intense, momentary happiness, and much more extended and frequent
states of deep sadness and remorse. The orientation toward sex seems
to emphasize the highly emotional, almost ecstatic nature of the relation-

ship. But it is in the helpless submission to the ”culture of poverty”

-8]-
that each of these individuals seems to ”pour his heart out'I and yet
to give the impression of passive acceptance of this status.

Fatalism is closely related to the subject of the preceding
statement. Each of the informants, when faced with a tragic situation,
seems to accept their lot with few complaints. It is most evident in
Jesus' complete acceptance of the many misfortunes that befall him,
eSpecially when he finds he has a few more mouths to feed and house.
Manual, upon failing to llhave” a young lady of his choice expresses
his feelings very matter-of-factly. He reasons, ”Well, who knows.
Maybe God didn't want her touched by me." (Lewis, l96l: 36h.) Quite
often these rationalizations pass the reSponsibility on to God or to
some saint.

Age is obviously related to dominant role the father plays in the
Sanchez family life. No matter how roughly he treated his children,
and no matter how big they were, they rarely talked or struck back.
Even in the case of a conflicting allegiance, e.g., a man being torn
between his wife and his mother, as in the case of CriSpin, the older
woman often wins out.

The national orientation is really superfluous in this context as
Mexico is the center of national life as it is. However, one does find
the international orientation, as in the case of Manuel going to the
United States to work.

Thus the evidence in this particular study clearly brings out the
role of these ”modal” or ”central“ values in the total social system.

Summarily, the more specialized values that are in some way evident

-32-
are: (l) manipulation of words and ideas, (2) traditionalism, (3) Drama-
tism, (4) religion and enjoyment, (5) sanctity of the home, (6) patern-
alism, and (7) Distrust of other individuals. In essence, then, The
Children of Sanchez, aside from being a captivating piece of literature,
is a uniquely accurate representation of not only the Mexican ethos,

but that of all Mestizo America.

The Area Personality of Latin America in Retrospect: Conclusions

There seems to be little doubt, as indicated by the data from this
study, that A. L. Kroeber's definition of area personality type, or
ethos, seems to be supported for the Latin American culture area. We
have demonstrated that a Latin American culture area does indeed exist,
and that there are consistancies in cultural ethos throughout the area.
Thus our hypothesis may be accepted. However, as mentioned previously,
the “boundaries“ of this ethos are none too clear. The distinction we
have been making here has been between Indian culture and Mestizo culture.
But it has also been shown that there is a tendency for Latin American
Indian cultures to become gradually Mestizoized, and the question arises
as to where the dividing line actually is. Surely these values that
we have delineated give a clue to major distinctions, but the lines
are still fine.

The nature of the empirical data provide the biggest and most
dangerous stumbling block. In the first place, values are an amorphous
concept to say the least. It seems that each investigator has his own
idea of what they consist of and how one goes about measuring them.

This situation is evident in the fact that only one ethnographer (Edmonson)

-83-
came out with any specific statement as to what he meant by the term
“values.” What is sorely needed in the area of cultural psychology is
a method of operationalizing just such abstract concepts as values in
order that we may compare such studies on comparable levels of contrast.
Although we accept Kroeber's hypothesis, we must conclude that there
is need for further research in Latin America as well as other areas
in order that we may determine more clearly and accurately the nature
of area personality.

There are still other unanswered questions. Is this concept a
useful component of contemporary social science theory? How valid is
this concept as defined by Kroeber? Are there potential methodological
techniques that will implement a more consistent approach to the study
of culture in general, and specifically the study of value orientations?
These questions will be explored in the brief concluding chapter of

this paper.

CHAPTER IV

A FINAL EXAMINATION OF AREAL PERSONALITY TYPES:

THEORY AND TECHNIQUES

Theoretical Foundations of Areal Personality Types

It was demonstrated in the preceding chapter that A. L. Kroeber's
conception of area personality types could be verified in the Latin
American culture area. However, let us examine the concept once again,
as Kroeber defined it.

Kroeber defined areal personality type in terms of a cultural ethos,
i.e., the system of values that dominate a culture. This seeming
equation of culture and personality by Kroeber should be no surprise
in light of his conception of the nature of culture as being “superorganic.ll
Kroeber, as well as a few others (e.g., Leslie White), has pictured
culture as being the ”sine qua non” of human behavior. Thus, when these
individuals do concern themselves with individual personality, it is
highly likely that it will be with reference to Individuals as carriers
of human culture and will be defined in what are typically thought
to be “cultural“ terms. Some social scientists (e.g., Melford Spiro)
have argued that we are making a needless distinction between culture
and personality, and are actually only putting different labels on
the same phenomena. (Spiro, I946.)

The majority of social scientists seem to favor a distinction
between that which is culture and that which is personality, but there

has been little agreement on exactly what are the components of each.

-85 -

However, it is only in theory that one can separate these two
concepts; in the real world of human behavior both are abstracted from
the actions of living human beings, or from the records of such actions.
Questions arise as to how to classify certain phenomena, I.e., are we
observing culture or personality? The answers to these questions often
seem to be resolved in terms of (I) the theoretical orientation of the
investigator, learned in his own culture's terms, and (2) the nature of
the problem being investigated. However, as yet, there seems to be no
empirical justification for drawing rigid boundaries between culture
and personality, especially in such a hazy area as that of “human values.“
One must conclude that Kroeberwas no more wrong, or right, than most
proponents of contemporary social science theory. He defined his
concepts in terms of his theoretical orientations and the nature of
his problem.

The fact that our hypothesis was accepted seems to demonstrate that
there is a correspondence of some kind between culture area and some
aSpects of individual personality. But the question arises as to how
accurately this correspondence has been described. The task of science
is to refine its concepts so that they are describing, as accurately
as possible, the empirical phenomena under observation. In the preceding
chapter it was pointed out that few of the investigators whose work was
covered were using the same techniques to gather their data. Hence,
it was not too surprising to find their descriptions overlapping in
some reSpects, completely different in others. Each investigator was

segmenting the culture, and corresponding ethos, in terms largely

-86-
conceived in his own culture. One of the pressing problems in con-
temporary social science is the need for a technique of Investigating
cultural and cognitive systems, differing from our own, that will allow
us to derive dimensions of behavior that are cognitively meaningful to
the individuals being studied. The concluding section of this paper
will be devoted to a discussion of some recent research that seems to

hold some promise of resolving this problem.

The Formal Analysis of Behavior

In the past seven years there have been a series of theoretical
formulations directed at describing the rules which actors employ, or
attempt to employ, in the organization and execution of their behavior.
(Pike, MS.; Wallace, I962; Adams, MS.)

These approaches have been stimulated primarily by linguistics,
and secondarily, by symbolic logic and set theory. Formal (or compon-
entlai) analysis was initially used to delineate the meaning of kinship
terms, color categories, concepts of disease, and folk botanical
taxonomities.32 More recently the concern has been with phenomena of
greater generality such as cognitive systems and I'total behavior.“ The
techniques of formal analysis consist of identifying the behavioral
dimensions recognized by the people under study. As Wallace has noted,

The commitment to describe the psychological reality of

culture requires that not just any model which predicts

some overt class of action be accepted, but only that

model which is used as a system of reckoning by the actor.
(Wallace, I962: 356.)

-87 -
Any overt behavior may be the result of any one of a number of covert
plans; the goal of formal analysis is to find out exactly which plan
is being employed by a person or a group.

It is suggested here that if the studies reviewed in the previous
chapter had been organized in terms of distinguishing the formal
attributes of the cultural systems being studied there would have been
far more agreement among the various writers, although the resultant
value dimensions would not necessarily have been the same. Again
borrowing from Wallace,

...the formal analysis of other aspects of culture, such

as values, the program of behavior released In particular

situations, and folk science, is also a promising area of

work. The principles of the metacalculi to which the

diverse cognitive structures of individuals sum in Stable

social systems are, then, to be regarded as principles

of sociocultural organization itself. (Wallace, 1962: 356.)

This writer is well aware of the fact that formal analysis is only
in its infancy, and has yet to be proven useful for most social scientists.
But, assuming that the ultimate goal of science is accurate discription,
formal analysis offers a potential tool that could be of use to almost

any social science. A final evaluation of this technique must await

further empirical investigation and theoretical refinement.

NOTES

lOther examples of such concepts are ”configurational personality'l
cf. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (New York: Houghton Miffiin
Co., l93k ; ”basic personality structure” cf. Abram Kardiner, The
Individual and His Society (New York: Columbia University Press, l939),
and The Psychological Frontiers of Society (New York: Columbia University
Press, l9h5) ; “national character” cf. Alex Inkeles and Daniel Levinson,
“National Character: the Study of Modal Personality and Sociocultural
Systems,“ Gardner Lindzey (ed.), Handbook of Sogjgj Psychology. (Reading,
Mass,; Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., I954) ; and “social character”
cf. David Reismann, et al, The LonelyyCrowd, I950 .

2For examples of recent work along these lines see Richard N. Adams,
”Formal Analysis of Behavior: A Working Paper on Procedure," MS.;
Charles Frake, ”The Ethnographic Study of Cognitive Systems,’I MS.;
Anthony F. C. Wallace, ”Culture and Cognition,” Science, CXXXV (I962),

351-57-

3F. M. Keesing, in his introductory text, has stated that “at the time
of the writing of this text, Kroeber is the dean of living American
anthropologists. Belonging to no one 'school', his mind moves boldly
over the whole range of theory. His writings contain many highly
individual insights which a serious student cannot afford to miss, as
in his Anthropology (I948) and collected writings (I952). (Keesing,

I958: I79).

“See Ralph Linton's introduction to Most of the World, Ralph Linton (ed.),
pp. 3-IO for one of the initial anthropological treatments of problems
of this nature.

5By this statement I mean that if one accepts unconditionally the premises
of the areal personality type concept (i.e., the psychological homogeneity
of the individuals living within this geohistorical area) he very well

may attempt to treat them all the same regarding value orientations.

This position does not allow for sub-areal value differences. Mistakes

of this kind have been documented by Margaret Mead in her Cultural
Patternsfigpd Technical Change, and by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick
in The Ugly American.

6Kroeber (I93l: ) notes that both the concepts of ”culture-area and
”age-area” had previously been used by the biological sciences in
relation to the location and history of particular Species.

70f the three contributions mentioned here, Benedict's is probably the
most widely known in popular circles, and, paradoxically, is the least
useful. The book was written from an essentially humanistic point of
view (e.g., she characterizes the representitive cultures as being
”appalonian” or l'dionysian'I In nature) and contains a number of

-89-

tautological statements, as well as misuses of western psychiatric
terms, e.g., paranoid, megolomania. The book was an Important con-
tribution in its time, but must be read with care by contemporary
readers.

8It should be noted that only studies published in English will be
considered. This restriction will affect the data from each of the

two areas a little differently; there is virtually no culture and per-
sonality material available in languages other than English for South-
east Asia (cf. Herbert P. Phillips, n.d.), while there is an increasing
source of data on Latin American culture and personality being published
in Spanish (cf.

98y ”over-all completeness of description,‘l I am concerned with the
degree to which studies offer psychological data as well as adequate
general ethnographic descriptions.

IOCf. Clyde Kluckhohn, “Southwestern Studies on Culture and Personality,“
American Anthropglogists, vol. 56 (I954) pp. 685-707; John Dollard,
Criteria For the Life History (New Haven: Yale University Press, I945);
A. I. Holloweli, ”The Rorschach Technique in the Study of Culture and
Personality,‘I American AnthrOpoiogist, Vol. 49 (I945), pp. I95-2l0.

llI.e., that “every man Is in certain reSpects like all other men, like
some other men, and like no other men” (Kluckhohn and Murray, l953),

P. 53.

leome of the first important evidence to support this position was
provided by Margaret Mead in her Coming of Age in Samoa (I928), which,
incidentally, was her Ph.D. dissertation. Mead went to Samoa to test
the hypothesis that all adolescents do not in fact go through the
psychological Stress and strain that American teen-agers do. This
Samoan evidence supported her hypothesis which helped lay the foundation
for the “internalization" concept of personality formation.

13The theory lying behind the use of tests of this nature is, generally,
that by presenting the informant with an unstructured situation the
investigator will be able to get him (the informant) to project his
unconscious cognitive ”sets'I into the situation.

Il'ilncidently, in the I923 edition Kroeber failed to include any reference
to psychology at all.

'5Daniel J. Levinson and Alex Inkeles, “National Character: The Study
of Modal Personality and Sociocultural Systems,” Handbook of Social
Psychology, Gardner Lindzey (ed.), (Reading, Massa.: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company, Inc. I954).

-90-

16Weston LaBarre, “Some Observations on Character Structure in the
Orient: The Chinese,” Psychiatry, Vol. IX, (I946), pp. 375-95. Also,
Weston LaBarre, “Some Observations on Character Structure In the Orient:
The Japanese,” Psychiatry, Vol. VIII, (l945), pp. 3l9-42.

'7Julian Steward, writing Kroeber's obituary in the Americag_Anthr0poIo-
gist, also points out this characteristic of Kroeber writings. He

notes that ”...he did suggest crucial hypotheses in several papers.
These contributions have received far too little attention, partly
because his repeated disavowals of interest in delimited problems and

in causality obscured the implications of his work, partly because his
positive formulations and hypotheses were usually stated as highly
provisional and often submerged in the raw data of great substantive
monographs, but mainly perhpas because he was disinclined to be argu-
mentative and rarely indulged in sufficient forsenic zeal and repitition
of a thesis"(Steward, I96l: I053).

'8Cf., John Gillin, Moche: A Peruvian Coastal Community (Washington:
Smithsonian Institute, Institute of Social Anthropology, I945);
I'Mestizo American,“ Ralph Linton (ed.), Most of the World (New York:
Columbia University Press, I949), pp. l56-2ll; Richard N. Adams,
I'Cultural Components of Central America,” American Anthropologist,
Vol. 58, (I956), pp. 88l-907.

'9The term “Mestizo” generally refers to the offspring of a Spaniard
or Portuguese and an American indian.

20By this phrase I mean purposes that may have some affect on other

areas of the modern world. Mestoized Latin America, for the most part,
represents the locus of Latin American politics, economics, education,
etc. The two exceptions are (I) Bolivia, where Indians play a significant
role and (2) the Spanish American minority of the Southwestern United
States. Cf., John Gillin, “Some Signposts for Policy,“ Lymon Bryson
(ed.), Social Change in Latin America Today (New York: Vintage Books,
I960), pp. l4-62.

2'Giiiin has estimated that only I0,000,000 of the l80,000,000
inhabitants of Latin America are, culturally, truly Indians, Ibid.

22Jacob Fried has attempted to demonstrate that Peru is best represented
by neither the indian nor the Mestizo, but rather by the ”Cholo”, a
”middle group'I of persons who can be confused as either kinds of

Indians or kinds of Mestizos. Jacob Fried, ”The Indians and the
'Mestizaje' in Peru,” Human Oyganization, XX (l96l), pp. 23-26.

23Jose/E. Iturrioga, La Estructura Social y Cultural de Mexico (Mexico
City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, I954), p. 237.

-9]-

2“The problems involved in the empirical definition and study of values
will be discussed in the concluding chapter of this study.

 

25John Gillin, l'Magical Fright," Psychiatry, Vol. II (I958), pp. 387-400;
Gillin, The Culture of Security in San nglos (New Orleans: ModeIIe
American Research Institute, Tulane University, l95l). It should be

noted that there are other studies dealing with personality that were

not included because they were too specific and either did not have
enough ethnographic description or, more frequently, were not concerned
with value orientations to any extent. Cf., Otto Billog, John Gillin

and William Davison, “ASpects of Personality and Culture in a Guatemalan
Community: Ethnological and Rorschach Responses," Journgi_of Personality,
XVI (December, I947), pp. I53-l87.

26It is not surprising that the ethos components delineated by Gillin
for San Carlos Latinos are very similar to those previously outlined
for Mestizo culture in general. It should be remembered that Gillin's
later work formed the basis of this set of components, and as Gillin
notes, the San Carlos material provided much of the data for these
more theoretical presentations. Hence a problem is posed concerning
the objectivity of this section of the study, i.e., it seems we are
testing Gillin's work in terms of Gillin's categories. This situation
is unavoidable without more studies from Guatemala.

27This incongruity with the usual Latin American extended family tradi-
tion seems to be a folk survival, i.e., one component of the cultural
system that has changed more slowly. (Gillin I945.)

28Mention has already been made (p. ) of Gillin's coverage of the
concept of Creole Culture, outlined in the last section of the Moche
study. Here he suggests the existence of these other value orientations.

29Harry Tschopik Jr., ”On the Concept of Creole Culture in Peru,”
Transactions of the New York Academyyof Sciences, X (I948), pp. 252-26I.

30Cf., Abelardo M. Gamarra (pseud. El Tunante), Cien Anos de Vida
Pertudaria (Lima, I92I).

3'It should be noted that this table is purely descriptive and has no
statistical meaning in the usual sense.

32Cf. A.F.C. Wallace and John Atkins, ”The Meaning of Kinship Terms,”
American Anthrgpologist, LXII (I960), pp. 58-80; Harold C. Conklin,
“Hanunoo Colon Categories,“ Southwestern Journgl of Anthrogoloqy, XI
(I955), pp. 399-44; Charles Frake, ”The Diagnosis of Disease Among the
Subanun of Mindano,’l American Anthropologist, LXIII (l96l), II3-32.

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