ulna” V U «\u A u . .H r; 3,» . N21 Lt” a Cw -0 a e u n2 ‘ o a... a. H a.» ”mm 3 J7. as «my Ah. I'lllllli'-.. llll'll'll'll'tr. ’:7%H9 war Khng FEB a 7 :3" 01995 ABSTRACT SAN ANTONIO, YUCATAN: FROM HENEQUEN HACIENDA TO PLANTATION EJIDO By Rodney Carlos Kirk This dissertation examines the effects of land reform on San Antonio, an ex-hacienda, ejido community located in the monocrop henequen zone of Yucatan, Mexico. The 1938 agrarian reform program of President Lazaro cardenas transformed the jural status of San Antonio from a com- munity of plantation wage laborers on an henequen hacienda to a collec- tive ejido, an autonomous, communally landholding, population unit. In the attempt to understand the significance of behavior in contemporary San Antonio, this ejido community is analyzed in the context of its recenttfistoricalorigins and the succession of exogenous social, politi- cal and economic institutions that have controlled, and continue to control, its economy and organization. Although land reform changed the jural and ideological status of this community of Yucatec Mayans, the productive and structural relationship of the community to the manufacturing industry and the world market for henequen fiber has remained essentially unchanged since the latter part of the nineteenth century. San Antonio has existed and continues to exist as the lowest productive appendage of the monocrop export economy of Yucatan. Rodney Carlos Kirk The first two chapters of the dissertation provide an identi- fication of San Antonio in the context of the environmental and insti- tutional setting of this ejido community. Chapter II also provides a basic analysis of the demographic changes that have occurred in San Antonio from 1900 to the l970/l97l ethnographic present of this study. The reconstruction of demographic evidence proves invaluable to the later analysis of pre- andpost-land reform changes in interpersonal behavior and the social, political, and economic organization of life in this plantation community. The total population of San Antonio has nearly doubled during the more than three decades since land reform yet, due to the nature of reform in this region, no further expansion of ejido lands is possible to compensate for the demographic increases. Localized overpopulation characterizes San Antonio in particular and the henequen zone in general and, in the view of many investigators, has resulted in a generalized condition of underemployment for the ejido population of the henequen zone. Chapter III specifically examines the effects of land tenure reform on the economics and organization of production in San Antonio. A comparison is made between evidenced productivity of the collecti- vized ejido sector, the private sector, exemplified by the present owner of the remnant holdings of Hacienda San Antonio (the pequefia propiedad), and the individual cultivation of small parcels by some members of the ejido community. A superficial analysis of aggregate statistics points to a greater productive efficiency of the private sector. A detailed analysis of productive variation in the ejido sector belies critical assessment of ejidos as inherently inefficient. Rodney Carlos Kirk In this analysis, lowered ejido productivity is attributed to the C0"? tradictions existing between a liberal reform ideology and the reality of restrictive and stagnating institutional control exerted by the federal administrative and credit agency of the ejido agrarian bank. Chapter IV focuses on the institution of compadrazgo (ritual coparenthood) as highly responsive and adptive to general changes in the institutional context of the community and to the consequent post- land reform proletarianization of the population of San Antonio. Choice patterns in the selection of coparents reconstructed for the pre-reform, hacienda period demonstrates an emphasis, as noted by other investiga- tors, on the selection of ascending primary relatives as coparents. It is hypothesized that this emphasis is not simply "traditional" but was highly adaptive in the setting of community endogamy and the high frequency of early adult mortality, remarriage, and associated realign- ment of affinal ties evidenced for the pre-reform period. ' Chapters V and VI examine the economic and political organi- zation of contemporary San Antonio. Chapter V focuses on the analysis of domestic group structure and cyclicity and associated income and expenditure patterns in this community of wage laborers. Chapter VI examines political processes associated in interaction, accommodation and alliance within the community and between the ejido community and external institutions of the private sector and the state and federal government. Special emphasis is given to the patterned relations existing between the ejidatarios and the federal regulatory agency of the ejido credit bank. Rodney Carlos Kirk In the concluding chapter, the significance of the study is discussed as it relates to critical analyses of the Mexican ejido reform program generally, and the reform program and collectivization of ejidos in the henequen zone of Yucatan in particular. The discus- sion includes suggestions for governmental policy changes to reduce the restrictive nature of ejidal control and to increase the apparent pro- ductive efficiency of that sector of the henequen zone. In spite of restrictive physical limitations on the availability of land, the key resource, and the restrictive nature of institutional control, the ejidatarios of San Antonio have demonstrated tremendous flexibility in their ability to change and adapt to conditions which obviously affect their lives and their ability to survive as individuals, as members of domestic groups and as members of the larger ejido community. Within the institutional and historical context, it is this flexi- bility in adaptation, the inner dynamic of San Antonio, that is the subject of this study of an ejido community in the henequen plantation zone of Yucatan, Mexico. SAN ANTONIO, YUCATAN: FROM HENEQUEN HACIENDA T0 PLANTATION EJIDO By Rodney Carlos Kirk A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Anthropology l975 © Copyright by RODNEY CARLOS KIRK l975 DEDICATION To Barbara My Parents And L.L.B. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Joseph Spielberg who has been a continual source of encouragement and intel- lectual stimulation. I would also like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Leonard Kasdan and, especially, to Professors Fernando Camara B., of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia of Mexico, and H. Scott Cook. formerly of Michigan State University, who conceived of, and invited my participation in, the I.N.A.H./M.S.U. Summer Research Project in Yucatan (1970). This study of a plantation ejido in the henequen zone of Yucatan is a direct outgrowth of that project. The study was supported in large part by grants from the Michigan State University Latin American Studies Center, Professor John M. Hunter, Director. I wish to eXpress my gratitude to the M.S.U. Department of Anthropology and its former Chairman, Professor Iwao Ishino, for providing the supplementary support funds required to complete the period of field research. I also wish to acknowledge the important contributions of my spouse, Barbara V. Kirk, to the success of this study. Not only is she a most capable researcher, but her own personality, interest. enthusiasm, and concern for others are largely responsible for our rapid acceptance by the members of the community and for their continuing cooperation in assisting us to achieve the goals of this study. 111 Many individuals in Yucatan are also responsible for contributing to the success of this project. Don Alfredo Espinosa Pasos, Director of the State Henequen Bureau (Direccidn del Henequén del Estado de Yucatan) provided not only valuable assistance in the selection of the site and in locating historical documents relative to San Antonio, but constantly demonstrated his interest in this study and his sincere concern for the ejidatarios of San Antonio and the other ejidos of the henequen zone. Supplementary assistance, in making documentary materials available to this investigator, were provided by the Director of the Maax Registro Civil and officials of the governmental agencies of the Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganadaria (S.A.G.) en Mérida, the Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonizacidn (DAAC), the Archivos del Estado de Yucatan, the office of the Governor of Yucatan, and the Departamento de Planeacidn del Estado. Other individuals who provided valuable assistance in Yucatan include Salvador Rodriguez, Elio Alcala, and Professor Alfredo Barrera Vasquez, Director of the Instituto Yucateco de Antropologia e Historia, Mérida. 0f the many colleagues and friends at Central Michigan Uni- versity, I wish to especially acknowledge the assistance of Professor Nancy Leis who read and commented on an earlier draft of this dissertation. I am grateful for her continual encouragement and her many valuable suggestions. Most importantly, I wish to thank the kind people of San Antonio ' who extended to us their hospitality and friendship. My wife and my- self are grateful for having had the opportunity to reside in this ejido community and to have been able to share so many experiences with them during the course of the fieldwork. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LIST OF TABLES . LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION San Antonio in Perspective . Plantation Ex- Hacienda . . Collective Ejido . . Local Ejidal Credit Society . . . . . . Land Reform in the Henequen Zone: Research and Critiques . . The Study of an Ex- Hacienda, Plantation Community Fieldwork and Methodology . . . . . Footnotes II. THE SETTING Introduction . The Northern Ecozone of Yucatan Subsistence Potential . . Mexico, Yucatan, and the "Oro Verde" San Antonio: the Community Setting Images of the Present and Selective Recall of the Past. Reform and Change: The Demographic Evidence . Summary and Conclusions . . . . Footnotes . . III. THE EJIDO OF SAN ANTONIO: LAND TENURE REFORM AND THE ECONOMICS OF PRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . Page ii iii . viii xi «In-l Chapter Page Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . 8S Revolutionary Legislation: The Ejido and the Ejidatario . 86 Hacienda San Antonio: The First Phase of Reform . . . 90 The Cardenas Reform: San Antonio and Anti-Reform Tactics . . . . . . . . . 92 The Collective Ejido of San Antonio: From Federal Reform to State Control . . . . . . . 102 San Antonio and the Federal Ejido Banks . . . . . . 109 The "Castigation" of Fiber . . . . . . . . . 118 Ejido Productive Efficiency: Criticisms of Land Reform . 127 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 IV. COMPADRAZGO AS AN ADAPTIVE STRATEGY . . . . . . . . 145 Introduction . . . . . 146 The Nature and Flexibility of Ritual Kinship. . . . . 148 Becoming Human: the Ceremonial Rites of Infancy . . . 153 Quantification and the Methodology of Comparison . . . 163 Compadrazgo and the Ties that Bond . . . . . . . 166 Choice Patterns During the Hacienda Period . . . . . 174 Agrarian Reform: the State Period . . . . . . . . 177 Agrarian Reform: the Federal Period . . . . . . . 180 The Changing Patterns of Coparent Selection . . . . . 183 Ascendant Emphasis: "Tradition" or Adaptation? . . . . 187 Dimensions of Coparent Relations . . . . . . . . . 200 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 V. COMMUNITY LIFE. THE CYCLICITY OF DOMESTIC GROUPS AND THE SOCIO- ECONOMIC STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL . . . . . . 211 Introduction . . . . . . . 212 Estimated Average Income in San Antonio . 219 Martin: Nuclear Family in a Compound Domestic Group (The Outsider' 5 Strategy: Compadrazgo and Uxorilocal Residence) . . . . . . . . 222 Javier: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase (The Untimeliness of Time Payments) . . . 230 Maximo: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase of the Domestic Group (The Skill to Augment Income and the Debility of Health) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Prudencio: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase of the Domestic Group (Transitory Affluence and the Beginnings of a Family) . . 241 Jorge: The Nuclear/Post- Extended Family Phase (Filial. Engagement and Socio- Economic Change) . 247 Alejandro: An Extended/Compound Domestic Group (Marriage, Virilocality, and Resource Allocation in a Changing Domestic Group) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 vi Chapter Page Time and Domestic Group Survival . . . . . . . . . 266 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 VI. SAN ANTONIO AND THE POLITICS OF INTERACTION, ACCOMMODATION, AND ALLIANCE . . . . . . 283 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Ejido Elections. The Event . . . . . . 288 Social Networks and the Politics of Candidacy . . . . 297 Candidacy and the Tactics of Image Management . . . . 307 The Prorogation and Non- Resolution of Conflict . . . . 311 "Justice" and the Tactics of Protection . . . . 320 The Bangrario. The Media, and the Henequen Ejidos . . . 324 San Antonio and the Bangrario: a Loan Request . . . . 329 Image Management and the Politics of Confrontation . . . 332 San Antonio and the Pequefio Propietario . . . . 338 Politicization in San Antonio: An Informant' s View . . 342 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 San Antonio: a Henequen Plantation Ejido . . . . . . 353 Adaptation to a Restrictive Environment . . . . . . 362 San Antonio, Land Reform, and Collectivization . . . . 366 GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 vii Table oxoooucsm-a-wm NN—l—l—J—l—l—l-A—J—l—l "OKOCDVC‘Ul-PWN—J LIST OF TABLES Annual Henequen Production Ejido Landholdings and Production Climatological Data for Mérida, Yucatan . . . . . Land Use in 1845 . Henequen Production in Yucatan: 1845-1969 Population in San Antonio and Environs Demographic Change in San Antonio and Yucatan Natural Population Change . Mortality in San Antonio for Selected Periods First Phase of Reform and Hacienda San Antonio . Second Phase of Reform and Hacienda San Antonio San Antonio: Cadastral Value and Inventory . Distribution from Sale of Henequen: 1951-1954 . Costs of Production, 1951 . Decortication Rates (Pesos/Kilogram) Rural Price of Henequen Bangrario Financial Statements for San Antonio . Classification of Fiber in San Antonio Production in San Antonio, 1970 . Comparative Annual Yield of Henequen Lands in Production The Ejido of San Antonio: Henequen Plants Per Mecate viii Page 20 20 39 44 52 69 70 72 74 92 95 99 108 108 110 116 118 120 124 128 131 Table Page 22. Parcelized Production in San Antonio . . . . . . . . 134 23. The Ceremonies of Infancy . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 24. Aggregate Patterns of Coparent Selection . . . . . . . 169 25. The Hacienda Period Prior to 1940 . . . . . . . . . 175 26. The State- Run Ejido Period (Henequeneros de Yucatan): 1941- 1955 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 27. The Federal (Bangrario) Ejido Period: 1956 to 1970 . . . 181 28. Kin-Group Choice by Sex of the Initiate . . . . . . . 184 29. Frequency Distribution of Marriage in San Antonio . . . . 190 30. Average Age at Marriage and Re-Marriage by Sex . . . . . 190 31. Changing Patterns of Coparent Selection . . . . . . . 207 32. Estimated Average Weekly Income . . . . . . . . . . 221 33. Martin: Average Household Expenses Per Week . . . . . 227 34. Javier: Average Household Expenses Per Week . . . . . 232 35. Maximo: Average Household Expenses Per Week . . . . . 239 36. Prudencio: Average Household Expenses Per Week . . . . 244 37. Jorge: Average Household Expenses Per Week . . . . . . 250 38. Alejandro: Average Extended Household Expenses Per Week . 263 39. Eduardo: ~Average Dependent Household Expenses Per Week . . 267 40. Pablo: Average Independent Household Expenses Per Week . . 268 41. Income Allocation/Week/Capita: The Nuclear Family . . . 270 42. Income Allocation/Week/Capita: Extended and Post- Extended Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 43. Income Fluctuation in San Antonio, 3/20/71-5/28/71 . . . 277 ix Figure #00“) 01 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. LIST OF FIGURES The Peninsula of Yucatan The Community of San Antonio . Mortality in San Antonio and Maax Distribution of Henequen Fields in San Antonio by Productive Status (1955-1980) . . . . Ritual Coparenthood . Compadrazgo Selection: Kin Choices Compadrazgo Selection: Non-Kin Choices Re-Marriage and the Fluidity of Affination Affirmation of Affination . Martin: Nuclear Family in a Compound Domestic Group . Javier Maximo Prudencio Jorge Alejandro Weekly Per Capita Average: Income Versus Expenditures Planilla I: Comisariado Ejidal . Planilla II: Consejo de Vigilancia Planilla III: Third Candidate Candidacy and the Use of Space Page 38 55 76 126 149 185 186 194 198 223 231 238 243 249 264 274 299 303 305 308 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Aseguradora--Aseguradora Nacional Agricola y Ganadera, S.A. Bangrario-eBanco Agrario de Yucatan, S.A. Banjidal--Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal ( )§§E§§:-Centros de Estudios Politicos, Econ6micos y Sociales P.R.I. C4N;§L:-Confederaci6n Nacional de Campesinos CONASUPO--Campafiia Nacional de Subsistencias Populares CORDEMEX--Cordeleros de Mexico, S.A. Daggf-Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonizacion D.I.S.A.--Documentos Inéditos de San Antonio Henequeneros--Henequeneros de Yucatan ( )I§£§§:-Instituto de Estudios Politicos, Econ6micos y Sociales P.R.I. P.R.I.--Partido Revolucionario Institucional S.A.G.--Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganaderia xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION San Antonio in Perspective Plantation Ex-Hacienda Collective Ejido Local Ejidal Credit Society Land Reform in the Henequen Zone: Research and Critiques The Study of an Ex-Hacienda, Plantation Community Fieldwork and Methodology San Antonio in Perspective 1 an ejido2 land-reform community in This study of San Antonio, the henequen zone of Yucatan, represents one contribution to a long neglected area in the anthropology of Mexico. As recently noted by Raymond Wilkie (1971: xiii), outside of Oscar Lewis's discussion of the ejido in the municipal center of Tepoztlan (1951), intensive analyses of single ejido communities are conspicuously lacking in the anthropolo- gical literature. In the description and analysis that follows, San Antonio provides a focal point and is used as one vehicle in the examination of the processes and effects of land reform in the northern ecozone of Yucatan. In order to understand the significance of behavior in contemporary San Antonio, it is necessary to place this ejido in the context of its historical origins and the succession of exogenous social, political, and economic institutions that have controlled and continue to control its economy and organization. In 1937, President Lazaro Cardenas initiated a land reform program that transformed the jural status of San Antonio from a com- munity of plantation wage laborers (acasillados) on an henequen hacienda to a collective ejido, an autonomous, communally-landholding, population unit. The past is not merely history, however, but profoundly affects life in San Antonio. Despite more than three decades as an established ejido community, the people of San Antonio still frequently refer to themselves as "105 acasillados" and to their community as simply "1a hacienda." Contemporary San Antonio can be variously described as a plantation community, an ex-hacienda, a collective ejido, or a local credit society. All of these labels are applicable and all have refer- ence to aspects of land tenure, mode of production, and control over the means of production. As a plantation community, San Antonio, rather than subsistence-oriented, is part of a larger area emphasizing the monocrop cultivation of henequen. The community is the lowest link in a productive chain which supplies raw henequen fiber and items manufactured from that fiber to regional, national, and international markets. In the aftermath of the Mexican revolution of 1910, the peasants of San Antonio were released from the bondage of indebted servitude characteristic of the hacienda (private landholding) system in Yucatan. The agrarian reform of 1937 established community autonomy, provided the community with expropriated hacienda lands, and required the in- habitants, the legal members of the ejido community, to engage in a collectivized form of exploiting those lands. As a federally endowed ejido, the organizational structure is supervised and regulated by the Mexican Department of Agrarian Affairs (DAAC). As a henequen plantation ejido, San Antonio is officially defined as a "local ejidal credit society" whose productive efforts and financial operation are strictly controlled by the Agrarian Bank of Yucatan (Bangrario), a regional branch of the National Ejido Credit Bank (Banjjdal). Although the ejido conmunity of San Antonio has been created by the agrarian reform program, the people continue to depend on the owner-heir of the residual smallholdings (the pequefia propiedad) of Hacienda San Antonio. Together, the descriptive labels provide the context for the analysis of social, political, and economic organization in San Antonio. The labels are descriptive of not only the contemporary ejido community, but of its past and the succession of institutions which have controlled and affected San Antonio since the expansion of the henequen industry in the late nineteenth century. Plantation Land utilization patterns in the northern zone of Yucatan were drastically altered in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Productive emphases shifted from the raising of cattle and corn to the large-scale cultivation of henequen (Agave fourcroydes) and the extrac- tion of the fiber contained in the slender, spiny leaves of this cactus- 1ike plant. The northern zone shifted from a tendency towards economic self-sufficiency to an export economy associated with fiber production and monocrop emphasis on the cultivation of henequen. - As a plantation community, the mode of production in San Antonio is constrained by characteristics of the henequen plant. Henequen is indigenous to Yucatan and thus far seems the only commercially valuable plant adaptive to both the sparse soils and the arid winters of the northern environment. The cultivation of a henequen field is itself an economic activity that requires investment and planning throughout a growth period spanning more than twenty-five years. The initial six to eight years of early growth (cultivo) are years of investment with- iaut return. The fields must be periodically weeded to minimize competi- tion from other plants for scarse soil nutrients and water. During the sixth through eighth year, leaves are harvested but the fiber content is low and the rate of economic return minimal. The period of full production lasts from the eighth through the twenty-fifth year of cultivation (explotacién) after which the plant typically produces a central flowering stalk, and dies. By cutting the stalk as it emerges, thus preventing the aging agaves from flowering, another two years of production (decadencia) may be added to the cycle. The henequen plant reaches a height of approximately two to three meters with leaves emanating radially from a central trunk. The leaves are long (up to 2.5 meters in length), slender, and fleshy, terminating in an extremely sharp, spiny point. During each of the three annual harvesting cycles, an average of seven leaves per plant are selected for cutting and transport to the central processing factory (desfibradora). The cultivation and harvesting of henequen leaves remains the only non-mechanized stage in the process leading to the manufacture of cordage, twine, and other products from henequen fiber. There is some differentiation in tasks associated with annual cutting and weeding cycles, yet there is very little occupational specialization among the workers themselves. Independent of the particular task, a concession is made by all field workers to the environment: work typically takes place either early or late in the day. Heat, humidity, and the absence of air movement in the densely planted henequen fields makes work both uncomfortable and unhealthy if performed at midday or during the early hours of the afternoon. The effective plantation cultivation of henequen requires the careful integration of short-term and long-term planning. During each yearly cycle, care must be exercised in both the weeding and cutting operations. If the fields are not weeded, or if the worker is careless, competing plants will lower the overall yield and quality of the fiber produced and make entry into the fields difficult for the cutters. If too many leaves are cut during the harvest cycle, the plant may be unable to withstand the long winter drought. Finally, if central stalks are not cut before they flower, the resulting release of pollen will trigger an entire field into a premature state of decline. Long-term planning is associated with both the life-cycle of the henequen plant and the economics of plantation agriculture. To minimize fluctuation of returns from henequen, fields must be maintained in various stages of development. In the absence of large capital reserves or ready sources of long-term credit, it would be disastrous to plant all available fields at the same time. Income would be maximized during the productive years, only to be followed by several more years of unproductive investment in the clearing, re-planting and weeding operations. Ex-Hacienda Prior to 1937, the ejido lands and the community itself were part of the larger holdings of the Hacienda San Antonio. Together, these holdings formed an integrated production unit comprised of lands, labor, and a primary processing factory, or decorticator, which seperates the fiber from the pulp and skin of the henequen leaf. As a type, Hacienda San Antonio fit the pattern of the engenho plantation, "the subculture of the workers on family-owned estates" (Wagley and Harris, 1974: 37). The owner's house on the hacienda, with its attached servant's quarters and chapel, formed the hub around which the social, economic, political, and religious life of San Antonio revolved. The central core (ggsgg) of the hacienda included the main house (gg§a_ principal), warehouses, corral, primary processing factory (desfibradora) and, immediately outside of the stone walls of the owner's gardens and orchard, the community of workers. The relationship of the owner (hacendado or 225565) to the worker (2292) involved the qualities of both personalism and paternalism, a combination of benevolence and dominance. Throughout much of this period, Mayan workers received, in return for work performed on the hacienda, a house, a small plot of land to cultivate in their spare time, and "paper" wages in the form of a credit account at the hacienda store (tienda de raya or "company store"). Though debt peonage was officially abolished in 1914, the tienda de raya continued to inhibit out-migration by effectively preventing the necessary capital accumu- lation. The patr6n, or his administrators, not only controlled all aspects of the production of henequen fiber, but also regulated community life, rewarding loyal and diligent members and severely punishing those who acted contrary to the owner's image of “proper" productive and social behavior. As an ex-hacienda, the people of San Antonio are still very much influenced by and dependent upon the descendent-heir of the original founder of the hacienda. Land reform reduced the size of the private holdings by approximately 80%, but the heirs were allowed to retain a few fields and the core area (gasgg) containing the major buildings and factory, all contiguous to the newly created, independent ejido community of San Antonio. Because of these remnant holdings (the pequefiaprgpiedad or "smallholding"), the ex-hacendado (now referred to 'as the pequefio,prgpietario) continues to provide full and part-time employment for over half of the community. The pequefio propietario provides financial assistance to the community which goes beyond simple payment of wages for work performed. In return for his individual loans and general community assistance, the owner has enhanced his own prestige and maintains a relationship with the ejidatarios that is reminiscent of the previous pattern of patan/pean paternalism. Due to his continuing support of the com- munity, the owner is known in Mérida as one who is progressive; he is known as one who does not bitterly fault the ejidatarios of San Antonio for the act of expropriation of the family hacienda. Collective Ejido By governmental decree, San Antonio is organized as an autonomous. collective ejido (ejido colectivo). Community members (ejidatarios) receive common usufruct rights to cooperatively exploit expropriated hacienda lands. The physical community of San Antonio was included among the expropriated lands and individual ejidatario heads of house- hold receive rights to a lot (solar) and house. Officers are elected from among the membership of the ejido and are responsible for the organization of production and the internal governance of the ejido. On an ideological level, the 1937 land reform program was designed to release the peons (acasillados) from their conditions of extreme poverty and social, political, and economic domination by the landholding elite of Yucatan. One of the major goals of land reform concerned the planned transition of peasants and rural proletarians from the status of pe6n in a context of hacienda paternalism to that of independent agriculturalist who, at least potentially, would become a productive member of, and oriented towards, the national society. Toward these ends, the federal government promised financial, health, and educational assistance in addition to shared access to the newly created ejido community lands. The contrast between the ideological goals of Cardenas' program and the reality of ”reform" in the henequen zone closely parallels Charles Erasmus' distinction between "agrarian reform" and "land-tenure reform" (1969: 30 - 31). Full implementation of the original "agrarian reform" program would not only have restructured the distribution of land ("land-tenure reform"), but also would have extended control over the means of production to the ejidatarios. Cardenas planned to create "integrated agricultural and industrial units" (Cardenas, 1937: 341), giving the ejidatarios land, federally supplied financial and technical assistance, and, more importantly, usufruct rights to, or outright ownership of, the fiber-producing, decorticating factories of the expropriated haciendas. The rapidity of agrarian reform in the henequen zone resulted in an uneven distribution of lands of varying degrees of actual or potential productivity. The hacienda owners were allowed to select portions of land which would be legally respected as their remnant private landholdings (pequefias propiedades) and most owners retained the central casco and fields which were in the early phases of the 10 productive cycle. The majority of the ejidos received either lands going out of production, lands recently planted, requiring several years of investment in weeding and maintenance operations without economic return, or lands which were totally uncultivated. A minority of the ejidos were classified as "rich ejidos" (Rodriguez, 1966: 276), as ejidos which had received sufficient lands in production to support the members and their families. By 1938 Humberto Canto Echeverria, governor of Yucatan, usurped federal control and transformed the entire henequen zone into one single ejido (called "El Gran Ejido") which was to be administered by a State organization, Henequeneros de Yucatan (Henequeneros). In explaining his decision, Canto Echeverria made reference to a thesis expounded by the archaeologist Sylvanus Morley concerning the apparent practice of collective cultivation by the ancient Maya. In his autobiographical narrative, Canto Echeverria stated: "When Doctor Morley stated his thesis and spoke to me of the form in which the Mayas collectively cultivated the land, there arose in me the notion that such procedures could be and should be ap- plicable to the Yucatan of,our time in order to resolve her agrarian problems." (Rodriguez, 1966: 274, my translation.) Toward this end, Canto Echeverria returned most of the decorticator factories that had been expropriated (only 36 out of a total of 300 decorticators had actually been expropriated), organized Henequeneros to administer the regional allocation of work (ignoring the boundaries of individual ejidos) and to handle the processing, sale of the product, and the payment of wages and dividends to the ejidatarios. For the use of the decorticators, now in the hands of the original owners, Henequeneros paid the ex-hacendados 52% of the ejido fiber produced. 11 The ejidatarios, for their efforts in the cultivation, weeding, and harvesting of the leaves, received 48% of the fiber, less the costs of administration and the various commissions charged for the manage- ment of accounting and payment of the salaries of employees of Henequeneros (Gonzalez Navarro, 1970: 267; Rodriguez, 1966: 279 - 280). Administration of Henequeneros resided in a council directed by the governor and made up principally of private producers and ejidatarios. The ex-hacendados received the benefits derived from the remaining small property holdings, plus as a return for the cost of decortication, over 50% of the fiber produced on lands previously belonging to them. They were, in effect, released from having to pay the workers' salaries and from the investment burden associated with planting and maintaining new fields. During the period of control exerted by Henequeneros, the ejidos were viewed primarily as labor pools rather than defined popu- lation units associated with particular holdings of land. One author has concluded that the governor, through Henequeneros, transformed the henequen zone not into a "Gran Ejido" but, rather, into a "Gran Hacienda": With the approval of the plan of April, 1938, the gran hacienda, with 50 thousand workers and 200 thousand hectares under cultivation, began to take shape. . . . These (initial) successes extended a smoke screen which hid the continuing and dominant bitter reality: the salaries and allotments of work, decreed by Henequeneros, had in no way improved the condition of the peasants. (Benitez, 1962: 136, my translation.) In 1955, the Federal government ordered the dissolution of Henequeneros and re-established control over the ejido program through the National Ejido Credit Bank (Banjidal) and, after 1962, through the regional subsidiary Agrarian Bank of Yucatan (Bangrario). Ejido boundaries were 12 once again respected and ejidatarios were assigned work tasks at the level of their own ejidos rather than on a regional basis. The federal banks assumed productive control and management of the financial opera- tion of the ejidos. As an ejido, the community is conscious of the revolutionary agrarian reform ideology and the stated goal to integrate ejidatarios into the national economic and socio-political life of México. The people of San Antonio are also conscious of the fact that the means of production and marketing have remained under the control of a suc- cession of private, state, and federal institutions. Lands have been redistributed, the legal status of the community of San Antonio has changed, but productive control, control of the means of production, remains outside of the jurisdiction of the ejidatarios of San Antonio. Local Ejidal Credit Society As a local credit society (sociedad local de crédito ejidal), the ejido is closely supervised by the Agrarian Bank of Yucatan (Bangrario). By 1970-1971 (the ethnographic present of this study), the ejido of San Antonio had accumulated a total debt of approximately $500,000 pesos.3 As long as the ejido is unable to retire the debt, it remains under the strict control of the Bangrario and economic or productive autonomy remain an impossibility. In terms of the contractual arrangement between the ejido and the Bangrario, the ejido remains a "client" of the bank for the duration of its indebtedness. For the duration of the contractual period, the Bangrario lassumes control over the cultivation, harvesting, processing, and 13 marketing of henequen. The ejido receives a weekly allotment sheet which dictates the number of leaves to be harvested, the number of mecates4 to be weeded, cleared, or replanted, the amount of work assigned for the repair of field walls and access roads, etc. In the name of the ejido, the Bangrario also contracts for the decortication of leaves and arranges for the transport, storage, and final sale of the fiber in Mérida. The Bangrario maintains both short-term (ayig) and long-term (refaccionario) loan accounts for the ejido. Short-term loans are extended weekly for payment of assigned work related to the yearly production cycle and the maintenance of the henequen fields. Work that is related to the longer life-cycle of the plant (clearing, planting new fields, etc.) iS charged against the long-term loan account of the ejido. At the end of the fiscal year, the Bangrario calculates the total earnings from the sale of fiber and deducts the administrative and other charges (processing, marketing, etc.) from the total. The remainder of the earnings, by priority, are used to cancel the Short- term interest and principal and the interest and principal payment due on the long-term account. After these deductions, any excess is to be returned to the ejido for distribution to the ejidatarios as "profit.” Because of the extent of indebtedness, the ejidatarios of San Antonio receive no profits and, accordingly, refer to the weekly loans as simply "wages." Provisions of the contract with the Bangrario prohibit inde- pendent or autonomous use of henequen fields by the ejidatarios. Since ‘the ejidatarios receive money only for assigned work, expansion or 14 alteration of productive activities is not possible. The control exerted by the bank over the processing and marketing of the fiber makes unlaw- ful any attempt to circumvent governmental restrictions through inde- pendent agreements or efforts on the part of the ejidatarios. Perceptions concerning the institutional control of ejidos by the Bangrario vary with the perspective of the observor. Based on the fluctuation of world market prices for henequen and competition from synthetic fibers, the government believes that the survival of the henequen industry depends upon complete control over all phases of production and marketing. 0n the local level, in order to minimize suspicions of graft and favoritism, the Bangrario emphasizes imperson- alistic relations through the periodic rotation of field representatives. At the community level, the ejidatarios of San Antonio see themselves as captive wage-laborers in the employ of a faceless, bureaucratic patr6n rather than an actual hacendado. One of the primary objectives of this study of'San Antonio is to analyze the combined effects of land reform and institutional control onaniex-hacienda community. Of particular interest are the ways in which San Antonio has adapted to and been altered by the contradictions of reform ideology5 and the dual reality of restrictive federal control and the powerful presence of the heir to the remnant holdings and the decorticating factory of Hacienda San Antonio. Land Reform in the Henequen Zone: Research and Critiques Given the significance of the economic importance, over the last century, of henequen for the state and the nation, it is curious 15 that research in Yucatan has all but ignored the plantation haciendas of the northern ecozone of that state. In the earlier studies of Steggerda (1941), Redfield and Villa Rojas (1934) and Redfield (1941),, the search for Mayan "Indians" and "folk culture" led those authors conspicuously away from the henequen haciendas of northern Yucatan.6 Early impressions of the haciendas vary from the journalist Turner's expressions of shock and dismay concerning the mistreatment of planta- tion slaves at the hands of the landowners (1911: 7 - 28), to the resultant pacific tranquility of the hacienda which the Archaeologist Morley apparently found so conducive for writing (1956: viii). More recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in Yucatan in general, and the henequen zone in particular, by both Mexican 7 Shirley Deshon, for example, analyzed and U.S. anthropologists. patterns of social interaction and fictive kinship (compadrazgo) in an ex-hacienda community (Deshon, 1963). While she described aspects of the ejido structure of Mukui-il (Deshon, 1959). her main focus was oriented towards the status and roles of women in a Mayan plantation (ex-hacienda) community. Roland Chardon, a cultural geographer, examined patterns of land tenure and production (1961) among private landowners (ex-hacendados) and the community and town ejidos. Chardon concluded that because land reform had resulted in productive inefficiency and disorganization in the henequen zone, the ejido should be abandoned and the henequen hacienda reinstated as the basic unit of production (1963: 192 - 193). One anthropologist, Nathaniel Raymond (1971), has presented an extensive analysis of the historical development of the henequen 16 region and land reform in Yucatan. In his study, special reference is given to the groups that have variously controlled or attempted to control the monocrop production of fiber: private landowners, entre- preneurs, the state and federal governments, and the U.S. based, International Harvester Company. Unlike Chardon, Raymond does not view the ejido program as a failure, but maintains that in Yucatan, the program did not lead to "reform" at all. Land reform altered the structure of the units of production, through the creation of ejidos and the expropriation of large landholdings, but without altering either the mode of production or, at least from the worker's point of view, the structure of access to, and control over, the means of production (Raymond, 1968). While Chardon attributed lowered produc- tive efficiency in the ejidal sector to the general inability of the workers to accept the necessary responsibilities with regard to organization and work effort, Raymond views lowered productivity and extreme factionalization of a town ejido as resulting from a prematurely arrested land reform program and the subsequent manipulation of ejidatarios by external, special interest groups. Utilizing, as dis- cussed earlier, the terminological distinctions of Charles Erasmus (1969: 30 - 31), Yucatan seems to have experienced a program of land- tenure reform, redistribution of land, rather than agrarian reform and the associated total restructuring of the social, political, and economic organization of the agrarian sector. Rather than view the general ejido land reform program as "Mexico's Way Out" (Simpson, 1937), critics of agrarian reform in Mexico, like Chardon in Yucatan, base their conclusions on the analysis of 17 aggregate statistics concerning demographic and productive character- istics of ejidos and private holdings (pequefias propiedades). Whetten, for example, viewed the Mexican ejidos as primarily non-commercial, subsistence-oriented, agricultural communities which had the potential to contribute to the growth of the national economy, but which were hampered by the small scale of production, a general lack of capital, and an emphasis on individual rather than collective cultivation (Whetten, 1948: 214, 243 - 249). Whetten, along with other critics, felt that the ejido program functioned primarily as a device of politi- cal expediency, designed to pacify the peasant's desire for land. Based on his analysis of the 1940 census data, Whetten suggested that the economic future of Mexico rested upon the continued support of the more commercially-oriented, and productively successful, private land- holding units. Since the release of the 1960 census material, major rebuttals have been leveled against the criticisms of the Mexican land reform program.8 Lucio Mendieta y Nufiez (1968: 514) and Francois Chevalier (1967: 166) criticize the over-reliance of many investigators on the published statistics concerning land reform, development, and economic productivity. Both authors call attention to the fact that until recently, methods of data collection and quantification have been far from standardized. In addition, Chevalier argues that the statistics obscure many factors which inhibit intensive production for the national market, factors that are beyond the control of the ejidatarios them- selves. Among these, Chevalier notes that ejido land is rarely the best land in a given region. Irrigated lands, specifically, have most 18 often remained in the hands of private owners. With respect to the statistical "fact" of inferior per capita market production in the ejidal sector, Chevalier notes that there is often a large "hidden" population which, by virtue of its extended kin relationships to the legally entitled ejidatario, is dependent for subsistence on a typically small portion of land and, therefore, a smaller portion of the harvest enters the marketplace. Chevalier argues that ejido agricultural production is signifi- cant, but that the effect on the national market economy actually becomes dissipated when one considers the problems of over-population and resultant poverty. Over-population and an environment of govern- mental “neo-paternalism" and dominance results in the stagnation of ejidos and the decline of innovative and productive efforts on the part of subordinated ejidatarios (1967: 194). Criticisms of the land reform program in Yucatan, in that they stress over-population and underproduction, are similar to those leveled against the Mexican reform programs in general. Examination of ag- gregate statistics concerning henequen production in the state of Yucatan seems to support the conclusion that private holdings are more productive than ejidos. A planning report issued prior to the 1970 presidential elections by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I., n.d.)9 noted that of the total number of henequen ejidos, 10% operated with a margin of profit, 40% were barely able to cover expenses, and 50% operated at a loss, requiring continuing subsidies from the Bangrario. Production figures in the P.R.I. report indicate that 19 for 1969, production per hectare was significantly lower in the ejidal sector (542 kg./hectare) than in the private sector (1,200 kg./hectare).10 The P.R.I. report also compares ejido demographic structure at the time of the 1937 land reform (32,000 families with total holdings of 180,000 hectares), with the structure in 1969 (71,400 families on 205,000 hectares). During this period, the average family share dropped from 5.6 hectares to 2.9 hectares and, according to the P.R.I. estimate, has resulted in approximately 30,000 families living in a condition of "disguised unemployment" in the henequen zone. The Banco de Comercio (of Mexico), in a 1969 report on the economy of Yucatan, closely paralleled the P.R.I. assessment: It is generally accepted in Yucatan that the pequefia propiedad has been more productive than the ejido. This is confirmed by both the statistics and the physical appearance of the (henequen) fields. (Banco de Comercio, 1969: 30, my translation.) In subsequent paragraphs the Banco de Comercio described both quantitative and qualitative differences which show the ejido to be inferior to the private holdings in both production and the costs of production. In a brief attempt to account for these differences, the authors stated that: To a certain extent, the ejidatarios' lack of incentives is due to peasant overpopulation and the paternalistic attitude of the (Bangrario) authorities. (Banco de Comercio, 1969: 30, my translation.) Further comparison of aggregate statistics from diverse sources seems to confound rather than clarify. The 1960 National Agrarian Census summary (Census, 1965: 413) on henequen production in Yucatan (Table 1) presents a different assessment of ejido production as compared with that on private holdings. Table 2 (below) further summarizes statistical differences in the percentage of land in production that is controlled 20 TABLE l.--Annua1 Henequen Production.]] Production/Hectarea Ejidos Private Holdings (1960) (Over 5 Hectares) Leaves Harvested 45,000 44,590 Value of Fiber (Pesos) $1,874.64 $1,694.52 aSource: Census, 1965: 413. TABLE 2.--Ejido Landholdings and Production.12 Per Cent of State Total 1960a 1963-1967b 1969c Ejido Holdings in Production 73.4% 70% 74.5% Ejido Henequen Production 75.3% 63% 57.5% aNational Agrarian Census (Census, 1965: 413). bBanco de Comercio, 1969: 30. cP.R.I., n.d. by ejidos and the percentage of total henequen production represented as deriving from those ejido holdings. ' An examination of the figures (cf. Tables 1 and 2) demonstrates. an apparent decline in ejido production and an associated increase in the share of production on private holdings. Assuming the figures are accurate, one might conclude that factors other than simple ejido inefficiency are significant. During the period 1955 to 1970, a number of institutional changes occurred relative to control over ejido production and the marketing of fiber. With the 1955 dissolution of 21 Henequeneros, the National Ejidal Credit Bank (Banjidal) controlled the henequen ejidos until it was replaced, in 1962, by the subsidiary Agrarian Bank of Yucatan (Bangrario). The latter institution, as already noted, has exerted an absolute monopoly over production on a large number of indebted ejidos. By 1964, the federal government extended its monopoly to include the manufacture of henequen products through the acquisition of controlling interest in the unified manu- facturing complex of CORDEMEX (Cordeleros de México) in Mérida. This industrial complex receives fiber from both ejido and private producers and manufactures cordage and other products for internal and export markets. The government has invested a great deal of capital to centralize, modernize, and diversify product processing, manufacturing, and marketing. In order to reduce production costs, CORDEMEX has consistently rated ejido fiber as low in quality and paid accordingly low prices to its chief supplier, the Bangrario. The effects of this practice are felt in both a lowered income to ejidos for a given quantity of fiber and a statistical bias which officially characterizes ejido fiber as of conspicuously low quality. A further statistical bias, preJUdicial against apparent ejido productivity, results from the lowered prices paid by CORDEMEX, and the Bangrario practice of absorbing, as payment on outstanding debts, all monies in excess of wage-payment that are derived from the sale of fiber. Reportedly, ejidatarios, singly and as groups, have sold fiber surreptitiously to the private land owners. This sosquil de luna, "midnight fiber" (Rodriguez, 1966: 290), or fuga de pencas, "escaping leaves" (Raymond, 1971: 158), since it is listed as part of the private landowner's 22 harvest, tends to inflate productivity figures related to the private sector, and deflate the apparent productivity of the ejidal sector in Yucatan. The Study of an Ex-Hacienda, Plantation Community The ejido of San Antonio exists in an extremely restrictive physical and cultural environment. The physical environment is re- strictive in the limited amount of land available to the community for commercial production. Land reform affected the region surrounding San Antonio in a way that makes further expansion of community holdings an impossibility. The community is surrounded by lands belonging to towns and private owners and which are within the allowable limit imposed by the Agrarian Code of Mexico. Land, the basic resource, must be considered as non-expandable, as fixed and in limited supply. The cultural environment is restrictive most obviously in terms of the economics of production and distribution. The Bangrario and CORDEMEX, together, constitute a governmental monopoly which controls the means to both production and marketing, determining both the amount and type of work to be authorized on the local level and the amount of return to be allowed for productive efforts. From the perspective of the individual ejidatario family, the economic environment is not merely restrictive, but is actually shrinking in terms of relative income and assigned shares of the total work allocated. At the time of land reform, in 1937, there were a total of 44 adult males legally entitled to be registered as members of the newly created ejido of San Antonio. Under the provisions of the Mexican 23 Agrarian Code, dotation of expropriated lands was calculated on the basis of four hectares per certified ejidatario plus, in the case of San Antonio, an additional unit to support the community school and thirteen units of additional land to adjust for future population expansion; a total of 58, four hectare units to be exploited collec- tively by the ejidatarios. By 1970, the number of certified and eligible ejidatarios in San Antonio had increased to 84 and the Agrarian Code, since 1943, has specified a minimum of ten hectares as necessary to adequately support an ejidatario and his family. Along with a general increase in population, the absolute number of ejidatarios has increased in San Antonio, while the original dotation has been officially redefined as inadequate to support even the number of ejidatarios living in San Antonio at the time land reform was instituted. The ejido of San Antonio exists as part of what Eric Wolf gener- ally refers to as an "administrative domain" in which the state "claims ultimate sovereignty over the land, and . . . affects agricultural production as well as the disposal of its produce" (Wolf, 1966: 57). In order to enhance their own economic and social position within the monocrop henequen zone, the ejidatarios continue to function as a labor pool within the "mercantile domain" (Wolf, 1966: 53) of the private smallholder or pequefio propietario. The combination of external control and influence and internal pressures of population growth and associated poverty, has created for the people of San Antonio not a "view," nor an '“hnage,” but a realistic assessment of "their total environment--as one i11‘which all of the desired things in life . . . exist in finite quantity arui are always in short supply" (Foster, 1967: 304). Rather than 24 transforming the community into invidious, competitive familial segments, this assessment has contributed to the existence of varying levels of collective action for the benefit of the community in general, and both fluidity and flexibility in patterns of intra-community alliances and actions that have actual or potential adaptive value. Within the institutional and historical context of San Antonio, it is this flexi- bility in adaptation, the inner dynamic of San Antonio, that is the subject of this study of an ejido de acasillados in the henequen planta- tion zone of Yucatan. Fieldwork and Methodology The initial period of fieldwork (June to August, 1970) was devoted to our participation in the Mérida-based team project directed by Professor Fernando Camara B., of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (I.N.A.H.) and Professors Scott Cook and Joseph Spielberg of the Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University. Involvement in this project, itself an educational experience, provided the opportunity to exchange information and ideas with the host-country professionals and students participating in the project, to engage in background research, and to conduct a site survey. It was at the end of this period that the ex-hacienda com- munity was selected, by myself and my spouse, for more intensive study and analysis. We resided in the community of San Antonio from the middle of August, 1970, until June of 1971. To provide a base-line study for later comparative research concerning proletarian adaptation and the effects of agrarian reform 25 in Latin America, it was decided that an ex-hacienda, plantation ejido community would be selected for detailed analysis. San Antonio fit the major criteria and provided the opportunity to study patterns of inter- action between a proletarian population (the ejido community), a con- trolling governmental agency (the Bangrario), and an extremely influ- ential member of the private sector (the pequefio propietario, present owner of the residual holdings and descendant of the original founder of Hacienda San Antonio). The availability of a residence in the community affected, to some extent, the selection of San Antonio. It was found that in in- stances where local housing was available, it usually was associated with community outmigration to nearby towns and, therefore, a general depopulation of the ex-hacienda community. In many of the cases sur- veyed, workers could migrate to the towns, enjoy conveniences such as electricity, increased availability of health care, and ease of transportation access to Mérida, and still retain their rights as members of the proximal hacienda ejido. Since San Antonio was still a viable community, no local housing was available. Fortunately, the owner of the residual holdings, who himself resided in Mérida, very graciously offered the use of his relatively modest casa princi- pgl_(owner's house) which, until our arrival, had been utilized as a warehouse for excess henequen fiber. The generosity, interest, and support demonstrated by the pequefio propietario initially heightened the reserve and suspicion with which we were treated by the members of the ejido community. The peOple initially assumed that we were either employees of the 26 Mexican government, employees of the pequefio propietario himself, or his relatives. As we continued to reside in San Antonio and interact with members and their families, rapport increased and most of the initial suspicion and reservation decreased significantly. As a part of the I.N.A.H./M.S.U. Summer Project, we were requested to administer, early in the fieldwork period, a census questionnaire to the various heads of household in the community. Respondents seemed cooperative but it later became clear that the informants, not yet sure of our role in the community, had withheld or underestimated a considerable amount of information. Several months after the questionnaires had been coded and filed with I.N.A.H., informants began to volunteer information which they "had forgotten" at the time of the original census. To correct some of these in- accuracies and to provide supplementary information, each household was revisited near the end of the fieldwork period. The objectives of the second visit were (1) to cross-check and verify genealogical relationships, (2) to gather specific information concerning the selection of coparents (compadres) and godparents (padrinos), (3) and to review and correct, where necessary, information collected during the initial community census. Data obtained from participant observation, informant inter- views, and the survey questionnaires, were supplemented through the examination and recording of various documents and archival materials pertinent to San Antonio in particular and the henequen zone in general. A number of local production records were made available by both the officials of the ejido and the manager of the pequefia propiedad of 27 San Antonio. Ejido archives included Bangrario work allotment state- ments and bills of lading only for the period from 1966 through 1968. Work records retained by ejido officials were available for additional periods and this allowed, in the absence of official Bangrario state- ments, for at least a partial reconstruction of productive trends and characteristic features of henequen fields and plantings on the ejido. The owner of the pequefia propiedad, the private holdings, made available documents (D.I.S.A.) relevant to the pre-reform tactics of resistance employed by the Hacienda owner and the post-reform transfers of the ownership which culminated in the present descendant's control of the pequefia propiedad. Officials in many governmental agencies cooperated in making available documents pertinent to understanding the history of San Antonio and the kinds of changes that have occurred prior to, and subsequent to, land reform. The Director of the Maax Civil Registry office allowed municipal birth, death, and marriage records to be examined and copied. He assisted voluntarily in indentifying particu- larly faded or otherwise illegible entries. These records are important in that they provide significant information relative to the kinds of demographic changes that have occurred coincident with changes in labor reform and land reform legislation in Yucatan. The municipal records also provided invaluable information which allowed for the recon- struction of patterns of consanguineal and affinal relations, in the case of some families, back to the middle of the last century. Officials of the Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonizacidn, the federal agency responsible for regulating the 28 organizational structure of ejidos, completely opened their archival materials relative to the ejidos of San Antonio, Maax, and Xamach. These files contained boundary maps, copies of the presidential resolutions implementing land reform, reports and statements by field agents of the institution, and letters and other documents rela— tive to elections and reported local disputes. The federal office of the Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganaderia (S.A.G.), which retains administrative control over the DAAC office, provided copies of general production totals and prices obtained for fiber by rural producers, on a regional basis. Letters of introduction requested by Professor Fernando Camara 8., and provided by Don Carlos Loret de Mola, Governor of the State of Yucatan, assisted greatly in providing a legitimate basis for access to information maintained by various state and federal agencies. Of the various institutions, only the Bangrario proved intractable. A detailed record of the accumulation of the massive ejido debt was never released either to myself or to the ejidatarios of San Antonio. The office of the Bangrario was visited repeatedly throughout the twelve month period of fieldwork, but usually with the same negative results. It was near the end of the fieldwork period, after visiting the Bangrario with officials from the ejido of San Antonio, that an interview was granted with the Director and Sub- Director of that institution and minimal financial summaries were released to this investigator. Since we had the only vehicle in the community, we were able to provide a service to the community and our automobile was frequently 29 used to take community members to visit doctors in nearby towns or to the ejido hospital in Mérida. From the first emergency trip to the last, a sequence of interaction became established and, without fail, repeated. Upon returning to the community, the infirmed or a close family member would ask "how much" they owed for the trip and the favor. Hearing the reply, "nothing," the individuals would appear to be uncomfortable as they left the vehicle and returned to their houses. The discomfort was clearly related to the fact that, given the general unavailability of cash in the community, the only alter- native to cash payment for services would be obligatory reciprocity. Following a trip to visit a doctor in a nearby town, a family would offer items (usually comestibles: condiments, soft drinks, or a small packet of tortillas) as symbolic repayment (in the context of reci- procity) for services rendered. In a few cases, such as one which involved a trip to the ejido hospital in Mérida (beginning at 2:00 a.m.) and which involved several hours waiting for the appearance of a doctor, the diagnosis, and news regarding the severity of the illness, com- munity members would determine that even a symbolic repayment was beyond their means to reciprocate. In these cases, the principals would acknowledge the service and their inability to reciprocate, even symbolically, with the phrase "Dios se lo pague!" "God will repay you!" A photographic darkroom was set up in our house and photographic prints were frequently given as gifts to informants and key families cooperating in the study. The photographs, as with the use of the vehicle, were not viewed as compensation for time they gave up to the 3O anthropologist but, rather, were viewed as "gifts" initiating a personalized relationship of reciprocity. Invariably, the gifts of prints would result in counter prestations of, again, comestibles. In an attempt to balance debts of reciprocity incurred during the ten months in San Antonio, my wife and myself decided to devote one evening to a slide show of pictures we had taken of the community and the people, and to provide refreshments to everyone attending. The ejido officials and friends assisted in the organization of the "Show" and helped me to whitewash one outside wall of the community school to be used as a screen. The pequefio propietario loaned a projector and the local school teacher and his students organized a series of dances as intermission entertainment. Invitations were extended to all members of the community, the pequefio propietario and his family, the parish priest, and the municipal president of Maax. The slide Show seemed to be a success and, following its termination, I produced a few bottles of rum to further compensate the friends who had assisted in organizing the affair. My desire to make the show a final "gift" to the community failed; we were not to be so easily released from the obligatory net- work of reciprocity. A few nights later, after we had retired to our hammocks, a serenade began outside of our bedroom window. Looking out, we discovered that community families had brought refreshments, hired two guitarists from Maax, and proceeded to present us with a tremendously enjoyable despedida (farewell party) which lasted well into the morning of the next day. 31 It was our privilege to have lived in San Antonio, to have been able to share experiences with the families and friends of this ejido community, and to have been included in a social network of obligatory ties which effectively communicates a desire to continue the amicable and personalized relations established through reci- procity. It is not clear precisely when the transition was made from our initial status of suspected strangers to the more enjoyable status of foreign friends. The transition itself, undoubtedly, was a gradual process but, nevertheless, one particular event indicated to me that the change had definitely occurred. Early in the second half of the fieldwork period, Filo, then president of the ejido of San Antonio, invited me to accompany him and some friends to a fiesta in the municipal center of Maax. While seated at a table in the Maax plaza, and enjoying a few beers, Filo began to converse with some town dwellers seated at the next table. After a few minutes, one of the men gestured towards me and asked Filo who I was. Filo looked at me and‘smiled, turned back to face the man from Maax, and replied, "Oh, he's our anthropologist." CHAPTER I--FOOTNOTES 1"San Antonio" is a pseudonym for the actual community studied in Yucatan. Pseudonyms are used throughout this dissertation to dis- guise the precise location of San Antonio and to protect the privacy of key informants. 2Spanish terms are underlined and defined only when initially used in the dissertation. Similarly, titles and abbreviations for key federal and state institutions are underlined only with respect to their initial appearance. For the convenience of the reader, the terms and abbreviations are also defined in the "LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS" and in the "GLOSSARY." 3The debt is expressed in pesos ("Moneda Nacional") and apparently accumulated during the period of administrative control exerted by the Banjidal (1955-1962). Both the ejidatarios and this investigator attempted to discover how and precisely when this debt was incurred, but to no avail. By the time I left San Antonio, in the summer of 1971, the ejido had still not received fiscal state- ments from the Bangrario for either 1969 or 1970. 4"Mecate" refers to a unit of land measuring 20 meters by 20 meters, 25 mecates to the hectare. 5Speeches by politicians and officials, that deal with the henequen zone, do not fail to refer to some aspect of reform ideology and the ejido. The following example is taken from a speech delivered by the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture, at the ejidatarios' "Casa del Pueblo" (C.N.C.), upon the occasion of the inauguration of the Banco Agrario de Yucatan: Esta es, compafieros campesinos, a grande rasgos, LA NUEVA REFORMA AGRARIA DE YUCATAN que esta siendo puesta en marcha por el Presidente Lapez Mateos. ’ La integracian de una economia mas humana, mas técnica, mas nacional; 1a integracion vertical del ejido hacia etapas de la industria, hace que el pan se reparta en mejor forma, que haya mejor justicia social en Yucatan. MuChas Gracias. (Puga y Castillo, 1962: 13) 6For a position that is especially critical of Redfield's ahistoricism, see Strickon (1965). 32 33 7As noted elsewhere, the study of San Antonio began as part of a combined team project sponsored by the Mexican I.N.A.H. and the M.S.U. Department of Anthropology. 8In terms of the national ejido program of Mexico, a major rebuttal is provided to critics by F. Dovring, an agricultural econo- mist. Dovring compared the 1960 census on agricultural production with the previous census periods of 1940 and 1950. Controlling for inequities such as patterns of land distribution, Dovring (1969: 21- 22) arrived at the conclusion that: If permanent crops are kept separate from crops on arable land, then the ejidos registered a rate of gain in permanent crops in the first decade (1940-1950) that differed less from that of the farms over 5 hectares than was true of total crops; and in the second decade, (1950-1960) the rate was actually higher than on the larger farms. Since the land and the farm labor are free goods, from the viewpoint of the national economy, it appears that small-scale, labor-intensive production is less costly than large-scale production . . . (and) it is quite clear that the land reform has in no way impaired the economic development of Mexico. 9The P.R.I. report was located in the library of the Banco Agrario de Yucatan. No date of publication was listed, but I estimate that the report appeared sometime in early 1970. 10The latter category includes both parcelarios (individual holders of small plots of land) and pequefiospropietarios (owners of the residual hacienda estates). 1'The figures included in Table 1, are my calculations based on information concerning the total number of ejidal and private hectares in production, the total number of leaves harvested by each sector, and the total value of each sector's share of the harvest. This information is contained in the Fourth National Agrarian and Ejido Census of 1960 (Census, 1965: 413). 12The percentages included in Table 2, are calculated on the basis of shares of land in production, the number of leaves harvested, and the shares of kilograms of fiber produced by the ejidal and private sectors. The figures are not strictly comparable but, as noted earlier in this chapter, this is not an unusual problem when one attempts to compare statistical data from diverse sources and for different time periods. Working backwards, using the figure of 45 thousand- leaves (millares de pencas) from the Agrarian Census, and using the P. R. I. figure of 1,200 kilograms per hectare produced in the private sector, one arrives at a calculated figure of approxi- mately 27 kilograms per millar of leaves, an average yield that would be considered only Slightly lower than achieved by the pequena propiedad of San Antonio (about 28 kilograms per millar). CHAPTER II THE SETTING Introduction The Northern Ecozone of Yucatan Subsistencence Potential Mexico, Yucatan, and the "Oro Verde" San Antonio: The Community Setting Images of the Present and Selective Recall of the Past Reform and Change: the Demographic Evidence Summary and Conclusions 34 35 Introduction This chapter examines selected dimensions of the general setting, the cultural and ecological context of contemporary San Antonio. A temporal perspective complements the descriptive material, providing an analytic framework and a more general understanding of factors which have contributed to the formation of San Antonio as observed during the fieldwork period. The first two sections of this chapter include a general over- view of key physical and biotic features of the northern ecozone of Yucatan. Geological and climatological characteristics have affected the distribution and concentration of population in the state and have contributed to the present prominance of henequen production and the relative absence of productive diversification in this zone of the State of Yucatan. The next section summarizes major stages in the development of henequen fiber production and the associated shift from a mixed subsistence economy of cattle and corn to labor intensive plantations and singular dependence on an export-oriented economy. This trans- formation of henequen into the "oro verde" or "green gold" of Yucatan is associated historically with the major effects of semi-industriali- zation, an increasing international demand for fiber products, and the aftermath of a devastating Mayan peasant rebellion (the Caste War of Yucatan). A brief glimpse at Yucatecan history points to a distinc- tiveness, a separateness of Yucatan, apparent from the early post- conquest, a colonial period, within the national sector of Mexico. 36 The final sections of this chapter describe the setting of the community of San Antonio. The first presents a set of images con- cerning the physical community. The types and distribution of struc- tures in San Antonio point to the past hacienda system of exploitation and to the continued presence and influence of the owner-heir of the semi-industrialized, remnant holdings (the pequefia propiedad) of Hacienda San Antonio. The second of these sections examines some of the implications of the demographic structure and background of the ejido population. In part, the local perception of social and economic difficulties (low income, poor health, etc.) matches the more formal analyses which attribute these problems to a decline in the demand for natural fibers in the world market and the existence of a "localized overpopulation" in the henequen zone (Camara B., 1958; de la Pefia, 1964: 597). The demographic analysis of San Antonio and the larger munici- pality of Maax to which the community belongs, constitutes an exploration of the roots of this "overpopulation" and an attempt to reconstruct the more general demographic consequences of changes which have oc- curred during the pre- and post agrarian reform periods of this century. In a most literal sense, this chapter describes "the setting." The organization of this chapter serves to set the ejido community of San Antonio in the context of external and internal factors significant to the analysis and interpretation of contemporary behavior. "The setting" of San Antonio places it within a cultural-ecological matrix of physical, economic, social, political, and historical dimensions. 37 The Northern Ecozone of Yucatan The Yucatecan peninsula can perhaps be most economically described as simply a "low-lying plain . . . made up of horizontal limestone formations of relatively recent age" (James, 1959: 599). This characterization is succinct, yet has important consequences for the populace and economy of especially the northern zone of the State of Yucatan1 (cf. Figure 1). Despite an average annual rainfall of about 1,000 millimeters, (Table 3), this northern region is quite arid throughout much of the year. Vegetation varies from the tropical rainforest formation of the southern and eastern parts of the peninsula to a dry, low scrub brush or thicket zone in the northern part of the state (Wagner 1964: 258). Rainfall is heaviest during the months of June through September, with the winter months typically lacking in precipitation. Rainstorms in this semi-tropical zone are predictably torrential and brief. Limestone outcroppings abound and the relatively recent age of this plain results in a sparse and thin layer of poor soils. The water table is usually three to seven meters below the surface and while underground currents seem abundant, the porosity of the limestone shelf, together with the absence of geological relief, results in a conspicuous lack of streams or standing water. Occasionally, natural sinks or depressions in the limestone expose the ground water in natural wells or cenotes. Temple and village sites of the ancient Mayan civilization, Spanish colonial settlements, and many contemporary towns in Yucatan are logically cltnstered around the natural cenote wells. Even though water lies 38 Figure l.—-The Peninsula of Yucatan. ,- 30° 96° + 22° State of Yucatan .0. r San Antonio s" ,’ Henequen ,I . Zone 5" Mexico : City 1 '- 14° 39 TABLE 3.--Climatological Data for Mérida, Yucatan.a Month Median (°C) Precipitation Relative (1969) Temperature (mm.) Humidity January 23.7 10.5 73 February 24.1 9.7 68 March 24.5 30.2 68 April 28.2 20.8 67 May 28.7 83.7 73 June 29.0 95.5 73 July 28.0 110.4 75 August 28.0 110.4 75 September 26.5 305.6 83 October 27.4 37.3 80 November 23.9 17.0 72 December 23.1 -- 61 Annual 26.2 (Ave.) 1,102.9 (Total) 72 (Ave.) aDireccion General de Planeacion, 1970: 20. generally only a few meters below the surface, the limestone forms a crude concrete which makes the hand digging of wells an extremely laborious and time-consuming activity. The introduction of gunpowder and steel tools by the Spaniards, however, made water more accessible during the colonial period and, accordingly, led to an expansion in the number and location of settlements. The poor and scarce nature of the soils, together with the general porosity of the limestone, preclude the usual forms of irri- gation and plow agriculture in northern Yucatan. Small house gardens, for'example, are seeded with the use of a digging stick and the sprouted or mature plants must be watered individually using a bucket or, if an 40 electric or gasoline-powered pump is available, with a hose. The sinking of a well involves more than merely exposing the water table and unless one strikes a good “vein" of water, the well is likely to have only a limited capacity. Wells that are to be used in pump irrigation often must go deeper into the water table and the resulting cavity used primarily as a slowly-filling reservoir. Subsistence Potential Slash-and-burn cultivation of corn (mjlga_agriculture) is still practiced by some in this semi-arid northern area, but the results are too unreliable and unproductive for commercial purposes. The few remaining milperos continue in the hope that their efforts will supple- ment meager incomes derived from the cultivation of the fiber-producing henequen plant. Rainfall seems adequate for milpa cultivation but, in fact, rains are often unpredictable and discontinuous during especially the initial part of the planting season. A milpero must cut the brush covering, let it dry, and burn it before the start of the summer rains. If the clearing of the field is started too late in the season, the brush will not dry sufficiently to burn. If the first rains of the season are premature, the milpero may see his newly sprouted corn wither during the period of drought that often follows. The devastating effects of the unpredictable alternation between drought, heavy rains, and cyclones are reflected in the major famines documented for the colonial period by Ricardo Molina Hfibbe in his work, Las Hambres de Yucatan (1941). Based on information provided by Chardon (1961) and others, Kurjack concludes (1971: 74-77) that with regard to subsistence milpa agriculture, this northern zone has by far 41 the lowest carrying capacity of the Mayan area (including the whole of the Yucatecan peninsula and the Guatemalan Petén). Mexico, Yucatan, and the "Oro Verde" Crossing Mexico, traveling to Yucatan, one's senses are flooded with a plethora of diverse images. From the arid north, through the verdant mountains of Puebla, to the lush vegetation of the Gulf Coast and the Bay of Campeche, one is continuously awed by the color and physiognomy of Mexico. Diversity and richness of musical styles impress one with the plaintive sounds of the rancheros and corridos of the north, the brilliance of the mariachi bands of central and eastern Mexico, and the pulsating rhythms of the marimbas of Veracruz and Tabasco. While one recognizes regional diversity, there is neverthe- less a feeling of some communality, of some unity which makes this all “Mexican." Passing through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and continuing along the lowlands of the Gulf Coast, one passes the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, nestled in the shadows of the northern escarpment of the impressive highlands of the State of Chiapas. Continuing through Campeche, relief becomes less and less pronounced until finally, pausing at the summit of the final ngg_or range of hills, one gets his first view of the flat, ashen expanse of the State of Yucatan. From the beginnings of the colonial period, Yucatan differed from the rest of Mexico. Francisco de Montejo and his army of Spanish Conquistadores were frustrated by a protracted war of conquest in Yucatan and disillusioned by the total absence of mineral and other 42 riches found in central Mexico. In Yucatan, Montejo found instead a series of independent Mayan states and confederations flexible enough to form the fluid alliances that effectively resisted the incursions of foreign invaders. In central Mexico, Cortés had a dual advantage which was denied Montejo. Cortés was viewed by many of the subjugated groups as a powerful and prophesized liberator from the oppression of Aztec imperial rule. Most importantly, Cortés was able to conquer and dominate the Aztec bureaucratic system without really destroying the network of control. Montejo had no central focus for his efforts of conquest, no single group or individual leader that he could defeat to secure the peninsula. In addition Montejo was Opposed by Gonzalo Guerrero, a Spaniard shipwrecked off Yucatan sixteen years prior to the arrival of Montejo who had adapted himself to indigenous life in Yucatan. Guerrero assisted Mayans in their militant opposition to the forces of Montejo, convincing the Mayans that conquistador and horse were separate creatures and, more importantly, defeatable (Chamberlain 1948: 4, 15). Lacking the mineral riches encountered by Cortés, Montejo and his conquistadores turned to the exploitation of the land and the human resources. The Spanish Crown awarded the conquerors grants of territory in trust (encomienda) which entitled the holder (encomendero) to exact tribute in the form of labor and material products from all indigenous communities (encomendados) within the territory of the encomienda. 43 As in other areas under the control of the Spanish Crown, there were pressures from the beginning to change the grants from the tempo- rary tribute-rights of the encomienda system to a concept of rights to territory and populations as family holdings-~holdings viewed as part of an inheritable patrimony. Private estates, or haciendas, existed gg_fggtg_from the early stages of the period of colonial control over the peninsula, but it was not until 1785 that the encomienda system was finally ge_jgr§_terminated in Yucatan (Strickon 1965: 42- 43). The southern part of the peninsula, with its deeper and more fertile soils and greater rainfall, was the area of greatest agricul- tural potential in Yucatan. The pattern for later exploitation was initially set by Francisco de Montejo who founded the first sugar plantation and mill on his encomienda lands at Champotan, south of the city of Campeche (Chamberlain, 1948: 332). Environmental hindrances to large-scale commercial agriculture in the northern part of the State led to the development of primarily a labor-extensive industry associated with cattle raising, and a minor export trade reliant principally on indigo (palo de tinte), beef and hides. Mayans not needed for these enterprises were largely left to cultivate supportive subsistence crops for themselves and the Spanish colonists. The colony, therefore, came to stress self-sufficiency rather than a market-oriented, export economy (Betencourt Perez, 1970: 122-124). This regional symbiotic emphasis on subsistence crops and cattle in the north, and cane sugar in the south, lasted from the 44 early colonial period until the mid- 1800's when commercial interests turned from the hacienda cattle ranch to the development and expansion of the fiber-producing, henequen plantation. Utilization pattern estimates for cultivated land in 1845 (Table 4) illustrate a continuing emphasis on subsistence over commercial crops even into the early period, following 1821, of national independence. TABLE 4.--Land Use in 1845. Area under Cultivation Crop Mecates Hectares Corna 6,000,159 240.006 Sugar Canea 102,081 4,083 Ricea 46,666 1,867 Henequenb 16,000 640 aBetencourt Perez, 1953: 35. bCline, 1948: 41. Henequen remained a minor crop of considerable economic potential llritil the second half of the 19th century. Henequen, a variety of Agave (Wflk. fourcroydes) indigenous to Yucatan, had long been exploited by the Mayan populations of the peninsula for the fiber contained in its long, 8 1 ender leaves. Since the colonial period, markets existed for cordage, ”0 pe, sacks, hamnocks, and other products manufactured from henequen F‘i ber. While this cactus-like plant was able to survive the long DQriods of drought and the poor soils of northern Yucatan, the 45 labor-intensive, hand separation of the fiber (tonkos y pakché) from the leaf skin and pulp proved too costly and time-consuming for the development of a major fiber industry. Fiber production was encouraged among the population, but as an economic adjunct to family subsistence, not as the sole or major source of livelihood. By the late 18th century, henequen had gained preference over hemp and other fibers for use in maritime rope and cordage. The growing world demand for henequen fiber gave impetus to the full-scale development of what was to become the basis of the monocrop export economy for the State of Yucatan (Benitez, 1962: 56). The latter 19th century ascendency of the economic, social, and political importance of henequen, and the consequent eclipse of beef and sugar cane as primary export products, can be attributed to three major deve10pments during this period: the Caste War, the invention of a mechanized raspar or decorticator for the extraction of fiber, and the demand for binder twine created by the invention of the McCormick reaper in the U.S.A. The devastating Mayan peasant uprising of 1847-1855, the "Caste War" of Yucatan (cf. Reed, 1964), altered demographic and economic patterns in the State. The sugar cane industry which had been expanding in the more fertile southern part of the peninsula was effectively destroyed by the violence and the resultant temporary isolation of that area from the rest of the State. Mayan peasant captives, as well as Mayans attempting to escape the ravages of the war, became concentrated in the more secure northern zone. There they were either incorporated into the growing haciendas, or sold as 46 slaves to Cuba. The revenue from these slave-trading activities was used to help finance the war against the Mayan rebels remaining and to replenish the bankrupt governmental treasury (Menéndez, 1923). The violence of the 1840's included not only the Caste War of Yucatan, but was also complicated by internicine conflict between Mérida and Campeche for political control over the peninsula, and by warfare between the United States and Mexico which resulted, in 1847, in the capture and temporary occupation of Mexico City itself. Cut off from Campeche and Mexico, the Mayan rebels controlled most of the peninsula by 1848, and threatened Mérida with total destruction. The desperation of the "white race" of Yucatan, the political chaos in Mexico City, and the continuing sense of distinctiveness of Yucatan, convinced the governor of the State, Santiago Méndez, to send appeals for assistance to the U.S. Secretary of State, James Buchanan. Threatened with total defeat at the hands of the rebels, the governor declared neutrality in the conflict between the U.S. and Mexico and requested the U.S. provide both protection to Yucatan from Mexican revenge and direct aid to save "the white race from the fierce aborigines" (de la Torre V., et_gl;, 1964, II: 225). Governor Méndez, in his final communication to Buchanan, surpassed his original request for 2,000 soldiers and 500,000 pesos in assistance: The white race--the civilized class of this state--is presently being attacked in a cruel and barbaric manner by the aboriginal race which rose simultaneously in insurrection, with instinctual ferocity, and which makes against us a savage war of extermination. . . . I have resolved, then, to seek the extreme remedy dictated by our great need--that of soliciting the direct intervention by powerful nations, offering the dominion and sovereignty of this land (Yucatan) to the nation that takes charge of saving it. (de la Torre V., et al., 1964, Vol. II: 228-229, my translation.) 47 Méndez not only requested protection and salvation from the Mayans (and the "Mexicans"), but was willing to offer Yucatan itself as a prize to the nation providing such assistance. Reed notes (1964: 85) that similar appeals were also sent to Great Britain and Spain. Before the U.S.A. Congress could vote on the request, Méndez was replaced as governor by Miguel Barbachano. Declaring Méndez a traitor, Barbachano attempted to effect a reconciliation with the government of Mexico. Mérida finally received military assistance from Spain, via Cuba, for the war against the Mayans, but the U.S. Monroe Doctrine prevented Spain from accepting the offer of sovereignty over Yucatan. In spite of this aid, the "white race" of Yucatan was saved primarily by the timely arrival of the planting season. Most of the rebel army that had threatened Mérida disappeared as the peasants returned to prepare their milpa fields for the coming season for the cultivation of maize (Reed 1964: 85-87, 98, 103). The economic catastrophe of the Caste War gave priority and added impetus to the pre-war attempts on the part of the state govern- ment to expand the cultivation of henequen and the production of fiber. The war, by destroying the sugar cane industry, removed a significant competitor for capital and labor and actually resulted in a greater concentration of the population in the northern zone of the newly expanding henequen industry.2 The second development significant to the growth of the henequen industry occurred in the 1860's and brought the benefits of the industrial revolution to the extraction of fiber from the spiny henequen leaf. The first patent for a machine to replace the laborious and time-consuming 48 hand separation of fiber, was issued in 1833 to Henry Perrine, U.S. Consul to Yucatan and Campeche (Oroza D., 1956: 25). That Perrine's raspar or decorticating machine failed is indicated by the 1840 govern- mental offer of $2,000 pesos to the inventor of a successful machine (Oroza 0., 1956: 30). The same prize was again offered in 1852, but with the added stipulation that such a machine actually represent a savings in time and labor over the hand separation of fiber from the leaf. Finally, in 1856, a commission was organized by the state government to investigate the competing inventions of Manuel Cecilio Villamor and José Esteban Solis. The 1856 commission was instructed to apply the following criteria in their investigation: 1. That the machine produce 20 pounds of fiber daily for each man employed on that machine. 2 That the machine should not produce fiber inferior in quality to that separated by hand. 3 That the initial cost of the machine not be excessive. 4. That construction be simple, and repairs possible locally. 5. That the machine be transportable from site to site. 6. That the rasping action not waste fiber. 7. That the operating costs of the machine be low. (Oroza 0., 1956: 45, my translation.) After years of litigation between the two self-proclaimed inventors, Solis was finally awarded the prize in 1868. Continuing its efforts to improve and increase fiber production, the government offered $2,000 peso prizes again in 1869 and 1875, stressing, re- spectively, greater output of a higher quality, and worker safety with reduced production costs. In one last attempt to promote ef- fective and efficient industrialization of this stage of henequen production, the state government offered, in 1884, a prize of $20,000 pesos to the inventor of a rasping or decorticating machine that could Ineet the following revised criteria: 49 1. That it be automatic and for that reason, skilled labor would not be required for its operation. That all dangers to the workers be completely avoided. That it require less motive force than present machines. That it increase fiber production and reduce wastage as compared with other machines in use over a given period of time. (Oroza D., 1956: 76, my translation.) #9)“) While no record was located showing payment of this prize, it is clear that mechanized decorticating plants were in operation by the 1860's and that, with governmental incentives, refinements were encouraged to further increase production quantitatively, qualitatively, and, at the same time, reduce the costs of production. Industrialization affected primarily the separation of fiber from the henequen leaf. Cultivation of the plant by slash-and-burn techniques, care and weeding of the fields, and the harvesting of the leaves have remained as essentially unchanged, manual, labor-intensive operations. Beginning in the late 1880's, narrow-guage tracks and mule-driven carts (the "Decauville" system) facilitated transportation of leaves to central decorticating factories on the haciendas, thereby obviating the need for a portable processing plant, but the field work has remained unaltered. In part because of population loss due to the violence of the Caste War and to the slaving operations that followed, the expansion of henequen cultivation in Yucatan outstripped available manpower. As early as 1883, the state government offered to pay a subsidy of $10 pesos per head to contractors bringing "males between 8 and 50 years of age" to work in the henequen fields and factories (Oroza 0., 1956: 72-74). 50 The relatively rapid shift from labor-extensive to labor- intensive forms of economic exploitation in the henequen zone resulted in the consolidation of hacienda plantations and the attached communi- ties of indentured Mayan acasillados which made up the core or permanent labor force. Seasonal demands for additional labor were met through the use of available luneros, landless workers in regional towns who were not attached permanently to an hacienda but formed a labor reserve essential to this form of plantation agriculture. With the Cardenas reform of 1937-1938, the family-owned, henequen haciendas officially ceased to exist. Post-revolutionary land reform split these holdings into two distinct categories. Usufruct rights to newly created ejjgg_lands were ceded to workers residing in both the regional towns and on the haciendas. The ex-hacienda owners were allowed to retain a limited portion of their fields and key buildings, including the hacienda ggsgg_and the decorticating factories. These private holdings are referred to as pequefias propiedades and the owners as geguefios prgpjetarios. The third major development significant to the expanding cultivation of "green gold" in Yucatan concerns the 1878 invention of the McCormick binding reaper in the United States. This wheat harvester opened a new and massive market for bailer twine made from henequen fiber. The McCormick reaper not only created a demand for henequen fiber, but also resulted in a series of oscillating and protracted struggles between state, national and multi-national interests (International Harvester Corporation3) over the control and monopoly of the production, pricing, and export of henequen fiber from Yucatan. 51 The effects of these factors on the transformation of the northern sector of Yucatan have resulted in an export-oriented, monocrop dependence with all of the implied economic inflexibility and vulner- ability to control by external interests. The conversion of land for the production of henequen fiber (Table 5) increased rapidly during the last one hundred years, reaching it's peak in 1916 with the stimulus of the tremendous demand for fiber by the allies during World War I. Subsequent fluctuations in henequen production are associated with (l) hacienda abandonment due to anticipation and implementation of agrarian reform (1930's), (2) the decline in the market demand for fiber following WWI (1920's), (3) the increasing competition from other natural fiber producing areas (chiefly Indonesia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Brazil), and (4) the most recent introduction of synthetic fibers to the world market. San Antonio: the Community Setting San Antonio, a small community of approximately 300 people, is located in the so-called heart of the monocrop henequen zone of Yucatan. The ejido community lies at a distance of 3 and 4 kilometers, 4 San Antonio respectively, from the nearby towns of Xamach and Maax. lies within the jurisdictional boundaries of the municipality of Maax, yet, because of its proximity and the improved condition of the gravel road, Xamach is socially and economically the more important of the two towns. Travelling the last, dusty leg of the journey from Mérida to San Antonio, one passes the now-familiar, stone-walled henequen fields. 52 TABLE 5.--Henequen Production in Yucatan: 1845-1969. Area of Land Under Cultivation Production Year (Hectares)a (Kilograms X 1,000)a 1845 640b 1860 2,600C 1869 16.000d 14,280d 1890 99,100b 47,000e 1916 320,000e 171,190e 1926 171.000e 128,470e 1930 167,000d 117,700d 1936 132,000e 111,240e 1940 109,100d 94,950d 1950 114.000d 101,107f 1960 165,5009 137,6509 1965 183,0009 128,1709 1969 155,8009 111,1609 aWhere necessary, the author has converted mecates and arrobas, pacas, or libras, into hectares and kilograms, respectively. bCline, 1948: 41. cCamara z., 1946: 688-689. dGonzalez N., 1970: 182, 185, 351. eManero, 1966: 33, 40. fSoberon, 1959: 51. 95.A.8., 1970b. 53 In the distance, a cluster of trees and a tall brick chimney locate both the community and the decorticating factory of the pequefia propiedad, part of the remnant holdings of the heir to Hacienda San Antonio. Throughout the henequen zone, the chimneys locate hacienda decorticating factories, communities, and are themselves non-functional artifacts of the earliest, steam-powered phase in the history of the industrialization of the henequen zone in Yucatan. Although the factory in San Antonio is now powered by an electric motor, the mechanical separation of fiber from the skin and pulp of the henequen leaf and the manual technology associated with the cultivation and harvesting of henequen remain largely unchanged since the latter part of the nineteenth century. First impressions of San Antonio vary with the time of arrival. In the morning, just at first light, one views a community of men and older boys. They may be seen walking to the fields; walking to work in the processing factory; or perhaps standing in small clusters, shaking off the early morning chill and quietly discussing the day's proposed activities. By mid-morning, the community is one of women, older girls, small children, and a continuous competition between the noisy irregu- larity of the gasoline-powered, local corn mill, and the constant din of the more distant desfibradora factory. While waiting in line for their turn at the corn mill, women will argue about who will be first, and thus receive the lime grit which unfortunately remains from the previous day's production of corn meal. Nobody wants to be the first in line, but all want to have the second place. Occasionally, the 54 problem is resolved when one of the women is planning to grind corn to feed the animals kept behind the house. Once grinding is underway, conversation settles down to a continuous flow of gossip, interspersed with laughter and shouts. Once completed, the women carry the corn meal home or to the houses of friends and relatives to continue conversations and visiting while making the tortillas for their noon and evening meals. During the heat of the early afternoon, the streets seem deserted. Following the large noon meal, men and women tend their sparse house gardens, look after the animals, bathe, and visit neigh- bors or simply relax in the comfort of a gently swaying hammock. As the afternoon begins to cool, the streets become once again a center of activity. Children play, people may attend to their needs at one of the two community stores, or stop in the town square to watch some of the older boys play baseball. Occasionally an itinerant merchant may be seen and heard as he bicycles past advertising his wares. At dusk, the houses become closed and shuttered. Dogs bark persistently at the evening intruders and, if it is not too late, one or more of the three television sets can be heard. People who have paid their twenty centavos for an evening's entertainment are bathed in the soft glow of the television screen as they come to the windows and doorways to peer at the passing travelers. The two roads linking San Antonio with the rest of Yucatan meet at the weed-filled, central square of this ”L"-shaped, line community (Figure 2). The juncture of these two roads is a focal point in the life of San Antonio. At this juncture, the building 55 Figure 2.--The Community of San Antonio. I. Pequefia Propiedad Casco W Warehouses P Owner's House 8 Chapel 1 F Factory | C Shop 1 G Gardens, Orchard V Corrals I ‘Y 0 Fiber Drying Field |- ----- I )—EE--(“--Jh--—-—-(-...: I —--——-O—..-.-.....--: _ - roam----.---—....~.-... >————< »—n r“: Cl 1 Scale: , lOO Meters_g. 1t Henequen Fields .. .. Stone Walls I... -0.” _- Property Division A 0 d b - 11 u . 11111 Ra1ls ( Decauville System) t b—1 — o Mayan "Chozas" f" ‘1’" II Single Block Houses III Stone/Cement Duplexes II. Ejido Property c Cemetery 0 Ejido Office 5 School 1 d Medical Dispensary t Store Private) tc Store CONASUPO) b Bakery 0" 3A1-l-&)~.l. ""‘i’Y‘b’V’ a *‘E 56 which houses the office of the ejido faces the imposing arched portal of the casco, the key portion of the remnant holdings of the Hacienda San Antonio. From the door of the old Casa Principal (owner's house) an ancient, cobbled, tree-lined road leads due south approximately 165 meters to the portals. The cobblestones disappear as the road continues south, past the ejido building, through half of the com- munity, and on to the municipal center of Maax. Along with the community office, the ejido building also contains the attached shed of the corn mill and, until the leaking roof forced its abandonment, the community store. Until the 1937 land reform, the store had belonged to the hacienda (tienda-de raya), serving the owner as a means to control consumptive habits of the workers and to reduce out-migration by forcing workers into a state of continued indebtedness. State legislation passed during the period 1915-1920 abolished debt peonage and, since land reform, the store space has been leased by the ejido officials to a succession of independent concessionaires, usually to individuals from near-by towns who, after accumulating capital and credit, return to the towns to continue their enterprises on a somewhat larger scale. Presently there are two stores in the community (each operated in a house) and both are operated, for the first time, by community members. One is a full-time, commercial endeavor, and the other is a part-time, government-sponsored, CONASUPO outlet (Compania Nacional de Subsistencias Populares) which specializes in a limited variety of basic staples (corn, rice, flour, salt, soap, etc.). Each of the owner's of these stores determines credit (fjggg) policy based on individual assessments of client-families in the community. 57 The casa principal is the largest residential structure in San Antonio. It was built during the last century as a seasonal residence for the Mérida-based, landholding family. The design is that of a relatively simple, four-roomed, 25 x 7 meter rectangle and the style and scale of construction are adaptive to the climate and the needs of the hacendado and his family. The plastered, stone walls are nearly a meter thick and provide effective insulation from the intensity of the Yucatecan sun. In the afternoon, as the temperature inside the house increases, the warming air begins to rise the ten meters to the beamed ceiling where it escapes through a series of small portals under the roof line, thus creating a natural ventilation system for the residents. The stone walls retain heat well into the evening but, depending on the season, this may either be overcome or put to use by the occupants. During the summer, relief may be sought by opening the shutters to the barred, glassless windows; during the cool evenings of the dry Yucatecan winter, the shutters may be left closed and the heat radiating from the stone will keep the house comfortable well into the night. Surrounding the hub of the casa principal are the main well (Egrig), corral, carpentry shop, muleteer's house, warehouses, and the Small, windowless, muleteer's equipment building which once served as the hacienda jail. The noria supplies water, via electric pump and storage tank, to this core area of the casco. Controlling to some extent for the noise and strong odor of henequen pulp, the decorticating factory and warehouses are located approximately 100 meters to the west of the casa principal. 58 The casa principal continues to serve the owner as a convenience to himself and occasional visitors, but no longer is used as an actual habitation. At the time field work was begun in San Antonio, the casa was being used as a spare warehouse to store bales of henequen fiber until they could be marketed. Despite the physical distance between the community and the casa principal, the ejidatarios of San Antonio can ignore neither the house nor the past which it symbolizes; they must approach the house to attend mass or conduct devotions in the attached chapel. The ejido of San Antonio is, by law, physically, socially, economically, and politically separate from the private holdings and personal power of the ex-hacienda owner. The ritual life of San Antonio remains linked to the feudal past, and the people continue to depend on the good will of the owner to allow them to maintain and use the chapel facilities of the hacienda casco. Rather than the exception, this ritual link is only one of the more obvious elements of a dependence-interdependence network of ties that actually exist between the pequefio propietario and the ejidatarios of San Antonio. The average ejido house is a small (4 x 6 to 5 x 8 meters), one-room structure fronting directly on the road. Stone walls connect adjacent houses, with perpendicular walls forming the sides of an enclosed, 25 x 30 meter, sglgr_or house lot. Behind the house, additional structures usually include a simply constructed lean-to used for cooking, a shelter for animals and, if the family is large, extra rooms or buildings may be attached to the house. Furnishings in the houses are sparse and include a few chairs, stools, a table for the family altar, and perhaps a wooden cabinet to protect clothing 59 and other family possessions. All of the houses are constructed and reinforced to support the weight of hammocks by means of either roof beams or by hooks imbedded in stone or concrete block walls. Hammocks are highly adaptive to both the climate of this northern zone and to the limitations of space imposed by the small size of these houses. Even on hot, humid, summer nights, an individual may find relief from the heat by swinging in the hammock. In the absence of a breeze, the movement of air is simulated by the movement of the hammock through the air. The hammocks are usually large enough to sleep several members of the household. During the day, the hammocks are folded, tied and hung against one of the walls inside the house to free the room for other activities. Hammocks may also be used by a family during the day to contain babies and smaller children who may otherwise require careful watching. A crying baby is quickly lulled to sleep by the swaying of the hammock, is protected from both flies and a fall by the encircling, closely-woven mesh, and the hammock remains dry as urine passes through the mesh onto the easily- cleaned floor. The single-roomed houses, and the hammock as well, are relatively inexpensive and multifunctional. There are two basic types of houses in the community, with modified versions of each type. Approximately thirty percent of a total of sixty-two houses are "ghgggs," Yucatec Mayan dwellings constructed of wattle-and-daub with dirt floors, thatched roofs, and "apsidal" in shape (Kurjack, 1971: 43). An additional fifteen per- cent of the houses are variant forms of this structure with zinc or oiled fiber board roofing substituted for thatching, stone and mortar 60 in place of the wattle-and-daub, or cement instead of the packed dirt floors. A 1935 inventory of the community (D.I.S.A., n.d.) lists a total of "50 chozas" for the workers of Hacienda San Antonio; today, over half of the houses in the community may be identified as "modern" or "progressive" in appearance. These houses are rectangular, constructed of either stone and mortar or cement blocks, with low, plastered roofs. Constructed periodically during the post- agrarian reform period, these houses are preferred by most of the members of the community because of their identification with the design style found in the towns and in the urban center of Mérida. The two styles of houses differ with respect to adaptiveness to the climate of the area. The thatched choza, like the casa principal, allows warming air to pass through the roof, thus cooling the residents. The thatching is an effective barrier to rain, and winds improve this quality by forcing the thatch into a compressed, resistant mat. The block houses readily absorb heat from the sun and, lacking the ventilating design of the other styles, are quite warm and uncomfortable during the humid summer months. The block houses do provide more protection and warmth during the cool winter evenings and certainly provide less of a haven for the wide variety of insects and spiders that typically inhabit the thatching of the chozas. Cost differentials between the two types of structures account for the persistence of the choza in San Antonio.5 Costs for construction (in 1971) indicate that the block house represents an initial expense of about $4,500 pesos, versus a range of $1,200 to $1,500 pesos for the 61 choza. The periodic need to re-thatch the choza roofs, at a cost of about $500 pesos for the materials, reduces the long-term cost differ- ence between the two structures. The higher initial cost of the cement block house makes prohibitive the possibility that an individual family can, utilizing its own economic resources, undertake to provide itself with this more "progressive" type of dwelling. The block houses that exist in the community were constructed either with funds provided by Henequeneros ge_Yucatan (1938-1955) -23% of the existing houseS--or by the branch of the federal ejido bank (1955- ) -32% of the habi- tations. During the most recent period, house funds were made available to the community, the costs entered as part of the long-term ejido debt, and the constructed houses assigned by raffle to eligible ejido heads of family. More recently, the federal Banco Agrario has ceased extending loans for the purchase of materials needed for repair or construction of houses and prefers instead to merely approve small wage allotments for persons engaged in the construction. Families can either use the "wages" to purchase materials, or utilize locally available materials for the construction or repair of existing chozas. The ejidatarios have been able to overcome this economic limitation to some extent by utilizing continuing relations of paternalism and dependence with the pequefio propietario. The owner has assisted the community members in obtaining materials at discount prices in Mérida, has loaned the use of the hacienda truck for transportation, and has himself purchased some of the materials used in both the construction of a new block house, the construction of a medical dispensary, and the repair of six chozas (during 1970/1971). The ejidatarios were able to improve 62 the housing conditions of several members of the community, and the owner was able to point out his generosity and philanthropy to properly impressed official visitors to San Antonio.6 Images of the Present and Selective Recall of the Past Poverty and illness are two themes that pervade conversations with the ejidatarios of San Antonio. For them, life is a struggle which results from a feeling of powerlessness to alter their own economic situation. There is a particular realization, often implicit, that there are simply too many people trying to live off of the limited work available from the ejido or in the employ of the pequefio propietario. The following excerpt from field notes is a more explicit example of the difficulties associated with population expansion: After the discussion of the ejido and the casas (costs of house construction) with Rodrigo and Silvestre, I walked outside the ejido building and sat with a group of men who were watching boys play baseball in the plaza field. One of them commented: "Mira a todos los ejidatarios que estan alla!" (Look at all those ejidatarios!) It was said very quietly, very seriously. David, Silvestre and Vena Pech (brothers) were standing there and David began to count. Many of the boys were approaching the legal age for membership in the ejido (16 years of age). Vena asked me if I wouldn't like to help them out by taking some of the little ejidatarios--not "children" but “little ejidatarios"--back to the United States with me. On another occasion an older member of the community, Don Peto (b. 1906), was commenting to me about the sickly, abandoned dog that had adopted my wife and myself.7 Don Peto mentioned that the dog really had to fight for everything she got and, like many poor people, had to make do with whatever meager handouts she could beg from others. He thought for a moment and then said: "You know, that 63 poor thing is really very lucky!" When I asked why, he replied to the effect that although she had been around for a number of years, she never had any puppies, and was therefore spared the additional burden of watching progeny suffer and die as a result of her own unfortunate situation. The frustration of trying to stretch meager incomes seems to produce for some a romanticization of the past. As hacienda acasillados, they would say, all were cared for. The hacendado made sure they had enough food; work was hard, but they never had to worry about getting money together to pay for a visit to the doctor or to pay for medicine. If material was needed to make new clothing, the hacendado would see that it was supplied. If a wedding or a fiesta were planned, the hacendado would loan money or provide some of the food or refreshments without charge. Money loaned to the acasillados was interest-free and the hacendado would make sure that even though they had to pay the loan back, they would always have enough credit at the company store (tienda de raya) so that their own survival was never threatened. Houses were constructed and repaired at the expense of the hacendado and these acts were performed on the basis of need for "his people." The acasillados had no need to fear municipal authorities, since the hacendado would try to arrange or smooth over any surmountable diffi- culties that may have occurred. These kinds of images of the past most frequently appeared when a family had to bear unexpected expenses or during periods of seasonal ebbs in the availability of work. The ejidatario's romantic image of the past seems created especially to oppose the perceived relationship that exists between 64 the community and the Bangrario. The hacendado was a visible indi- vidual who dealt personally with the people of San Antonio. The pattern of interaction was one of paternalism, but often with the added intensity of personalized bonds of campadrazgo (ritual co- parenthood). The Bangrario is perceived as a faceless, unsympathetic institution which limits work, which has an image of distrust and secrecy, and which often refuses appeals on the part of the members of the community for economic assistance in the areas of income, housing, or health. Adding to this image of impersonalism, the Bangrario changes field agents frequently, shifting them from one local zone to another. The frustration of the present has produced, seemingly, a highly selective recall of experiences remembered from the hacienda period. This selective examination of the past is, however, quite fragile and may be easily Shattered by some abuse or conflict (perceived or actual) arising between the ejidatarios and the pequefio propietario. Difficulties between the two sectors of San Antonio are often reflected in worker comments such as: ”Don't they (the patrones) realize that the period of slavery has ended in Yucatan?"8 For the oldest informants in the community, recollections of the past are more frequently interspersed with tales of the strict control exerted by the hacendado over the daily lives of the acasillados, of the whippings and other forms of punishment meted out for the slight- est transgressions of the hacendado's imposed code of conduct, of the examples of the lack of freedom to arrange even one's own selection of a marriage partner, of the coercion and fear used to make one member of 65 the community report the guilt of others, and of the prohibitions against physical, social, or economic mobility. Don Cirilo (b. 1891) especially remembered the use of credit, loans and resultant fore- closure as a tactic to increase hacienda lands during the early part of this century. Don Cirilo witnessed first a period of growth in the size of the community and then the effects of devastating epidemics that rapidly reduced the size of the community. More than a mere witness, Don Cirilo himself had outlived three wives and all but one of his children. For those born towards the end of the hacienda period, recol- lections of that period were more frequently infused with positive elements. Don Pacifico (b. 1917), for example, recalled the time he accompanied his sick father to stay in special quarters in the Mérida house of the hacendado, where his father was cared for until healed. Don Pacifico also remembered the patr6n sponsoring fiestas for Christmas and the day of the patron saint of the community. The opposing remembrances of the hacienda period coincide with two identifiable phases in worker-owned relations during the first few decades of this century. Moisés Gonzalez Navarro (1970: 236-248) details significant changes in Yucatecan labor legislation during the post-revolutionary period which would have resulted in an alteration of the patran-pean relationship and in effect would have converted the plantation laborer from a condition of debt-peonage to that of proletarian status. One of the earlier laws (1914) "freed" hacienda workers, yet mobility could be realized by neither father nor son until the abolishment of the mechanisms of indebted servitude and the 66 resultant termination of economic as well as socio-political enslave- 9 The proletarian conversion began with legislation passed in ment. 1917, under the revolutionary military governor, General Salvador Alvarado, which officially abolished debt-servitude in Yucatan. Alvarado's labor reform legislation limited the amount of indebtedness to the equivalent of one month's salary and a worker's heirs, for the first time, were under no obligation to assume the debt of the father. The 1917 laws also abolished the fggjgg labor practice (wage-free, labor tribute for the right to work), abolished child-labor (prohibiting the utilization of individuals under fourteen years of age), and made the patrones legally responsible for the care of workers in the case of accident or illness. Labor legislation passed in 1918 required that hacienda owners contribute to an un- employment fund for workers and demanded double salary for workers forced to work on Sundays. In addition to worker's funds and medical assistance legislation, a law passed in 1925 (Orosa D., 1961: 85) fixed minimum wage rates for both salaried (empleados) and part-time or piece-rate workers (jornaleros). Mechanisms which provided pressures for enforcement of Alvarado's labor reform laws seem to have centered around Felipe Carrillo Puerto who, in 1919, organized workers' syndicates (as part of a "Liga Central de Resistencia") and who, as governor, drafted legislation calling for the expropriation of "abandoned" haciendas. Much of the socialist- revolutionary reform momentum diminished with the 1924 assasination of Carrillo Puerto. Carrillo Puerto signed his land reform bill on November 23, 1923. He was threatened. pursued, and imprisoned by 67 military officers partisan to General Adolfo de la Huerta (a major contender for control of post-revolutionary Mexico) on December 21, 1923. On the second of January, 1924, Felipe Carrillo Puerto was executed (Orosa 0., 1961: 61; Gonzalez N., 1970: 250). Carrillo Puerto's death could not reverse the momentum of change totally. Land reform had already begun to affect the area surrounding Hacienda San Antonio with the dotation of uncultivated lands to the inhabitants of the municipal center of Maax (initial request, 1919; granted, 1924) and the nearby town of Xamach (initial request, 1917; granted, 1929) (DAAC Archives). The pressures for land reform and, especially, the new potential for mobility on the part of the hacienda workers undoubtedly affected patr6n-worker relations. Certainly more than claimed indebtedness alone would be required to retain a worker population. The hacendados could no longer rely on the assistance of the police and the other mechanisms of the state to force workers to remain or return to their owner's hacienda holdings. In spite of labor reform and other legislation, fully fifteen years would pass from the execution of Carrillo Puerto to the massive expropriation of hacienda lands under the land reform program of President Lazaro Cardenas in 1938. Reform and Change: The Demographic Evidence In this final section, demographic materials from the Mexican National Census publications and the birth and death records of the municipality of Maax are examined in the context of the reforms occurring since the turn of the century. With the focus being San 68 Antonio, the following analysis and demographic reconstruction further supports the division of the recent hacienda period into two distinct phases. Following the labor reform legislation of Alvarado, and its apparent implementation in the henequen zone, mortality rates dropped significantly in San Antonio and the total community p0pulation also declined. The decline in mortality rates indicates that nutrition and health care had improved in the community and the decline in the total population provides evidence that workers and their families were, in fact, enjoying the potential for geographic mobility provided by the legislated end of debt peonage in Yucatan. The inordinately high mortality rates calculated for the pre-labor reform and pre- revolutionary periods indicate that the population of San Antonio was in a state of extreme demographic stress. Particularly high infant mortality and generally low life-expectancy point to poor nutrition and the absence of health care as factors responsible for the extreme susceptibility to epidemic disease evidenced for the population during this earlier hacienda phase. Census materials are incomplete for San Antonio up until the beginning of the Mexican National Census in 1895. Governmental and Maax parish records indicate that San Antonio increased in population during the latter part of the nineteenth century as the transition was made from a small cattle ranch to an expanding henequen hacienda, a transition from a labor-extensive pattern of exploitation to one that was labor-intensive (cf. Table 6). The population declined following the revolution and labor reform and began once again to increase following Cardenas' land reform of 1938. The population of 69 TABLE 6.--Population in San Antonio and Environs. Maax Maax b San Municipio Cabecera % of Population Year Antonio (County) (Town) in Cabecera 1828a 35 1900 187 1.294 502 30.9% 1910 225c 1,065 1920 167 899 336 37.8% 1930 158 1,054 414 39.3% 1940 178 959 438 45.7% 1950 203 1,306 577 47.7% 1960 238 1.665 913 54.8% 1970 307d 1.922e 1,054e 55.2% aDocument from the Maax parish records, 1828.10 bUnless otherwise indicated, all figures are based on the Mexican National Census records as published by decade. cThe National Census was interrupted by the Mexican Revolution and the indicated figure for San Antonio was based on the Municipio population and the calculated extension of municipio birth and death rates to the analyses of the records of San Antonio at the time. dBased on field census of San Antonio, 9/70 to 10/70. 8State of Yucatan (1970) estimates. San Antonio has effectively doubled during the four decades from 1930 to 1970. A comparison of calculated rates of population change (cf. Table 7) indicates that although the State increased little during the period 1900 to 1940, there was nevertheless a great deal of change and movement within the State. Following 1920, migrations from the rural haciendas to the municipal center of Maax occurred and, for the state, migration is evidenced generally to the urban center of Mérida. The fact that the growth rate for the State does not change significantly 11 until after 1940 indicates a general outmigration from the State occurred from 1920 to 1940 which abated coincidentally with agrarian 70 TABLE 7.--Demographic Change in San Antonio and Yucatan. a San Maax Maax Mérida Yucatan Rate of Change Antonio Municipio Cabecera City State 1900-1910 ' -17.2 +28.6 + 9.2 1910-1920 - 5.7b -17.0 -25.0b + 4.0 + 5.3 1920-1930 - 5.5 +15.9 +20.9 +18.2 + 7.5 1930-1940 +11.9 - 9.4 + 5.6 + 1.9 + 8.0 1940-1950 +13.1 +25.3 +27 6 +38.9 +21.2 1950-1960 +15.9 +32.2 +45.9 +17.9 +17.2 1960-1970 +25.4 +14.4 +14.4C +31 0 +23.1 Inhabitants 1900 187 1.294 502* 57.2d 309.7d 1970 307 1,922 1,054e 253.9d 774.0d Percent Change +64.2% +48.5% +110.0% +343.9% +149.9% aCalculated average annual rate of change/1000 p0pulation. bCalculated for the twenty year period, 1900 to 1920. cBased on the estimated population for the cabecera. dPopulation expressed in thousands of inhabitants. eEstimated population of the cabecera of Maax. reform. Following 1940, rural to urban migrations continue and, as well, population increases continue for each of the levels analyzed: the community of San Antonio, the municipality and town of Maax, Mérida, and the State. In order to add to a more general understanding of the patterns of demographic change, Maax municipal birth and death records were examined in detail to ascertain the changes occurring at the level of the municipio and more specifically, at the level of the community of San Antonio. The birth and death registrations, together with the 71 decade population estimates, were used to calculate birth and death rates for San Antonio and Maax (of. Table 8). The calculations are based on three-year averages for each decade census year and the natural rate of change per thousand population is calculated on the differences between the birth and death rates. Although the birth and death rates seem inordinately high when compared with the calcu- lations of others for the period of 1924 to 1928 (Hilferty and Maher, 1933: 408), it must be noted that previous investigators had con- centrated their efforts outside of the henequen zone of the State of Yucatan. With regard to mortality rates, for example, Hilferty and Maher note that "in each district there is considerable variation in the rates for the individual years, as would be expected where epidemic diseases contribute such a high proportion of the total mortality" (1933: 408). Maax municipal records do indicate periodic and severe epidemics of measles (1882), whooping cough (1893-1894), dysentery (1899-1902), and an outbreak of influenza of ”pandemic" proportions (Shattuck, 1933: 347) during the period from 1918 to 1920. Given the coincidence of epidemics with the census periods of 1900 and 1920, and the associated high death rate for these years, the rates calcu- lated on the basis of census and municipal records are probably more accurate than "reasonable." The calculations for San Antonio may be least accurate or representative, since the small size of the base population is a source of potential random error. Comparison with the decade figures for the municipality, however, indicate a con- sistency on a general level in that both the municipality and the community birth and death rates have declined, especially since 1920. 72 TABLE 8.--Natura1 Population Change.a Births/1000 Deaths/1000 Change/1000 Year Maax San Ant. Maax San Ant. Maax San Ant. 1900 69.8 82.0 78.1 85.6 - 8.3 - 3.6 1910 62.3 47.9 +14.4 1920 51.2 39.9 60.1 71.9 - 8.9 -32.0 1930 39.8 38.0 30.0 25.3 + 9.8 +12.7 1940 38.6 31.8 48.6 33.7 -10.0 - 1.9 1950 57.8 57.5 27.6 37.8 +30.2 +19.7 1960 40.0 26.6 10.2 12.6 +29.8 +14.0 aMaax figures calculated for the municipality in general; specific census count for San Antonio during 1910 not available due to the Mexican revolution. Comparisons of the three tables (Tables 6, 7, and 8) indicate that the plantation henequen zone was undergoing massive demographic as well as economic changes during the early part of this century, changes not experienced to such a degree in the districts outside of this zone. During the first decade of this century, subdued Yaqui Indian rebels, as well as Chinese and indigenous Mayans, were forced into enslavement and debt peonage on the henequen haciendas (cf. Turner, 1911: 7). High mortality rates plus the expansion of the henequen industry provided the pressures for continuing importation of workers into this northern ecozone of the Yucatecan peninsula. While Specific data as to distribution by sex and age of the population are not available, one can hypothesize that the slave population was a young population which was utilized not only to create a labor force, but to procreate workers as well. In the context of the growing henequen plantation sphere, it is not difficult to 73 understand the inordinately high birth rates calculated for the first two decades; a young worker population would have an unusually high percentage of individuals at procreative ages, and a smaller per- centage of individuals in the pre-pubescent category or past the age of general fertility. The equally high mortality rates would insure that the procreative population remain active, in light of the extremely high infant mortality evidenced for the period, with shorter periods of time existing between pregnancies.12 The pre- 1920 period, as examined through the birth and death registrations in the Maax Civil RegiStry office, point to a tremendous susceptibility to disease especially for individuals during the first few years of infancy. During this period, the community of San Antonio can be characterized as one demonstrating both high infant mortality (cf. Table 9) and a high rate of early adult mortality. The calculated average age at death was 16.3 years of age from the period of 1911 to 1920, and improved to 25.5 years of age for the decade following (1921 to 1930). For the period from 1900 to 1937, just prior to Cardenas' land reform program, the calculated average age at death was 17 years of age and, averaging the age at death of those surviving beyond four years of age (controlling partially for infant mortality), the average was 43 years of age. High mortality rates are frequently associated with economic, social, and nutritional poverty (U.N., 1953: 49). Epidemic diseases affect mainly populations that are able to withstand neither the debilitating effects of disease, nor to resist the severity of those effects. Similarly, high fertility rates are also described as 74 TABLE 9.--Mortality in San Antonio for Selected Periods. Registereda Infantb Age at Death Causec of Period Births Deaths Mortality 0-4 5-14 15+ Death 1900-1901 32 37 844 73% 14% 14% Measles, Dysentery 1913-1915 39 50 975 76% 4% 20% Whooping Cough 1918-1920 24 48 834 42% 6% 52% Influenza 1911-1920 128 145 688 64% 4% 32% 1921-1930 69 43 398 44% 5% 51% aNumbers of identified births and deaths recorded in the Maax archives. bInfant mortality calculated based on recorded number of deaths of individuals between 0 and 4 years of age and the recorded number of live births recorded during the same period. The rate is expressed as deaths/1000 births. cThe list includes only predominant (believed) causes of death as entered in the Maax records. characteristic of populations that are in a low position of socio- economic status (U.N., 1953: 91). High birth and death rates indicate, then, that a population is not only economically depressed, but tremen- dously stressed as well. High birth rates indicate an attempt to compensate for the tremendous losses to epidemics and the high infant mortality associated with malnutrition and susceptibility to disease (cf. Brown and Wray, 1974). The decline in the mortality rate following 1920 is related to changes in the area of general health care, disease control, and the implementation of the various articles of Alvarado's labor reform legislation of the previous decade. By 1920, the introduction of 75 vaccine and general health programs had begun what T. Lynn Smith 13 (1970: 30) has called a "demographic revolution" in Latin America in general, and Yucatan in particular (Shattuck, 1933: 344). Following Brown and Wray (1974: 47-49),14 however, it is clear that only changes in the nutritional value of the diet and improvements in housing, working conditions, and the actual extension of health care, could account for such a dramatic decline in the infant mortality rates of the post- 1920 period. Concerning mortality rates in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the United Nations (1953: 55) reports that The sharp declines of death rates which have been noted in some of these countries are almost entirely the product of social and economic reforms during the twentieth century, and especially during the last two or three decades. For San Antonio and the Maax area of the henequen zone, social and economic reforms in this century have had the effect of lowering death rates. The trauma associated with periods of rapid reform and general social, political, and economic instability, however, have resulted in greater initial mortality rates (cf. Figure 3) and only later, a continuation of the rate of decline evidenced prior to these reform periods. AS indicated in Figure 3, a relatively continuous rate of decline in mortality rates/1000 population is evidenced for the decade '5 1930, and 1960. Deviations from this rate of years of 1900, 1910, decline are associated with periods of rapid change. Increases in mortality for 1920 are associated with epidemics, as discussed above, but also are indicative of the resistance to, and delay in, full implementation of Alvarado's labor reform legislation. Improvements 76 Figure 3.--Mortality in San Antonio and Maax. (Semi-Logarithmic Graph) Rates/1000 lOOq : a) Maax 10 I I I I I I 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 100 1 b) San Antonio q @(X) 50.. d d 10 I I 1* I I 1 I 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 (X) Period of post-revdlutionary labor reform. (Y) Implementation of land reform in Yucatan. (Z) Latter period of State control: Henqueneros de :92- 77 realized in health care and nutrition by 1930 were reversed again with the introduction of Cardenas' plan for land reform in the henequen zone of Yucatan in 1938, and the assertion of control over that program by the restrictive agency of the State government, and the governor him- self, through Henequeneros de Yucatan. The high mortality identified for 1950, coincides with the general decline in the effectiveness of Henequeneros to maintain adequate control of the henequen market, and to administer the henequen zone in ways actually favorable to the workers. In 1955, the federal government resumed control over the henequen ejidos and, by 1960, the mortality rates once again declined for both San Antonio and the municipality of Maax. Summary and Conclusions The rise of henequen production and the associated shift to a monocrop-based, export economy can be attributed to a complicity of natural and human factors. The semi-arid northern ecozone imposes limitations on the intensive cultivation of plants less resistant to drought than the cactus-like, indigenous agave of Yucatan. In the nineteenth century the Caste War altered patterns of productive exploitation of the land and the size and distribution of the popu- lation of the peninsula. Industrialization during the latter 1800's increased both the market demand for fiber (McCormick's reaper) and the productive means to meet that demand (the mechanized decorticator). The industrial stimuli for growth resulted in an expansion of henequen plantations and by the turn of the century exploitative patterns shifted away from labor extensive cattle herding and the subsistence-oriented 78 cultivation of maize by Mayan peasants. During this first phase of the henequen plantation, the rural population became attached laborers (hacienda acasillados) who were retained through mechanisms such as that of debt-peonage, and involved in the labor intensive cultivation of Agave fourcroydes. It was during this early period that Hacienda San Antonio and the attached community of Mayan acasillados experienced its greatest growth and expansion. Workers were brought into the Maax zone as a response to the combined need for laborers and apparent inability of the local popu- lation to achieve a natural rate of growth. After 1900, the inordinately high birth and death rates of the young proletariat began to decline. Presumably, stabilized or improved working conditions lie at the basis of the decline in mortality during the first decade of this century. The decade of 1911 to 1920 brought with it a series of devas- tating epidemics which not only affected a maintenance of high infant mortality but resulted in the additional deaths of a large percentage of the adult population. The decrease in the hacienda's population for this and the subsequent decade (1921-1930) cannot be attributed solely to increased mortality. Outmigration seems to have begun with the period of post- revolutionary labor-reform legislation and continued until the implementation of land reform in 1938. During the interim period of relative political stability, mortality rates continued to decline until the end of the second phase (post- labor reform) of the hacienda and the redistribution of private holdings in the henequen zone. Although initiated by the Federal government under President Cardenas, the State government altered the program. Through Henequeneros —-— 79 de Yucatan, the new ejidatarios were converted into one large collective proletariat and the henequen ejidos into what the State referred to as the "Gran Ejido" and what some authors have preferred to call the period of the "Gran Hacienda." Apparently a period of demographic stress, mortality rates rose under Henequeneros and decreased following the 1955 reassertion of control over the ejido land reform communities and the fiber manufacturing industry by institutions of the federal government (chiefly, the Banco Agrario de Yucatan and Cordemex, S.A.) During the State period, rising death rates were offset by the increase in birth rates and, apparently, a reduction in the degree of outmigration. The population of San Antonio doubled from 1930 to 1970 and the 1970 municipal population was twice that indicated by the 1940 census. The present condition of I'1ocalized overpopulation" seems an effect not merely of increasing health and longevity of the populace but of land reform itself. Whereas the 1917-1918 labor legislation gave the henequen workers real potential for mobility, the ejido reform program has stabilized and immobilized the population for not only the henequen zone but for the State as well. Mérida, for example, increased in size more rapidly than the State as a whole, but so did San Antonio (1960- 1970), the cabecera (1940-1960) and the municipality of Maax (1940- 1960). Only during the last decade, as the population began severely to press the limits of the economic potential of henequen production, is rural-urban migration once again appearing in the northern zone of Yucatan. This effect may be just beginning to manifest itself for the Hacienda community, but it is clearly a factor for the cabecera and the municipality as a whole. 80 For the pe0ple of San Antonio, there are constant and highly visible remainders of the hacienda period of their history. The heir to Hacienda San Antonio is presently the owner of the pequefia propiedad, the remnant holdings of land and the decorticating factory. The ejido is presently controlled by the Banco Agrario de Yucatan and, yet, the ejidatarios rely to a great extent on the good will of the ex-patran. Continuing the paternalistic pattern of interaction, the ejidatarios supplement their low incomes from the ejido by working for the pequefio propietario. The private landholder is able to claim the responsibility for the improvement of the road to Xamach, for the electrification of his factory and the community, for the facilitation of the old hacienda chapel for religious purposes, for the construction of a medical dispensary (albeit rarely used) and for assistance in the construction and repair of several houses in the ejido community. Subsequent chapters focus on the organization and operation of the ejido as a legal, economic and social entity. Special importance is given to the patterns of interaction that link the federal bank, the collectivized land reform community and the hacienda heir. The following chapter will also explore the nature of the ejido henequenero and the ways in which the ejidatario has come to find himself caught in the paradox of a liberal reform ideology forged out of the Mexican Revolution and a new collectivized form of debt-peonage. CHAPTER II--FOOTNOTES 1Arnold Strickon (1965: 41) has identified three major environ- mental zones: (1) the arid "Northern Zone" of thin, poor soils; (2) a "Central-Eastern Zone" of somewhat deeper soils, moderate rainfall, and tall forest cover; and (3) a more productive maize area of deep soils, tropical forest, heavy rainfall that Strickon refers to as the "South- Eastern Zone." 2Moisés Gonzalez Navarro (1970: 173) reports that as a result of the Caste War, the population of the Peninsula of Yucatan decreased from a total of 504,635 inhabitants in 1846 to approximately 300,000 by 1856, a loss of over 40% of the population as a result of the Mayan peasant rebellion. 3Nathaniel Raymond (1971) has focused his research on the historical aspects of the deve10pment of the henequen industry and, in particular, has examined in detail the competition for power and economic control between government, local entrepreneurs, and the International Harvester Company. 4"Xamach" and "Maax," as well as "San Antonio" and the names of individuals and key informants, are pseudonyms for the actual names of locations and individuals. 5One member of the community, recognizing the advantages of thatched roofing, constructed himself a large, rectangular stone-and- morter house with cement floor and a thatched, high beamed roof. He has combined the advantages of sturdy wall construction with the ventilating and cooling qualities of the "choza" roof. 6The owner of the pequefia pr0piedad has consistently involved himself in projects, many of his own design, to improve the quality of fiber production and to investigate potential utility and possible commercial value of the "bagaso" henequen waste. He periodically brings officials of the state or federal agricultural or governmental agencies to demonstrate his innovativeness and never misses the opportunity to point out the improvements he has made for the ejido community to these visitors. 7The dog had adopted us early in our period of residence in San Antonio and proved to be somewhat of an embarrassment at the time we left the community. "Perrita" started out as an extremely thin and horribly infected animal. I treated her for various parasites and we fed her waste food and, owing to the periodic and extreme generosity of the residents of San Antonio, we occasionally fed her, 81 82 after dark, some of the extra food given to us (prepared and usually unsolicited reciprocity for our having taken someone to see a doctor or to the hospital for ejidatarios in Mérida). By the time we left the community, "Perrita" was a plump and quite happy animal with a full and glossy coat of hair. People would comment on her obvious change in appearance and spirit but never asked us how the change actually occurred. 8This is a very common phrase encountered in the henequen zone. Workers often refer to the hacienda period prior to land reform as simply "el tiempo del esclavitud." 9Most authors refer to the earlier reform of governor Eleuterio Avila who first decreed an end to slavery and debt peonage in Yucatan (1914). These reforms were not effective and Edmundo Bolio (1967: 81) has referred to Avila as a “false revolutionary" and further states that "E1 decreto libertador de los indios, de haciendas, fue enmendado por una segunda disposicion que materialmente anulaba e1 alcance redentor del primero." 10Some data is available for migration into the State, but none for outmigration. This could be explored by examining national census materials for other of the Mexican states, looking for numbers of indi- viduals who had reported their place of birth or origin as "Yucatan" for the various decades (where available). Such research is of interest to this author, but lies outside of the general scope and problem of this dissertation. 1lDon Joaquin Arrigunaga Pean assisted in locating the Maax parish documents and I gratefully acknowledge his assistance. 12In general, increasing infant survival rate increases the length of time between pregnancies due, especially in populations of low caloric intake and poor nutritional quality of the food, to a temporary inability on the part of the female to ovulate for the duration of the period of lactation (Henry, 1956: 53; Kolata, 1974: 934; Frisch and McArthur, 1974: 950). 13With regard to the ”demographic revolution," T. Lynn Smith states that "In large measure this was due to the comprehensive health programs of the Rockefeller Foundation and the world health agencies, working in close cooperation with governments. These programs were highly successful in controlling communicable diseases such as smallpox, malaria, and the dysenteries--all of the causes of death that are susceptible to arrest by such means as vaccinations, injections, and the safeguarding of milk and water supplies. As a result, the death rates in the Latin American countries began to fall sharply and substantially”(l970: 30). 14Brown and Wray (1974: 47-49) suggest that changes in diet and general nutritional improvement have a much greater impact on the reduction of morbidity and mortality rates than the alteration of medical and health services. With regard to medical research in 83 highland Guatemalan communities, they state that "unfortunately, despite assumptions to the contrary, feasible medical methods for controlling infections in these children are not readily available at the village level" (1974: 49). Lowering of infant mortality rates in these villages, then, are attributed to changes in the diet and availability of food rather than particular health programs. 15A1though the National Census was disrupted by the 1910 Mexican revolution, Yucatan was not immediately affected by the revolts. 16Figure 3 graphically depicts the data presented earlier on Table 8. Missing data for San Antonio for the period of 1910 was calculated and included based on utilizing birth and death records and assuming similarity in the calculated rates for the municipality and extending those rates to the analysis of records for San Antonio itself. The most credible of the various estimating assumptions tested was that of applying the Maax municipal death rate (47.9/1000) to the data on San Antonio. The calculated estimates resulted in a presumed population of 225 individuals and a birth rate for the com- munity of 74.6/1000. CHAPTER III THE EJIDO OF SAN ANTONIO: LAND TENURE REFORM AND THE ECONOMICS OF PRODUCTION Introduction Revolutionary Legislation: The Ejido and the Ejidatario Hacienda San Antonio: the First Phase of Reform The Cardenas Reform: San Antonio and Anti-Reform Tactics The Collective Ejido of San Antonio: from Federal Reform to State Control San Antonio and the Federal Ejido Banks The "Castigation" of Fiber Ejido Productive Efficiency: Criticisms of Land Reform Summary and Conclusions 84 85 Introduction This chapter examines qualitative and quantitative aspects of land reform in the area of San Antonio. Expropriations reduced the original hacienda holdings by 86%, creating a much-reduced "small property" or peguefia propiedad. The community of resident laborers (acasillados) became a legally separate entity, an ejido, with 14% of the hacienda lands endowed by the federal government to economically support that population. Land reform occurred in two phases. The first expropriation reduced the uncultivated, reserve holdings of the hacienda but left the acasillados unaffected. The second reform, ordered by President Lazaro cardenas, distributed additional land, much of it already planted in henequen, to the nearby towns of Maax and Xamach and, more importantly, provided the residents of San Antonio with ejido status. Prior to the cardenas reform, the owners of the hacienda attempted to divide the property into several small holdings and by that means diminish the effects of expropriation. The legal maneuvers, typical of many land- owning families (cf. Stavenhagen, 1970: 234), failed and the government, obviously intolerant of such attempts to negate the intent to redistrib- ute the land, penalized the family, leaving less land for the pequefia propiedad than the maximum allowed by the agrarian code of the period. Since land reform, ejido henequen production has never been completely managed by the ejidatarios themselves. This chapter examines aspects of control over the means of production (land, credit, processing equipment) which have been vested in State (Henequeneros de Yucatan), Federal (the ejido banks), and private institutions. The present status — 86 of San Antonio is that of client, heavily in debt, and under the control of the Bangrario (Banco Agrario de Yucatan). The ejidatarios receive, in effect, wages for work assigned by the Bangrario. Henequen production is more than sufficient to cover the local costs of production, but the "profits" are absorbed as payment on a massive debt which reportedly accumulated during the period of the National Ejido Bank (Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal, 1955-1962). Critics of agrarian reform in Yucatan cite the greater produc- tivity of the private sector (pequefias propiedades) as proof of an inherent inability of the ejidatario to demonstrate efficiency and care in the absence of strict supervision. When ejidatarios of San Antonio work on lands belonging to the pequeh’a propiedad they are paid less per unit of work and produce more fiber per hectare of land. The final section of this chapter examines the productive relationship existing between the ejidatarios and the owner of the private holdings. More particularly, factors relevant to understanding lowered produc- tivity in the ejido sector are identified and discussed. In this CCritext, the collective and individual or parcelized models of productive organ i zation are compared. Revolutionary Legislation: The Ejido and the Ejidatario The term efld_o has its roots in the early period of the conquest and Colonization of Mexico. Use of the term ejido combined the varieties Of lhdigenous village and clan-rights to communal use of lands in Mexico With Spanish concepts of individual parcels (propios) and communal town “91C” ngs (ejidos).1 In colonial Mexico, ejido had come to include the 87 various Hispanic concepts (which were separate in Spain) of common, multi-use lands in the immediate vicinity of a town (ejjgg_land), cultivable lands distributed as rented parcels to community members (propios), grasslands designated as communal pastures (pastos comunes or dehesas), and communally-held woodland areas (mggtgs) supplying resources for fuel and construction (Whetten, 1948: 76-79; McBride, 1923: 106-107). As a result of the Mexican revolution of 1910, the concept of the ejido became transformed into a model for land reform. Article 27 of the post-revolutionary Mexican Constitution provided the legal basis empowering the government to undertake programs of land redistribution and reallocation to provide peasants with independent subsistence bases. Beginning with the declaration that ownership of lands and waters "is vested originally in the Nation" (Simpson, 1937: 749), Article 27 of the Constitution further asserts the absolute right of the government to institute necessary programs of land redistribution. Proposition XIV. Landowners affected by resolutions already handed down granting or restoring ejidos or waters, in favor of villages, or which may be handed down in the future, shall enjoy no ordinary legal right nor recourse, and may not apply for an gmpgrg (injunction) (Simpson, 1937: 754). Specific agrarian reform legislation provided the means by which centers of population could petition for the return of usurped lands which had been lost to expanding private holdings. If community claims were vague or titles nonexistant, ejido lands would be granted outright by Federal action and sanctioned by Proposition X of Article 27.2 Ejido lands-in-grant are generally referred to as "dotation units" (unidades de dotacian) but there are, in fact, four types of grants of communal holdings. Restitution (restitucian) refers to lands originally held 88 in common by a village but which were taken over by means of force or legal debt-foreclosure by private landholding agencies or families. Dotation (dotacian) refers to the outright granting of lands and the legal establishment of an ejido in spite of lack of evidence or the precedent of communally held lands as documented in community or governmental archives. Enlargement (ampliacian) of existing ejidal holdings may be granted to a petitioning population center which other- wise does not possess land equal to the established governmental minimum family allotment. The establishment of new population centers (redistribucian) and the redistribution of lands may be instituted to create a new ejido structure including both lands and a new com— munity of relocated peasants (Cadigo,3 1970, Libro Segundo: 22-39). Both article 27 of the Mexican Constitution and the Agrarian Code of Mexico (Simpson, 1937: 759 ff.) stressed individualized exploitation of dotated communal ejido lands. Individual parcels were to be awarded to ejidatarios who were heads of household (or single males over sixteen years of age) by means of drawing lots (Simpson, 1937: 791, Article 132). Article 27 provided for the expropriation and redistribution of large landholding estates and at the same time defended the concept of the privately-owned, intensively exploited, "small property" or pequefia propiedad: Proposition XV. Mixed Commissions, local Governments and other authorities entrusted with agrarian cases shall, under no circum- stances, touch small agricultural properties in operation, and shall incur liability for violating the Constitution, should they make grants affecting such (Simpson, 1937: 755). Article 27 was later revised to specify, in conformity with provisions of the Agrarian Code of 1933, that a pequefia propiedad would include 89 not more than l00 hectares of irrigable or "first class humid land," 200 hectares of seasonal land, "one-hundred-fifty hectares of land used for cultivation of cotton, . . . (or) three hundred hectares devoted to . . . henequen" or other plantation crops (coffee, sugar cane, banana, etc.) (Whetten, l948: 621). This concept of according protection to smallholdings allowed large landowners to select and retain, as a part of agrarian reform, an area of land which would meet the upper limits of the protected "pequefia propiedad." Landowners typically opted for the most fertile and irrigable of the estate lands plus the hacienda casco and, in the case of semi-industrialized plantation holdings, the local farm or processing machinery (such as the decorticating factory in Yucatan). 4 smallholders Prior to enactment of the Agrarian Code of l933, (pequefios propietarios) were allowed to retain the resident worker communities of the hacienda as well as other lands and buildings. The hacienda resident workers (peones acasillados) were excluded from rights to expropriated lands and legal ejido status (Mendieta y Nufiez, l968: 240-24l). Even with their inclusion in the Agrarian Code, acasillados still could not petition directly for lands, but could only request their inclusion in the agrarian census of a nearby, petitioning population center. The Code provided for their inclusion only if enough land were available to provide minimal "units of dotation" to qualified town or village members and available excess land which could be assigned to an ejido of acasillados. Article 44 of the 1933 Agrarian Code of Mexico (Simpson, l937: 768-769) defines ejidatario as a peasant (campesino) who is native born, 90 whose primary occupation concerns the cultivation of the land, and whose holdings are such that the government deems it necessary to endow additional lands (units of dotation) to adequately support the campesino and his or her family.5 In order to receive such grants of ejidal land, the campesino must have resided in the petitioning population center at least six months prior to the initiation of proceedings or the formal request to receive legal status and lands as an ejido agrarian reform community.6 A peasant may lose rights as an ejidatario if he fails to cultivate the assigned parcel (if a member of an individualized ejido), fail s to meet assigned work obligations (if a member of a collectivized ejido), or attempts to lease or sell ejidal property (C6digo, 1970: 145; Simpson, l937: 795-796). Hacienda San Antonio: The First Phase of Reform Following the Mexican revolution, the original founder of Hacienda San Antonio found himself in financial and legal difficulties. ”1th the arrival of General Alvarado in Yucatan (l9l7) there began an anti ~Catholic policy which had been felt elsewhere in Mexico during the immediate, post-revolutionary period. The founder, administering a Charitable fund linked with the Catholic church, was accused of mis- ma"kllgement of funds and jailed by Alvarado. He was soon released but. c”$11 lusioned, went to Cuba in voluntary exile. He died shortly thf-‘Ir‘eafter and the Hacienda was left to his widow and their children. It Was during this period that the first phase of agrarian reform in Y“(Iatén affected the holdings of Hacienda San Antonio. In l9l7, the town of Xamach filed a petition for restitution °f ejido lands. With the presidential resolution of l922, Xamach 91 received ejido status and a total of 1,923 hectares of which l80 hectares were expropriated from San Antonio. By l919, Maax had peti- tioned the government for a dotation to endow ejido status and lands to that village. The resolution of 1924 dotated a total of 2,l00 hectares from surrounding haciendas and of that total, 439 hectares were expropriated from the lands of San Antonio (Presidential Resolutions for Maax and Xamach, Archives of the Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonizacién, DAAC). Neither the acasillado residents7 nor the economic Operation of the Hacienda were seriously affected by this first phase of land reform. Lands expropriated from the Hacienda were listed as "uncultivated" (inculto), lands that had been acquired to supply wood for the steam- driven decorticator and to supply a reserve area for future plantings of henequen. Under the provisions of earlier agrarian reform legislation stress was placed on maintaining the integrity of private holdings under intensive cultivation. The first phase of agrarian reform left the plantation and the core labor pool essentially untouched. Hacienda San Antonio was affected by the legal difficulties and the exile of the founder to Cuba. In l926, following the first phase of agrarian reform, the Hacienda was sold to another party, here referred to as Don Arturo. The new owner began a period of extending henequen fields (only part of the total uncultivated fields were expro- priated) and renewing older plantings. Don Arturo held the Hacienda until a little more than a decade later when the second period of land reform reduced the holdings to the present size of approximately 230 hectares. 92 TABLE l0.--First Phase of Reform and Hacienda San Antonio. Holdings Category (Hectares) Percentb San Antonio, Pre-Reform Holdings l,642 l00.0% Restitution, Xamach (1922)C l80 10.9 Dotation, Maax (1924)c 439 26.7 Total Expropriation (l922-l924) 619 37.7 Remaining holdings of Hacienda San Antonio l,023 62.3 aFigures reported in D.I.S.A. and DAAC archives have been rounded to the nearest hectare. bDiscrepencies in the sum of percentages an effect of rounding. cDate indicates the year of publication of the Presidential Resolutions in the Diario Oficial of Yucatan. The Cardenas Reform: San Antonio and Anti-Reform Tactics The purchase of San Antonio represented an increase in the total holdings of the family of Don Arturo. His wife had inherited a larger hacienda, San Juan, in the vicinity of Maax and between the two holdings, Don Arturo managed a total area of nearly 2,500 hectares and an acasillado population of over four hundred individuals.8 In addition, the decorticators of both haciendas were the largest (in terms of capacity) in the immediate region. In l935, Don Arturo initiated a number of legal maneuvers in an attempt to thwart the intent of the approaching second phase of agrarian reform in Yucatan. The methods he used to disguise the ownership of the family properties were typical of counter-reform tactics used in the 93 henequen zone and, indeed, elsewhere in Mexico. From l926 until l934, both haciendas, San Juan and San Antonio, were listed in the land registry office as belonging to the wife of Don Arturo. In January of 1935, title of San Antonio was shifted to the name of Don Arturo. In June of l935, Don Arturo "sold” 240 hectares of land to his daughter (who was nine years old at the time) and over 500 hectares to his son (who was three years of age), leaving nearly 300 hectares as his share of the holdings of San Antonio (D.I.S.A.). The children, according to the documents of title transfer, were to have been legally represented by their "special tutor," an individual who also happened to be the brother of Don Arturo. The tactics were clear. Don Arturo hoped that by splitting the holdings among various members of the family, they would be legally recognized as separate entities. According to the original plan, each of the separate holdings would be exempted, up to the maximum of 300 hectares, as an individual pequena propiedad. San Juan, although larger, could not be split into separate holdings since it had long been listed as a single, family-owned, property unit. San Antonio, on the other hand, had expanded during the latter part of the nineteenth century and two of the holdings (the ones which Don Arturo "sold") were listed as "anexas," as lands which had been separate units (independent "ranchos") but which were annexed to the Hacienda. The maneuver would have left the family of Don Arturo with total holdings of over l,l00 hectares instead of the allowable total of 300 hectares--if the tactic had worked. The 1937 presidential resolution relative to the amplification of the ejido of Maax (DAAC archives) rejected the claimed sale and 94 division of property. Under the heading "Fincas Afectables para la Presente Ampliacion," the various haciendas to be affected are described as to total holdings and status of ownership. With regard to San Antonio, the section states: . . it has been made to seem that this person (Don Arturo) divided these (holdings) into two parts, selling each one to the very same children of this marriage with (wife of Don Arturo) who is the same proprietress of San Juan, which sale in the instance of this case enjoys no legal validity. . . With respect to the haciendas San Juan and San Antonio it has been proven that the aCts of sale were simulated ones, that both holdings constitute a single industrial unit, that total usufruct was enjoyed by the same family, and that major economic gains from the exploitation and accumulation of benefits derived from same, is totally in favor of this same family (DAAC Archives, my trans- lation . Dan Arturo's maneuver had backfired totally, as indicated by the assignment of lands expropriated from the various haciendas: The lands which are to be respected (as pequefia propiedad) are precisely those specified by article 51 of the Agrarian Code, as amended by decree number nine of this same year, in other words 150 hectares planted in henequen and the rest, in the corresponding proportion, in uncultivated lands, with the exception of finca San Juan which will be wholly expropriated, both henequen fields and uncultivated lands, by virtue of the fact that the owners are the same that own the holdings called San Antonio which is the only one to be resBected as the pequefia propiedad (DAAC archives, my translation). Don Arturo was forced to retain San Antonio as the pequefia propiedad and lost completely the other, larger, family property of hacienda San Juan. The largest holdings lost, the major plantings of San Antonio now in the hands of the new ejidatarios of San Antonio, of Maax, and of Xamach, Don Arturo defaulted on the final due note of fifty thousand pesos and the Hacienda San Antonio reverted back to the heirs of the original founder of the hacienda. Don Arturo, who had invested much of his and his family's funds in the purchase and expansion 95 of production of San Antonio, was economically ruined. Informants in Merida who knew both Don Arturo and the founder of San Antonio reported that Don Arturo went into seclusion shortly after this loss of property and died an essentially defeated man. In all, only 14.4% of the pre- 1917 holdings were given to the ejidatarios of San Antonio. The other ejidos of Maax and Xamach received 72.6% of the lands, and the pequefia propiedad of San Antonio remained with the casco, 14% of the original territory, and the decorticating factory.10 TABLE ll.--Second Phase of Reform and Hacienda San Antonio. Holdings Category (Hectares) Percent San Antonio, 1935 Holdings 1,023 100.0% Ampliacidn, Municipality of Xamach (1939)a 272 26.6 Ampliacion, Municipality of Maax (1939) 266 26.0 Dotacidn, Acasillados of San Antonio (1939) 236 23.0 Total Expropriated (1937-1939)b 774 75.6 Held as Individual Parcelsc 20 2.0 Remnant Holdings: the Pequefia Propiedad 229 22.4% aThe dates refer to the year of publication of the presidential resolution in the Diario Oficial de Yucatan. bThe presidential resolutions for Maax and Xamach were issued in the latter part of 1937 and officially published over a year later. CShortly after 1900, the founder of San Antonio distributed twenty hectares, in small parcels, to acasillado heads of household for their own use. These have remained as the private holdings of some twenty-eight individuals with an average holding of approximately two-thirds of an hectare each. The majority of the parcels are planted in henequen and the present patterns of exploitation and ownership will be discussed more fully below. 96 Shortly following agrarian reform Don Manuel, the present owner ‘ of San Antonio and grandson (DaSo) of the original founder of the hacienda, began to act as representative of the other heirs in the administration of the pequefia propiedad. Beginning with the ten original heirs (referred to as s9219§_or "co-owners") there began in 1942 a series of attempts by opposing factions to gain controlling interest in San Antonio. Two major factions (which included heirs and their spouses) developed, with Don Manuel as the strongest challenger and with each faction attempting to force the other to sell their shares. The tactics were restricted by state laws concerning co- proprietorship which specify that regardless of an individual's share of the holdings, each socio has the power of a single vote in deter- mining corporate policy. While prohibiting socios from distributing portions of their shares as obvious attempts to gain more votes, the law does allow shares of a decreased member to be sold as part of the financial liquidation of an estate, or a socio may sell all shares which she or he may own. In the latter instance, the other socios have the first option to buy any shares offered to non-socios. The leader of the major opposing faction had "sold" his share to his 1] With her death in 1952, her share was equally divided among mother. the leader and seven of his brothers and sisters as part of their inheritance of her estate. Within a short period of time, the father of Don Manuel died, an event which permitted Don Manuel, through the pattern of inheritance, to add seven members to his core of allies. 97 Since property held by spouses is considered communal property in Yucatan, half of the shares held by Don Manuel's mother (daughter of the founder of San Antonio) were distributed as part of the patrimony to four of her children and their spouses. By 1954, Don Manuel controlled the votes of eleven out of the total of twenty socios owning the pequefia propiedad. In that same year, Don Manuel challenged the opposition, threatening to force an auction of the pequefia propiedad and liquidate the holding society altogether. The opposition capitu- 1ated and agreed to sell their ownership to Don Manuel and his associates rather than submit to an auction and public sale of the holdings.12 By 1962, Don Manuel had bought out the majority of relatives and friends who had supported him in his fight to gain control of the remnant holdings of the hacienda founded by his maternal grandfather. Only his wife, mother, and brother have retained minor shares in the pequefia propiedad, with Don Manuel himself owning 87.5% of the shares. (Based on D.I.S.A. records and extensive interviews with Don Manuel.) Sections of the Agrarian Code and Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution specify that owners of expropriated lands are to be indemnified through the issue of special bonds for the declared evaluation of the lost holdings. According to Edmundo Flores (1961: 328-333), the laws passed during the post-revolutionary period were purposefully incomplete, contradictory, and lacked the terms necessary to effect indemnization. Flores' major point concerns the fact that the Mexican Government simply could not afford it. Summarizing, Flores states (1967: 120): Only 170 national claimants, who presented 381 claims for the expropriation of a total area of 222,797 hectares, were 98 indemnified. This amounts to less than 0.5 percent of the total of 55 million hectares distributed until 1960. . . . The rest of the lands granted to 2.5 million ejidatarios who were heads of families were expropriated without compensation. The peasants who benefited from the agrarian reform received free land grants. Documents relative to the return of San Antonio and the later sales between the socios indicate that the hacienda owners received no compensation for the loss of either the lands of San Antonio or, in the case of Don Arturo, for the loss of the entire holdings of San Juan. The return of the hacienda and all sale documents, in fact, list the entire pre-reform holdings as well as those of the pequefia propiedad, indicating which had been dotated to the various ejidos and ending with a clause which states: . . . with respect to those extensions of lands definitively affected in favor of ejidos by resolutions, this sale does not proclaim actual rights to those lands but rather to all of the rights and actions necessary to claim restitution or payment of appropriate indemnization for the affected lands and henequen fields (D.I.S.A., 1942, 1962, my translation). In the case of Don Arturo, the lost value of the lands were significant but the expropriation of the industrial plant of San Juan represented a particularly sizeable loss to the transitory hacendado of San Antonio. While data were not available for San Juan, the following table lists the relative cadastral evaluation declared for the various fields, the casco, and the decorticating factory of San Antonio at the time of agrarian reform (D.I.S.A., 1935, 1938). Also included in the cadastral statement of 1935 (concerning the attempted sale of holdings to the children of Don Manuel) were inventory lists of the main Casco and community property of San Antonio. 99 TABLE 12.--San Antonio: Cadastral Value and Inventory. Item (Pre-Reform, 1935) Quantity Value in Pesos San Antonio (a) Lands and Casco 246 hectares $ 2,642 (b) Decorticator, Buildings 26 hectares 267,328 Annex I Lands 69 hectares 2,940 Annex II Lands 241 hectares 27,990 Annex III Lands 440 hectares 62,300 Total Holdings 1,022 hectares 373,200 Casco Inventory (Pre-Reform, 1935) Structures: 1 machinery building, 35 X 10 meters 1 administration building, 15 X 5 meters 1 recreation building, 30 X 40 meters 1 habitation, 25 X 10 meters 50 workers' houses, 8 X 10 meters each, wattle-and-daub Cattle None Production per thousand leaves 24 Kilograms of Fiber Annual Production of Fiber 184,000 Kilograms Decorticator Prieto Vencedora Boiler Bacok Motors (a) Steam Robey, 35 hp. (b) Fuel Oil De la Vergne, 100 hp. Mules 24 head Decauville rail and cart system 4 Kilometers Item (Post-Reform, 1938) Hectares Value San Antonio: a Casco, land, buildings, machinery, etc. 104 $ 41,510 Field II (Uncultivated) 48 430 Field III (Cultivated in Henequen) 69 2.940 Total Value (at time of return to heirs) 221 44,880 aThis list was taken from the copy of sale to the original heirs and addressed to the director of the cadastral office. It appears that the lands and the evaluation of the casco and core are under-rated. Don Manuel's records indicate the core holdings at 112 hectares and Don Arturo had earlier declared $267,328 pesos as the casco worth. 100 It is clear from the table (Table 12) that it is difficult to obtain an estimation of the true market value of the pequena propiedad and the decorticating factory from the tax or cadastral records. The 1935 list is probably most accurate, since it would be reasonable to state the highest price possible if expropriation were to result in potential claims for indemnization. The post-reform value is con- siderably lower and, while l'buildings, machinery, etc." are mentioned, it is not clear whether the price for the core area of San Antonio ($41,510) actually included the evaluation placed on the decorticator. When, as mentioned above, disputes between the various socios led to an agreement to auction the hacienda, the participants specified (D.I.S.A., 1954) that the minimum acceptable starting bid would be $600,000 pesos. The auction list included the machinery, rest of the casco, 225 hectares of land, and "the right to future restitution or indemnization" for all other lands lost as a result of agrarian reform. This, it would seem, provides a more probable estimate of the worth of the pequefia propiedad at least during the period of the proposed (but never instituted) auction. One further item of note concerns the earlier cadastral evaluation of 1935 which imposed a fixed value of $125 pesos per hectare on lands under cultivation (cultivo) and $9 pesos per hectare on lands already in production. This differentiation in evaluation constitutes an official recognition of the fact that the preparation and cultivation of henequen fields (for the first five to seven years) represent a continual investment without economic return. Land reform in Yucatan was neither a simple nor a merely mechanical implementation of the program and law as dictated by 101 President Lazaro Cardenas. The earlier reforms during the administrations of General Salvador Alvarado (1915-1918) and Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1918, 1922-1923) established village ejidos yet affected little the economic operation of the henequen haciendas. Alvarado's labor reform legislation and attempts to control the political strengths of the hacendados and the catholic church had a greater impact on the operation of San Antonio. The original founder, prosecuted by Alvarado for his involvement in a church-related benefit fund, was forced to abandon both the hacienda and Yucatan itself. The second owner, attempting to avoid the effects of agrarian reform, was himself economically destroyed by the counter-actions of the governmental reform Commissions. During the post-reform period, there began a series of maneuvers finally culminating in the victory for control of the present owner of the pequefia propiedad of San Antonio. The worth of the pequena propiedad, more than the actual lands, is associated principally with the decorticating factory and associated equipment. The hacendados, for the most part, continued to enjoy a monopoly, during the post-reform period, over the processing factories in the rural areas and, therefore, continued to control one of the key means of production in the State's henequen industry. Don Arturo's loss of the lands and the casco of San Juan represents one of the exceptions to the course of actual reform in Yucatan which left as protected and untouched, the pequefia propiedad as defined, within allowable limits, by the ex-hacendados themselves.13 From informant interviews among the older members of the com- munity of San Antonio, it appears that the change in ownership and the subsequent factionalization of the socios into opposing groups left 102 the operation of the pequena propiedad essentially unaffected. Many informants confused Don Arturo with the hacienda founder, confusing both names and sequences of events surrounding agrarian reform. Once a group discussion would begin, however, the facts would be sorted and concensus would generally mirror the actual course of events and geneaological connection between many of the socios. One informant described the factionalization as simply "su pleito entre ricos," "a squabble among the rich," and of little consequence for their lives as acasillados. The Collective Ejido of_San Antonio: From Federal Reform to State Control The creation of the Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal (1936), the inclusion of acasillados in the Agrarian Code of 1934, and the emphasis on collective organization of plantation ejidos were three major aspects of Cardenas' reform program which effected the creation and the present form of land exploitation in the ejido of San Antonio. The acasillados, excluded from the earlier reform of 1917-1924, were included in the agrarian census of Maax.14 Organized as an gjjgg_ colectivo ge_acasillados, San Antonio was to have been placed under the financial wing of the Banjidal. The charter of the Banjidal enabled that institution to function as a source of credit and capital for collectively-organized ejidos. Cardenas' intent was to impose collectivized forms of exploitation (rather than allow parcelization of ejido lands) in areas where patterns of plantation agriculture would produce the greatest economic return through an "integrated" form of organization. 103 San Antonio received, along with "collective" status, community house lots (solares), the hacienda store, half of which served as the ejido office and the other half rented out as community store, and a total of 58 "dotation units" plus one additional unit as "parcela escolar" to be used in financially supporting the local school. Based on the amount of land under cultivation at the time, there were enough hectares to grant ejidatario status to forty-four individuals with fourteen "units" corresponding to "inculto" lands and held in reserve for future expansion of the ejido (DAAC Archives). Typical of the problems experienced by many newly-created or expanded ejidos, the hacendados retained most of the lands which were capable of providing economic returns and the ejidos received lands which were nearing the end of their productive cycle (decadencia or X-lahpach) or which were newly planted (cultivo) and required several years' investment (weeding and maintenance operations) to bring them into production. Nearly 60% of the lands held by the pequena propiedad in San Antonio were in the early stages of production (mateo and explotacion) while ejido lands producing henequen accounted for only 20% of the total holdings. The ejidatarios originally had usufruct rights to use the desfibradora (decorticator) factory and the owners of the pequena propiedad were paid for that use. The new owners of the pequena propiedad no longer had to pay wages to clear the land, cultivate, weed or harvest the henequen. They were saved the long-term investment necessary to bring a field into production but still gained from not only production on their lands, but from ejido production as well. Within six months following the initiation of Cardenas' reform, Governor Humberto Canto Echeverria established Henequeneros de Yucatan 104 to manage the "Great Ejido" of Yucatan and put an end to what he viewed as the period of "federal intervention" in State affairs (Rodriguez, 1966: 270-271). The individual ejidos continued to operate organi- zationally as specified by the Agrarian Code of Mexico, electing an administrative set of officers, the Comisariado Ejidal, and a watchdog committee, the Junta de Vigilancia. These elected officials, however, had no control over the actual operation of the henequen ejidos nor did they function as more than rubber stamps under the direction of an assigned representative (not from the community) of the State agency. Henequeneros controlled the distribution of work and payment to the ejidatarios. Under the direction of henequeneros, the ejidatarios were treated as one massive, collective labor pool to work on what Canto Echeverria reportedly referred to as "1a finca henequenera mas grande del mundo" (Rodriguez, 1966: 277), or the greatest henequen hacienda in the world. For the ejidatarios of San Antonio, this meant that they were to work not simply on lands assigned to their own ejido, but they were joined with the ejidatarios of Maax and Xamach to work as members of labor gangs on lands within the general area. The beginnings of Henequeneros were rooted in the facts of inequitable distribution of cultivable and cultivated henequen lands to the various ejidos. Rather than solve the problem over the long run, the action actually perpetuated the inequities, perhaps even accenting them especially for the ejido of San Antonio. As detailed below, the period of assertion of Federal control, beginning in 1955 with the dissolution of Henequeneros, necessitated a period of lowered earnings and mounting 105 indebtedness as the ejidatarios of San Antonio began to replant fields which had gone out of production. The ejido had not achieved, during the seventeen years under Henequeneros de Yucatan, a balance in the distribution between new fields and fields already in production; a balance which would maximize production and minimize the amount of land which, at any given time, would require labor investment without economic return. ' Actual production data and other records of San Antonio are 15 nonexistent for the period of control by Henequeneros. Don Leonardo, the first elected president of the ejido, recalled that some profits were distributed to ejidatarios during this period but that they actually amounted to a very small amount of money. During Henequeneros, the decorticating plant was turned over to the ejidatarios for the processing of ejido fiber. Ejidatarios would operate the plant (exercizing usufruct rights) but the pequefio propietario retained ownership and management of the factory for the processing of his own fiber or fiber obtained from parcel owners. Henequeneros paid the salaries of both the field workers and the factory workers during the decortication of ejido leaves, and the wages were charged against the account of the ejido. An official investigative report filed by an employee of the Departamento Agrario en Yucatan (later changed to DAAC) in 1951 described the economic relations which existed between the owner of the San Antonio decorticating plant, Henequeneros, and the members of the ejido of Xamach:16 (For leaves) decorticated in San Antonio, and solely for that operation, Henequeneros turns over 50% of the brute product of decortication (to the decorticator); in this case, given an 106 average of 25 kilograms produced per thousand (leaves), this percentage amounts to 123,500 kilos which, at $1.50 per kilo, amounts to $185,250 pesos. This occurs in spite of the fact that the owners of decorticating plants in the henequen zone from Conkal to Telchak charge $5.00 pesos per thousand for decortication. With this (charge) the decortication would have cost a total of 49,000 pesos with (in this case) there remaining an inexplicable difference favorable to the decorticator of $136,250 pesos; this is without taking into account the year end dividend, of which no regard is ever given to the peasant who serves the smallholder, who never receives a dividend of any type, and in which case the dividend referred to, in its totality, is for the decorticator. The decorticator provides the peasant only with a job (jornal) equal to the advance payment (anticipo) given by Henequeneros to the workers who must give up dividends on the other 50% (of the fiber) since it is considered solely for the cultivation and production of henequen and not for the semi- industrialization (processing) for which the other 50% is assigned and turned over to the owner of the decorticating plant. (DAAC Archives, letter of 12/12/1951, my translation). The above assertion that desfibracion charges were usually $5.00 pesos per thousand leaves seems, at first, to be unrealistically low. In 1955, the Banjidal calculated the costs of decortication as ranging between $4.77 and $5.29/thousand, depending on whether the motive force was provided by fuel oil or steam, respectively (Soberon, 1959: 67). These figures were based on a Banjidal study of the henequen zone undertaken as the federal government prepared to assume control over production on ejidos. The figure of five pesos per millar in the DAAC report (above) seems unrealistic except for the fact that the Banjidal estimates include $3.93 per millar as labor costs and $0.84 to $1.36 per millar as covering the costs of fuel, lubricants, spare parts, and the costs of repairs to the equipment. The labor costs, as noted in the DAAC report, were covered by advance payments (anticipos) made to the owner of the decorticating plant for personnel needed in the processing operation. Out of the estimated $49,000 pesos payment for decortication of fiber (in the DAAC report, above) the 107 profit to the owner would have amounted to between $35,770 and $40,760 pesos.]7 Both ejido and privately-produced fiber were subjected to a set of taxes and other discounts imposed by the State. The ejidos, since they were primarily operating on credit, and since the ejidatarios were charged for the continuation of medical services in the ejidal hospital Veinte de Noviembre, were discounted more heavily for the sale of their fiber. The following table (Table 13) lists the various taxes and other items discounted from the sale of fiber and, based on the total included in the DAAC report, a distribution of income between ejido, decorticator, and the State has been calculated. The base is the total production cited for the ejido of Xamach and the resultant two-way split of the fiber. The same 1951 DAAC report cited above, specified that weeding operations were paid at the rate of four pesos per mecate, cutting at four pesos per thousand leaves, and that the Xamach ejido possessed a total of 3,920 mecates in production (about 157 hectares) and varying from seven to fourteen years in age. Using these figures and assuming two weeding cycles per year,19 the following minimum costs of production have been calculated (see Table 14). As Don Leonardo had pointed out in his recollections of San Antonio under Henequeneros, the ejidatarios were assigned tasks, were essentially paid for work performed, and received little in the way of extra dividends from the sale of fiber produced by their labor. The ejido "profits" indicated below actually disappear when one takes into account other necessary expenses such as wages to ejido officials, work needed to maintain fields, walls, firebreaks, access roads, etc. 108 TABLE 13.--Distribution from Sale of Henequen: 1951-1954. 18 Category Pesos/Kilogram Percent State Discounts (Henequeneros, etc.) State Tax $ 0.1400 Transportation to Mérida 0.1794 Handling and Warehousing Charges 0.0250 Total Discounted, Private Fiber 0.3444/Kilogram Ejido Medical Facilities, Mérida 0.0934 Interest Charged against Credit 0.0208 Total Discounted, Ejido Fiber 0.4676/Kilogram Distribution of Sale from Total Ejido Fiber Total Sale Price $ 370,500 1.50/Kilogram 100.0% Discounted (Total) 100,282 0.406 27.1% To Decorticator Owner 142,717 0.577 38.5% Ejido Income (Total) 127,501 0.517 34.4% TABLE 14.-~Costs of Production, 1951. Category Estimated Salary Chapeo (weeding 157 hectares) Corte (cutting 9,800,000 leaves) Wages to workers in decorticating plant at $392.96/100,000 leaves (Soberon, 1966: 67) Estimated Costs of Production to Ejido Estimated Ejido Income from Sale of Fiber Estimated "Profit" to the Ejido $ 31.360 39.200 38,510 109,070 (0.442/Kilo) 127,501 (0.517/Kilo) 18,431 (0.075/K110) 109 Indicative of the fact that most ejidos were operating at a loss, the Federal Government, in 1954, began to subsidize ejido earnings at the rate of $0.17/kilogram of fiber, increasing the governmental calculation of $0.52/kilogram to $0.69/kilogram as the total ejido income for its share of the fiber produced (Gonzalez, 1970: 342).20 Gilberto Flores Mufioz, Secretary of Agriculture in 1955, was one of the officials reSponsible for the dissolution of Henequeneros de Yucatan and the resumption of control over ejido production by the Federal Banjidal. Interviewed in Yucatan (1/27/1955), Flores stated: In the first place, our opinion is that the organization called the Gran Ejido should be terminated in order to re-integrate the legal and social personalities of this community (of ejidos) in accordance with presidencial dotations and the dispositions of the Agrarian Code. Unfortunately, the existence of the Gran Ejido has been destroying the stimulus and initiative of the peasant, converting him into a simple wage laborer. A peasant, in order to feel himself truely the possessor (of his land), should from the start have the freedom to manage it himself and receive the full fruits of his labor and personal efforts (Gonzalez, 1970: 342, my translation). San Antonio and the Federal Ejido Banks On February 16, 1955, the President of Mexico ordered the dissolution of Henequeneros de Yucatan. The ejidos, referred to as "local credit societies," were placed under the administration of the Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal (Banjidal) and, following 1962, under the subsidiary Banco Agrario de Yucatan (Bangaraio). Preparatory to the end of Henequeneros, the federal government not only initiated subsidization (as detailed in the previous section) but also, in 1954, reorganized decortication by contract payment (cf. Table 15) instead of the previous division of the brute quantity of fiber produced. This pattern of contracting decortication between the ejido credit societies 110 TABLE 15.--Decortication Rates (Pesos/Kilogram).a Gradeb 1954c 1969d $0.46 $0.60 B 0.44 0.58 ML 0.43 0.56 c 0.42 0.56 MC 0.40 0.51 Declassified -- 0.45e aDeducted from the sale of fiber and paid directly to the owner of the decorticating factory for fiber that is "dry and baled for shipment." bGrades describe a range of quality from long, clean, and white ("A") to dirty, short, stained, and matted (poorly processed or "Desclasificado"). cOscar Soberon, 1959: 105. dBanco Agrario de Yucatan, Contrato de Desfibracion, 1969 (Xerox copy provided by the Banco Agrario). eThe contract specifies that declassified fiber will be paid at the "MC" rate unless the poor quality is proven to be caused by improper processing. and the private factory owners is presently arranged through the Bangrario offices. With the abandonment of the Great Ejido, ejidatarios were once again defined as an independent group of agricultural workers having usufruct rights to a particular area of land. The ejido boundaries were respected and in the collective ejidos such as San Antonio, only legitimate members were assigned work on those lands. A major difference, however concerns the processing of leaves. The owner of the pequefia propiedad provides additional employment for the ejidatarios which is paid for from the contracted decortication rates, 111 pegged to the quality of fiber produced, rather than being paid from ejido accounts. Ejido personnel calculate the number of leaves 2] and supervise the drying and weighing of all ejido fiber processed, to be packed and shipped to Mérida. As a safeguard for ejido production, the ejido checks production at each stage in the processing and baling and manages the accounting of the fiber produced. Like those of Henequeneros, details of the economics of production in San Antonio were not available for the period of the Banjidal (1955 to 1962). Presently located in the archives of the Bangrario, these data were made available to neither this investigator nor the officials of the ejido of San Antonio. Lacking facilities, records are not usually retained in the ejido for longer than a few years at a time. Outgoing comisariado presidents take the records to their houses were they become used for other purposes, or where they simply deteriorate in the heat and humidity of the Yucatecan climate. Mexican agrarian legislation of the period, does provide information relative to the restructuring of ejidos following the 1955 return of the Banjidal to Yucatan. By the end of 1955, the Agricultural Credit Law of President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines was passed and thereafter utilized in the re- organization of production and ejidos in the henequen zone. This law established a national agricultural credit system to service both the ejidal sector (through the Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal and subsidiary regional ejido banks) and the private sector (through the Banco Nacional de Crédito Agricola). The various provisions of 22 Article 38 empower the Banjidal to provide credit assistance to 112 "local ejidal credit societies." Ejidal credit societies may operate within the credit system without initial capital as a security fund if that society operates as a "solidary" unit (Articles 38, 40, 43). "Solidary" unit refers to a cooperative operation in which members either cultivate individual parcels of ejido lands (parcelarios) or, as in the case of the ejido of San Antonio, collectively exploit the landholdings. In larger ejidos, sub-groups of ejidatarios may legally initiate, cooperatively, a credit relationship with the Banjidal as grupos solidarios (Articles 45, 48), but the grupos are considered as organizationally part of the original ejido and may vote to recombine financially and productively once they have terminated all indebtedness to the Banjidal. After 1962, the Bangrario encouraged the formation of grupos solidarios in the larger town ejidos. This represented an attempt to better control the financial operation of the ejidos by splitting local control among a number of individuals and making the elected officials potentially more responsive to a smaller group of workers. San Antonio, due to its small number of members, has remained a collective ejido and a single, local credit society.23 Once an ejido or group of ejidatarios becomes the client of an ejido bank, they may neither enter into financial agreements with other institutions or individuals (Article 119) nor change the constituted operation of the group (Article 51) for the duration of indebtedness without express approval of the bank. Under the provisions of the Agrarian Credit Law, the ejido banks are authorized to extend various categories of loans of which two, avio and refaccionario loans, have been utilized in the operation of San Antonio. Avio loans are short- term loans extended to primarily cover expenses involved in a single, 113 annual, cycle of agricultural activities, those operations requiring substantial investment in labor prior to the harvest and sale of the product grown. The term of repayment for avio loans is eighteen months (Article 55) and the interest rate, in 1971, amounted to 12% per year. Avio loans are typically extended to ejidos as anticipos or advanced weekly payments to cover the work performed in cultivation, weeding, and harvesting operations. With each shipment of fiber for sale in Mérida, the charges for state taxes, decortication, health insurance, warehousing, transportation and handling charges, are deducted from the total price obtained. The remaining amount from the sale of fiber is applied to, in turn, the payment of avio interest charges, avio principal, and charges related to refaccionario or long- term loans. Refaccionario loans, at a 4% interest rate, are generally extended to cover capital investment in the purchase of farm machinery or the cultivation of plantation crops, such as henequen, which require a long-term investment before returns can be realized (Article 56). The term for repayment of refaccionario loans is variable, depending on the specific use: five years to cultivate lands for the first time, eight years for the purchase of machinery, and twelve years for the cultivation of cyclical crops such as henequen, which require several years to bring into production. Repayment of refaccionario loans, of the latter type, begins when the fields are brought into production and is spread over a five year period (Article 56). The Agricultural Credit Law provides the legal basis for the present de facto control exerted by the Bangrario over the management of the ejido of San Antonio. Article 63 states that unpaid debts may 114 be deferred by the ejido bank, as necessary, according to the ability of the ejido to repay the debt at some time in the future. Article 63 also empowers the ejido bank, upon default of loan payments, to take effective possession of the holdings of the local credit society and manage the operation of the unit until the termination of indebtedness. For the ejido of San Antonio, the control exerted by the Bangrario is absolute. With a declared indebtedness of nearly $500,000 pesos, there is little likelihood that the ejidowill be able to free itself from this credit relationship in the foreseeable future. In practice, the ejidatarios of San Antonio, via a local agency of the Bangrario, receive weekly work assignment sheets which specify the type and amount of work to be performed (mecates to be weeded, millares of leaves to be cut, etc.) and the rate at which 24 At the end of the week (Saturday), anticipos will be authorized. the ejido officials go to Xamach in the morning to receive anticipo payments and the work sheets for the following week; returning to San Antonio, the officials disburse wage payments for work performed in the previous week and salary payments authorized for themselves and the appointed work inspectors (chekadores). The Bangrario lists the anticipos as avio or short-term loans extended to cover the costs of production until sale of fiber produced can be realized. The ejidatarios, since they receive payment for work authorized and since they have not received dividends or profits from the sale of ejido fiber, refer to the anticipos as, simply, "salary." In 1963, at the suggestion of the owner of the pequefia propiedad, San Antonio appealed to the Bangrario for status as a grupo autdnomo, 115 to enter into a financial agreement with the pequefio propietario rather than the Bangrario. In letters sent to the Bangrario and DAAC (2/20/ 1963), the president of the ejido requested a detailed summary of the financial status of the ejido vis-a-vis the Bangrario. The letter included the phrase "according to rumors, debts exist which are still pending" (DAAC Archives). The ejidatarios themselves evidenced ignorance as to the exact indebtedness of the society to the Bangrario. In May of 1963, the Bangrario sent a representative to the ejido to study the form of payment of the outstanding ejidal debt and, by April of 1964, the Bangrario agreed to allow the ejido to Operate autonomously (financially independent) so long as the ejido continued to make pay- ments on the debt. Recognizing . . . that the Local Credit Society of San Antonio owes the Banco Agrario de Yucatan, S.A., up to the eleventh agricultural week of this year, the amount of $485,104.66 which representatives of said society are obligated to continue covering in payment by means of a 15% discount from earnings on each ship- ment of henequen which they shall make to this institution, until total repayment of the debt (DAAC Archives, Meeting and Agreement of 4/9/1964; my translation). In the same notification of agreement, the Bangrario declared its intention to retain rights over all henequen fields and the product of those fields as security on the outstanding debt. The Bangrario received the henequen in its warehouses in Mérida, deducted 15% for the loan payment and turned over the difference to the new creditor of San Antonio, to the owner of the decorticator and the pequefia propiedad of ex-hacienda San Antonio. The original intention, as stated by Don Manuel, was to allow the ejidatarios to take advantage of higher market price for henequen fiber. Don Manuel, by supervising ejido production, would gain both 116 from decortication payment, which payment increases per kilo with the quality of the fiber, and from interest charged against the anticipos which his office would pay for work performed in the ejido. Don Manuel would also have the use of any ejido capital (profits from the sale of fiber) until the year-end accounting and distribution of divi- dends. The intentions did not bear fruit, however, for the price of henequen dropped the following year and, by the latter part of 1968, the ejido debt had risen from $485,104.66 (1963) to a total of $535,921.34 (Sept., 1968). TABLE l6.--Rural Price of Henequen.a Year Price/Kilogram Ejido Status 1962 $ 1.82 Bangrario Client 1963 2.31 Bangrario 1964 2.39 Bangrario/Auténomo 1965 1.45 Autdnomo 1966 1.30 Autdnomo 1967 1.30 Autdnomo 1968 1.30 Autonomo/Bangrario 1969 1.30 Bangrario Client aFrom S.A.G., Mérida’office, Xerox copies of yearly "Concentracién de Datos de Cultivo: Henequen" records. The I'rural price" represents the S.A.G. calculation of the average price received by producers for henequen, rather than the world market price for fiber. 0f the debt owed to the Bangrario in 1968, $488,983.75 was identified as fiduciario, as a debt which had accumulated during the 1955-1962 operation of the Banjidal and entrusted for collection to the regional Bangrario. The actual account of the ejido, which covered 117 operations under the direct control of the Bangrario (bancario account) showed an accumulated debt of only $47,145.73, with most of that debt retired by the end of fiscal 1968. With regard to the massive Banjidal debt, the ejidatarios explained that with the dissolution(nyenequeneros, the fields of the ejido were ending their cycle of production. The debt, reportedly, was attributed to a period of replanting followed by several years of unproductive weeding and maintenance operations. The Banjidal and, later, the Bangrario continued to extend loans to cover production and other costs, but the ejido lacked the financial ability to repay the loans. By 1969, at which time the Bangrario ceased charging interest against the fiduciary accounts, the ejido owed a total of $463,855.37 with nearly half that amount ($198,127.94) listed as interest on the total outstanding loan debt of $265,727.43. Based on the few Bangrario records available, the following table summarizes the status of the account with the Bangrario for the first week of 1968 (latter part of the aut6nomo period), the 36th week of 1968 (when the ejido once again became a "client" of the Bangrario), and the 5th week of 1971 (the most recent made available by the Bangrario).25 From the beginning of 1968 until early 1971, the ejido had apparently produced enough fiber to cover the costs of production, the interest on the bancario loans, the costs of decortication, the state tax and health service charges, and the administrative charges of the Bangrario. In addition, the Bangrario credited a "profit" of $61,242.69 to the debt-account of the ejido. This credit was reduced, however, to $37,898.55 by fiduciary interest charges which continued TABLE l7.--Bangrario Financial Statements for 118 San Antonio. Debt Category 1/1968 9/1968 12/1968 2/1971 Bancarioa Total 18,800.46 47,145.73 12,053.56 18,260.84 . . b Fiduc1ar10 Avio 121,634.06 96,265.97 96,265.97 60,930.99 Refaccionario 204,796.44 204,796.44 204,796.44 204,796.44 Interest 174,783.80 187,713.20 193,459.38 198,127.94 Total 501,214.30 488,775.61 494,521.79 463,855.37 Total Debt 520,014.76 535,921.34 506,575.35 482,116.21 aRefers to the debt existing between the ejido and the Bangrario. b Refers to the outstanding debt which reportedly accumulated (except for interest) during the Banjidal administration (1955-1962) of San Antonio. to accumulate until terminated in 1969. Were it not for the existence of the fiduciary debt, the ejidatarios of San Antonio would have received dividends above the amount of the anticipos paid by the Bangrario.26 The existence of the debt and the resultant control exerted over the ejido production, lead the ejidatarios to view the Bangrario as a neo-paternalistic, yet impersonalized and faceless, institution; the anticipos are viewed as wages for piece-work (jornales or tareas) as authorized by that institution. The "Castigation” of Fiber In 1968, after San Antonio had resumed operating as a client of the Bangrario, the relative economic return on processed fiber 119 increased significantly. The Bangrario offered greater subsidies to its clients than those given by the government to autonomous ejidos. As well, the Bangrario classified the ejido fiber at grades higher than those experienced during the autonomous period. Cordemex, the federally controlled manufacturing and marketing monopoly, receives all ejido fiber from the Bangrario. After 1969, Cordemex began to downgrade or declassify ejido fiber ("castigate"--castigar--is the term used in Yucatan). The decorticating plant of San Antonio has not been changed significantly over the past few years, the processing procedures remain the same, the owner regularly repairs and maintains the equipment, yet fiber produced has fluctuated considerably in quality, at least as classed in Mérida, castigated by Cordemex.27 With each shipment of fiber sent to Mérida, the ejidatarios of San Antonio complained of the Cordemex practice of "castigating" the ejido fiber. In their own assessment, the Bangrario would reduce total work assignments if income derived from the sale of ejido fiber was reduced too drastically. Ejido officials would discuss the absence of dividends or profit returns from community fiber, but their time was more often spent in the attempt to increase the weekly work allotment or to at least counter Bangrario threats to reduce the work authorized. The ejidatarios, at the suggestion of the pequefio propietario, experimented with a project to increase both the grade of fiber baled and the number of authorized jobs. Young women were trained to separate long, unstained fiber from the lower quality fiber. The selected fiber was baled separately, clearly marked as to classification and quality, 120 TABLE 18.--Classification of Fiber in San Antonio. a 1968 1968 C 1971 Grade Ant6nomo Bangrario Bangrario/Cordemex -- -- 0.48% B 0.74% 47.18% 0.62% ML Esp. -- -- 7.41% ML 34.79% 25.62% 24.41% C 24.72% 1.48% 1.91% MC 37.34% 25.56% 39.35% Declassified 2.42% 1.15% 25.77% Average Price/Kilograme Average Market Price $1.26 $1.36 $1.18f Bangrario Subsidy .60 1.30 1.08f Total Price/Kilogram 1.86 2.66 2.26f aThe fiber grades range from long, clean and white fiber ("A") to fiber that is short, stained, matted, and poorly processed ("Desclasificado"). bThe figures in this column are based on Bangrario shipment receipt records during the autonomous period from the first to the thirty-sixth week of 1968. CThe figures in this column are based on Bangrario shipment receipt records following re-establishment as a client of that insti- tution, from the thirty-sixth through the fifty-second week of 1968. dSince specific receipts for fiber had not been received by San Antonio since 1968, the distribution of fiber by grade for 1971 is that published in "Calidades de Fibra Ejidal," a report released by the Bangrario to the Diario de Yucatan (1/31/1972: 2). eThe 1968 prices are those included in the Bangrario fiber receipts, an average of total income and subsidy payments. The price of fiber did not change, but the greater amount accepted as "B" during the Bangrario period increased the average price received in Mérida for the fiber. fThe average prices are those reported in the article, "Excedente en 1971 en el Banco (Agrario)" (Diario de Yucatan, 2/26/1972). 121 and sent as part of a larger shipment to the Bangrario warehouse. Cordemex made no distinction between the select and regular bales of fiber and classed the whole shipment as low in quality. The president of the ejido, who had supervised the operation, was discouraged and the experiment was terminated. The Bangrario refused to extend anticipo loans to continue paying the wages of the girls employed since the attempt to improve the quality of fiber had not, according to Cordemex, actually changed the grade of fiber shipped. The experiment to provide additional employment for members of ejidatario families failed totally. The experiment illustrates one dimension of the symbiotic relationship which exists between the ejido and the pequefio propietario. Don Manuel both suggested the project and subsidized the payment of wages to the girls involved in the week-long experiment. Had it succeeded, the ejido debt to the Bangrario would have been further reduced and, more importantly for the ejidatarios, family incomes would have increased. The pequefio propietario would have also benefited from the higher classification of processed fiber. As noted above, the pequefio propietario, owner of the decorticating factory, is paid on the basis of the quality of fiber produced. For every ten thousand kilos of fiber classed as "B” rather than "Declassified,” the owner could have increased his own profit by approximately one thousand pesos. The owner's motives, while not altruistic, would have resulted in mutually beneficial increases in income for both himself and the ejido, had the fiber been accepted as originally classed at the factory. The declassification of ejidal fiber affects the financial operation of the Bangrario. The bank is caught in the double bind 122 of trying to improve the quality and quantity of ejidal production and maintain a work-load level adequate to maintain ejido henequen fields and to create new plantings for future production. Since the former is determined by independent action concerning grading and pricing by Cordemex, the bank claims the latter creates continual deficits in the operation of the bank. The average amount credited to an ejido for the sale of a kilogram of fiber is $2.26 pesos ($1.18 as market value and $1.08 in federal subsidies) yet the Bangrario calculates that the total cost of producing one kilogram of fiber is $3.59, creating a $1.33 pesos loss to the bank (Diario de Yucatan, 2/26/1972). The Bangrario maintains that fiber is not "castigated" but that a rigid attempt, for the first time, is being made to enforce standards and control quality. The Bangrario blames the deficits on inefficiency of production in the ejidal sector, the poor quality of work performed, and the large number of aviadores, purveyors, who skim ejido salaries by means of kickbacks, illegal "discounts" made from workers wages, and wages paid to nonexistent workers (n6minas fantasmas) or for work simply not done. Instances of outright fraud perpetrated by ejido officials seems to be a problem particularly in the larger town ejidos (cf. Raymond's 1971 study of a town ejido in the henequen zone). One case of an official in San Antonio accused of skimming wages (denied by the individual) resulted in his resignation forced by the other ejidatarios. He served only six months of his three-year term as president (this case is discussed more fully in a following chapter). Production on ejido lands is lower, in San Antonio, than on the private 123 holding, but the ejido has managed to produce sufficient fiber to more than cover the costs of production. During the annual cycle of 1970, the ejido of San Antonio produced a total of 143,916 kilograms of fiber from 5,506 millar (thousands of leaves), an average of 26.2 kilograms per millar. Some of the fiber was used locally (to produce twine for hammocks, etc.) and since the last cutting cycle of the year lapsed into the beginning of 1971, part of the total fiber was not shipped until after the end of the fiscal year. The total fiber shipped during 1970 amounted to 125,249 kilograms. Total expenses derived from ejido records were $16,053.64 for payment of the wages of ejido officials (administrative expenses), $12,285.00 were listed as "social expenses" paid to those too old or too ill to work or paid as assistance to widows in the community, and the total amount paid for all recorded categories of work directly related to the cultivation, maintenance, and harvesting of henequen was $127,730.80 during 1970. The following table summarizes the recorded and reconstructed costs of production and administration for the ejido of San Antonio during 1970. Had the full amount of fiber been shipped during the fiscal year, 1970, approximately another 15,000 kilos would have been credited to the account of the ejido of San Antonio (discounting locally-used fiber). Deducting only the average commercial costs, this would have added $20,850 to the remainder after deductions, producing a total "profit" of $38,876.67 and doubling the rate to $0.28/Kilogram of fiber produced. This "profit," were it not for the outstanding debt, would have resulted in a dividend to the ejidatarios of San Antonio 124 TABLE l9.--Production in San Antonio, 1970. Fiber Shipped Fiber Produced (125,249 Kilos) (143,916 Kilos) Category Pesos Rate/Kilo Rate/Kilo Income Sale of Fibera $147,793.82 $1.18/Kilo 1.18 Federal Subsidya 135,268.92 1.08/Kilo 1.08 Total 283,062.74 2.26/K110 2.26 Deductions Decorticationa 73,896.91 0.59 0.59 State Tax, etc.a 35,069.72 0.28 0.28 Ejido Administ./Socialb 28,338.64 0.23/Kilo 0.20/Kilo Wages to Workersb 127,730.80 1.02/Kilo 0.9l/Kilo Total Deducted 265,036.07 2.12/Kilo 1.98/Kilo Remainder 18,026.07 0.14/Kilo 0.28/Kilo aIncome and deductions (in pesos) calculated from Bangrario rate- averages for ejido production in Yucatan (Diario de Yucatan, 2/26/1972). Exact figures not released by the Bangrario. bBased on work records on file in the ejido of San Antonio. amounting to 25% of the total listed income (wages, administrative, and 28 It is clear that, in the case of San Antonio, any social costs). loss recorded in the accounts of the Bangrario does not constitute an actual loss of funds but a "paper" loss of notes due or pending and not totally covered by the excess income derived from the sale of fiber. The ejido profit during the 1970 agricultural cycle is mis- leading since it is a temporary phenomenon. As is the case for many ejidos, the henequen fields are tremendously imbalanced as to their 125 stages of development. San Antonio, during the period from 1969 to 1973, had a maximum of 87.2% of the total ejidal landholdings in production, with 12.8% under cultivation but not yet in production. By 1980, the massive plantings which were undertaken during the Banjidal period and the latter part of Henequeneros will have gone out of production. It has been projected that in 1980 only 50% of the ejido lands will be in production with the remaining half either producing little fiber or requiring further investment in re-planting, to be followed by several years of continuing weeding operations with- out productive return. In the long run, the ejido of San Antonio is not likely to reduce the total indebtedness but, rather, increase it if productivity and the exploitation of henequen is to be continued. The following graph (Figure 4), based on ejido and DAAC records, illustrates the proportionate distribution of productive lands during the period from the beginning of the Banjidal period (1955), through the period of fieldwork (1970/1971), and projected up to 1980. The massive plantings undertaken during the latter part of the hacienda period were going out of production by 1955, and some lands had already ceased producing henequen. The graph shows not only the high percentage of lands requiring investment (in cultivo), but also demonstrates the fact that ejido income reduction was aggravated by a large percentage of lands (45.5% in 1957) which were nearing the end of their productive cycle (decadencia) or which were totally unproductive (Lahpach or 29 X-Lahpach). The fact that, by 1969, the ejido had reached its peak in terms of the percentage of fields in production, makes the "castigation" of 126 owgmsmcmm .cowuuzcoca cw cowumzpuzpm m~wswcws o» mupwwe we cowuspmcpmmu com sawgnwpwaam mecm .mcmpcmpqumg unseen newssmmm vcm mpuxu p:m_a mg» no ommmm .xgozupmwe we vopcmm .m>wuo:uoca appmumeocoum use can Amcwvwmz .mcwuuzuv ucmsumm>cw mcwacmg mupmmm mmwgh .Acowuw>mup:u mo Lam» ucwsunaucwzu map zmzogzu :acm>mmv :owuuauosq cm mcpmwu .comumuopaxm .ccaumg uwsocoum o: co wpuump gum: acmEpmm>cw mpuuwp mgwacmg comm: Acowum>mup=u mo Lem» ccmsuuaucmzu mg» cwummv mnpmwu .sumnmmelamwucmumumo .cczumc quocoum unocuwz A.uum .mcwcmmz .mcmucmpav “cmsumm>:w mcmcmzome .o>mupzu Acowpw>wupau we new» guxwm cmzocnu ems?» any :wv mcpmmm cmzcmcwz mm m_mmum Aumupmrocav z; a F 338.72% E“: wupzu comumuopmxu .Aomm_-mmmpv maeaum e>_pe=eeea an eweeee< cam e_ me_awa eeeeeeaz ca eewe=e_eemen--.e eczema 127 fiber by Cordemex a serious economic problem for San Antonio. Given the uneven distribution of the ages of fields under cultivation, income from those fields has fluctuated tremendously over the last two decades. The ejido has oscillated between "boom" and "bust," and as a result of this unevenness the ejido has been especially vulnerable to mounting interest charges against the unpaid balance of the debt. As detailed earlier in this chapter, the ejido debt includes an outstanding interest charge which amounts to nearly $200,000 pesos, an amount which by itself is nearly 30% greater than total ejido income for 1970. According to projected figures, the percentage of fields in production will decline to about 50% in 1980, and to approximately 40% by 1981. It seems most likely that the remaining debt, and the compounding interest charges, will once again increase drastically for the ejidatarios and the ejido, in the long run, must be classified as a losing operation. Ejido Productive Efficiency: Criticisms of Land Reform Critics of agrarian reform in Yucatan rely on the evidence of aggregate statistics to demonstrate the relative under-productivity of the ejidal sector as compared to productivity on the private holdings. Calculations of average expected production (Manero, 1966), of com- parative State average production in the private and ejidal sectors (P.R.I., n.d.; Direccidn de Planeacion, 1969) and the comparative calculations of production in San Antonio all appear to support the conclusion that the ejido is the most inefficient productive unit functioning within the henequen industry. Rather than place the blame on the ejidatarios, this section establishes the fact of under-production 128 and examines key factors contributing to the problem. The following table (Table 20) establishes a baseline for discussion of variation which exists in the average yield of fiber in the ejido of San Antonio, the pequefia propiedad or residual holdings of Hacienda San Antonio, and State average yields. Yields have been calculated in terms of millares (thousands) of leaves, kilograms of fiber with respect to 30 hectares and mecates of land in actual production. TABLE 20.--Comparative Annual Yield of Henequen Lands in Production. Mecates in Millares/ Kilos/ Kilos/ Kilos/ Source/Category Production Mecate Millar Mecate Hectare Average calculated Yield (Manero, 1966) l 2.74 25.9 71.0 1,775 State Average, Private Holdings (P.R.I., n.d.) 1,200 Average, Pequefia Prop. of San Antonioa 3,760 1.69 30.0 50.8 1,270 State Average, Ejidos (P.R.I., n.d.) 542 Ejido Average, San Ant.b (a) Kilos Shipped. 1970 5,066 1.09 22.8 24.8 625 (b) Kilos Produced, 1970 5,066 1.09 26.2 28.5 712 aBased on two years of production (1968 and 1970) for which data were made available. bAs noted earlier, approximately 15,000 kilos of fiber were produced in the final part of 1970 but not shipped during that fiscal year. In the case of the ejido of San Antonio, average production is greater than the State average for all ejidos, but still considerably less than that detailed for the pequefia propiedad. A combination of 129 factors, related to all phases of field maintenance and cultivation of henequen, are responsible for this difference, but most significant are the practices of planting, weeding (chapeo) and the cutting of leaves. The same pool of laborers (the ejidatarios) perform the same kinds of operations on both the pequefia propiedad and the ejido fields, yet productivity in the latter is almost half that found on the private holdings. Cutting operations on ejido fields are probably not significantly different from those practiced on the fields of the pequefia propietario. The kilogram production is close enough (26 and 30 kilograms, respect- fully) to assume that bundles of leaves approach the required amount (40 leaves per bundle, 5 bundles per millar). One problem acknowledged by the ejido workers themselves concerns the length of distance from parts of planted fields to access roads where the leaves are to be picked up. Usually, six to eight leaves are cut per plant during each of three harvesting periods during the year. With the longer distances, and given an amount of leaves specified by the Bangrario to be cut, the tendency is to cut more leaves from plants closest to the access road and fewer leaves from plants farther away. Plants close to the road tend to be overcut, resulting in an eventual loss of fiber per leaf as younger leaves are cut. As plants further from the road produce more leaves, passage becomes hindered and effective weeding becomes more difficult. In the pequefia propiedad, both weeding and cutting operations are supervised by the hired encargado or manager, and the ejidatarios realize that the operations must be properly performed if they are to continue working for the owner. The proximity of the town of Xamach 130 also signifies an availability of laborers for the pequefia propiedad, should the ejidatarios not perform the assigned tasks adequately. A minority of the workers employed in the fields and in the decorticating factory presently live in Maax, and the majority are recruited from the members of the ejido community of San Antonio. The major difference in production of the two sectors of San Antonio seems mainly related to the density of plants per unit of land, and the effectiveness of weeding operations. The pequefia propiedad averages close to 100 plants per mecate of land, and the ejido averages about 70 henequen plants per mecate; the average cal- culated for the henequen zone for fields that are considered to be properly exploited is between 100 and 114 plants (Manero, 1966: 39). For the ejido, an examination of the density of fields by period of planting reveals a correlation between the density and the institutional period of control. The following table (Table 21) is based on field density as calculated by the National Insurance Company (Aseguradora Nacional Agricola y Ganadera, S.A., 1969) assessment and it is on the basis of these calculations that fields are insured for fire and disaster coverage. Individual plantings amounting to less than 500 mecates (20 hectares) were not evaluated, but the remaining fields do constitute the majority of fields in production. The lowest density fields were planted during the period of control by Henequeneros de Yucatan and during the first full year of operation under the Banco Agrario de Yucatan. Certainly the period under Henequeneros is difficult to understand since the ejido was managed by a full-time administrator who was assigned the task of 131 TABLE 21.--The Ejido of San Antonio: Henequen Plants Per Mecate. Year Planted Period Mecates Plants/Mecate 1951 Henequeneros 972 37.9 1955 Banjidal 578 79.8 1956 Banjidal 998 96.6 1958 Banjidal 508 66.6 1962 Banjidal/grario 664 66.1 1963 Bangrario 608 53.3 1968 Autonomo/ Bangrario 501 100.0 Source: Aseguradora Nacional Agricola y Ganadera, S.A., 1969. overseeing all ejido operations. The highest density fields were planted during the first full-year operation of the Banco Nacional de Crédito Ejidal and during the period of credit association with the pequefio propietario rather than the Bangrario (the autonomo period). One might conclude that both the early period of the Banjidal and the aut6nomo period had promised, if not actually accorded the ejidatarios, some measure of independence and the chance to realize profits from their own efforts. The profit motive was promised by both the government, upon forced termination of Henequeneros, and the pequefio propietario in convincing the ejidatarios to apply for auténomo status. The former profits did not materialize due to the unbalanced nature of the fields and the prolonged requirement of continuing investment without signifi- cant returns, and the latter was reduced by the falling price of henequen on the world market. In spite of the decline in price, autonomy from the Bangrario had still resulted in the planting of the highest density 132 field in San Antonio, one which compares most favorably with those found on pequefias propiedades in Yucatan. One final operation which effectively reduces production con- cerns the weeding of fields. Competing plants must be continually cleared from the fields to maximize the amount of moisture and soil nutrients available to the henequen. Excessive competition for these resources will reduce the length of the leaves and, consequently, the length of the fiber, and will also reduce the quality and color grade of the fiber itself. The ejidatarios of San Antonio realize that their fields are inadequately or at least unevenly weeded. They blame this, in part, on the Bangrario reduction of weeding in older fields to one cycle per year instead of the customary two cycles. The Bangrario pays for only two cycles of weeding in the fields under cultivation in spite of the fact that both the pequefio propietario and the ejidatarios state that three cycles are necessary for a field of young, relatively vulnerable plants to thrive. Both sectors of San Antonio understand that a field's productive life is influenced by the care taken in the planting and weeding operations through the first few years. The ejidatarios of San Antonio also blame themselves and collectivization as reducing the effectiveness of weeding operations. The fact that ejidatarios do not weed the same area twice in succession is the main problem. As explained by Don Chato, a past president of the ejido, Why should you do a good job when you know that you are probably just fixing the bad work of the person who weeded before you? Look at Don Pasto, for example. He is one of the worst 133 chapeadores (weeders) in the ejido. He never does a good job. But if you go out to his (personal) plot, you will see something beautiful! Out there, you won't even see the smallest weed plant in between the henequen. The plot is clean and he is constantly weeding it. Concerning the effects of diligent weeding on the productivity of henequen fields, Don Chato mentioned another ejidatario who had a small, personal plot of land (three mecates) and "who cleaned it well and constantly and after just three years, was harvesting henequen; his henequen was bluish in color and beautiful and, right beside it was ejido henequen all yellowed and ugly!" The plots which were originally made available to the acasillados during the early part of this century are still being utilized as private individual holdings by some of the ejidatarios. They have been transferred both within a family by inheritance and between ejidatarios if cash is needed by the parcel holder. In the case of an abandoned field, an individual's relative will begin to cultivate it and, in effect, declare usufruct rights to that parcel for the duration of the henequen life-cycle. More frequently, the parcels will pass from father to son as part of the patrimony, in some cases merely transferred in effect as an older father does less of the work and his son or sons assume more of the tasks involved. At the time of fieldwork the total of approximately twenty hectares of parcelized land was being exploited by twenty-eight ejidatarios with each working an average of 15.6 mecates. In 1969, Don Chato had made a detailed study of the production of fiber from these individual parcels, which is summarized below (Table 22) in a form comparable to the calculations of productive yields of the other sectors of San Antonio. 134 TABLE 22.--Parcelized Production in San Antonio. Category Production Cultivo Total Total Land 436 mecates 61 497 Millares/Mecate 2.62 Kilos/Millar 28.1 Kilos/Mecate 73.0 Kilos/Hectare 1,825 The individual, careful, and intensive cultivation of henequen by the ejidatario-parcelarios results in a productive yield that easily out- produces both the ejido fields and those of the pequefio propietario, and this on fields cultivated by individuals in addition to their normal work scheduled on ejido or private fields. Don Chato had originally undertaken his study to examine the possibilities of selling the fiber through the Banco Agrario and enjoying the benefits afforded ejidatarios by the generous subsidy (averaging $2.26/Kilo in 1971 for low-quality fiber, price and subsidy). The ejidatario-parcelarios were interested by the plan but were suspicious that the Bangrario would merely pay them for "authorized" work and that the rest of the amount derived from the sale of their fiber would simply 3] Instead, the parcelarios be applied against the outstanding ejido debt. continued to sell their leaves to the pequefio propietario at a flat rate of $15.00 pesos per millar of leaves or, given the average yield calcu- lated by Don Chato, approximately $0.53 pesos per kilogram of fiber. By comparison, the 1971 Bangrario might have paid, after deductions for taxes, decortication, etc., $1.39 pesos per kilogram of fiber or more 135 considering that the henequen was of a higher quality than that produced by the ejido. Because of their distrust of the Bangrario, and the probable veracity of their suspicions, the ejidatarios lost an average of $0.86 pesos for each kilogram of fiber produced from their leaves. The average income from individual production amounted to $610 pesos per parcelario rather than the more than $1,500 pesos each they might have received from the Bangrario. The owner of the pequefia propiedad processes the leaves and manages the sale of fiber. Since he does not receive governmental subsidies offered ejidos, his price per millar of leaves is competitive. Don Manuel, in fact, recognizes the high quality of parcelario fiber and therefore pays fifteen pesos per millar rather than the thirteen pesos which he offers parcelarios from the towns of Maax and Xamach. Summary and Conclusions Land reform was by no means a simple or straightforward process in the henequen zone of Yucatan. Land reform proceeded, and is still proceeding, by stages. Neither the ejidos nor the haciendas preceeding reform nor the pequefias propiedades following, can be stereotyped or easily classified. The hacienda of San Antonio changed hands as a result of the post-revolutionary political and social reforms. The new owner attempted to defeat the process of agrarian reform in the second phase, and was himself defeated. While the ejido of San Antonio was being controlled by, first, Henequeneros and, later, the Banjidal, a series of engagements took place between the heirs with, finally, Don Manuel emerging as main owner of the pequefia propiedad of San Antonio. 136 When compared with the pequefia propiedad, the ejido of San Antonio is relatively unproductive, relatively inefficient as an economic operation. However, the data and analysis presented in this chapter do not support the conclusion that ejidatarios, without supervision, can- not adequately manage the cultivation of henequen. What has emerged, however, is a picture of an ejido whose productivity has been seriously affected by restrictive and apparently inadequate control by State and Federal institutions, and of ejidatarios whose incentive has been impaired by the contradictions of official reform ideology and the realities of the limited anticipo salaries received from the Bangrario. The three instances which have resulted in increases in effective exploitation of the land have all been related to simulated or actual autonomy from external institutional control. The first two instances are related to the initial period of autonomy from Henequeneros (1956), and the period of autonomy from control exerted by the Bangrario (1968). During both of these periods, field plantings increased significantly in terms of number of plants per mecate (only the one field was planted during the aut6nomo period). In the third instance, an analysis of the productivity of individual family plots demonstrates the care and effectiveness of the ejidatario when he is able to receive the full fruits of his own labor. The apparent contradiction in effectiveness and efficiency of productive efforts is associated with conditions of employment rather than the structure of production. 0n the lands of the pequefia propiedad, quality of the work performed by an individual is the major criterion for continuing employment. On the lands of the ejido, both law and 137 reform ideology stress an ejidatario's birth right to derive a living from the resources available to the ejido community for as long as that individual continues to perform assigned tasks. Rather than con- clude that private holdings are more productively efficient than collectivized ejidos, it seems more reasonable (i.e., more consistent with the data) to conclude that ejidatarios, under strict institutional control, find no reason to invest extra productive effort without appropriate compensation. The Bangrario has bec0me an institutional "patrén" which absolutely controls production, which absorbs the profits of the productive efforts of the ejidatarios, but which can make no changes in the constituted membership of the labor pool. The legal authority to decertify ejidatarios, were it to reside with the Bangrario rather than the federal Department of Agrarian Affairs (DAAC), would constitute the final destructive blow to the facade of agrarian reform in the henequen zone of Yucatan. It is proposed here that, based on the evidence, productivity in the collectivized ejido of San Antonio would significantly increase and, in time, approach that of the pequefia pr0piedad if the ejidatarios were to receive, like the pequefio propietario, economic returns proportionate to the quantity and quality of productive efforts; in other words, be able to realize profits relative to productivity. CHAPTER III--FOOTNOTES 1McBride states (1923: 106): 'fit was but natural that many of these new settlements, particularly those established in centers of agricultural production, should take on the character of the Castilian agricultural villages with which the conquerers and their home govern- ment were most familiar. The towns of Castile had been, from very ancient times, landholding bodies, possessing more or less extensive territories. Thus, every town had what were known as propios, lands owned by the village itself and administered by the town officers. These propios were rented year by year, and from the income thus obtained the expenses of local government were met as well as the taxes levied on the community by higher authorities. In addition to these cultivated lands each town possessed an area just outside the city gates that was styled the ejido (from Latin exitus). . . . The custom of maintaining the ejido for the common use of the inhabitants had been recognized, if not established, by the law of the Siete Partidas" (1256-1265). 2Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 provides the basis for land reform and the establishment of ejidos with sufficient resources to adequately support the ejidatario population: "Proposition X. Centers of population which have no ejidos or are unable to have same restored to them due to lack of title, impossibility of identifying such lands, or because they have been legally alienated, shall be granted sufficient lands, forests, and waters to constitute same, in accordance with their requirements; in no case shall they fail to be granted the amount of land which they need, which shall be expropriated for account of the Federal Government and be taken from that adjacent to the villages in question"(Simpson, 1937: 753). In 1947, Article 27 was revised and the following addition was made to Proposition X of that Article: 'The area of individual allotment of land in the future should not be less than 10 hectares of irrigated or humid land or, lacking these, the equivalent in other types of land as specified in the third paragraph of section XV of this article" (Whetten, 1948: 620). I have added the emphasis to this addition to indicate the point that the ejidatarios of San Antonio were unable to expand their holdings from the original four hectares per individual to the indicated ten hectares. This point is discussed further in the chapter. 3The 1942 version of the Agrarian Code (C6digo, 1970) was in force at the time of fieldwork in Yucatan. The 1933 version of the Code (Simpson, 1937: Appendix D) was in effect at the time of the creation of the ejido of San Antonio and the immediate future of San Antonio will be governed by the revised Agrarian Code passed during the early part of 138 139 the administration of President Luis Echeverria Alvarez (C6digo, 1971). Hereafter, references to the three codes will indicate the source or published version used. 4There is some inconsistency in the literature with regards to the date used when referring to the first Agrarian Code (C6digo Agrario) of Mexico. Some authors, such as Simpson (1937), refer to the 1933 date of enactment of the Code while others, such as Mendieta y Nufiez (1968), refer to the 1934 official date of publication of the document in the Governmental Diario Oficial. 5The 1933 version of the Agrarian Code specified that an ejidatario "must be a Mexican, male, over sixteen years of age, if single, or of any age if married; or, female, single or widowed if she is the head of a family" (Simpson, 1937: 768-769). Article 200 of the most recent revised Agrarian Code (C6digo, 1971: 79) has been changed to read: "be Mexican by birth, male or female, over sixteen years of age, or of any age if the head of a family." For the first time in the history of Mexican agrarian legislation, any female who meets the requirements of occupation, residence, and limits placed on personal wealth may qualify as a full member of an ejido. The 1933 Code limited the personal worth of a campesino to not more than two thousand five hundred pesos (Simpson, 1937: 769); the present version of the Code limits individual capital holdings to ten thousand pesos in industrial or commercial capital and twenty thousand pesos in agricultural holdings (C6digo, 1971: 80). 6A5 a sign of the times, the most recent Ley Federal de la Reforma Agraria specifies an additional criterion that the campesino must never ”have been convicted of sowing, cultivating, or harvesting marijuana, poppy, or any other stupefacient" (Cddigo, 1971: 80). 7As noted in the previous chapter (Chapter II), the labor reform legislation and the termination of debt peonage affected the resident workers more. The population of the Hacienda declined following 1910 as a result of the combined factors of epidemics and outmigration. 8The 1930 Mexican census (Census, 1934) for the State of Yucatan lists a total of 291 inhabitants of San Juan and 158 inhabitants of Hacienda San Antonio. Of all the haciendas listed in the 1930 census as existing in the municipalities of Maax and Xamach, Hacienda San Juan had by far the largest resident acasillado population and San Antonio the second largest. Of the remaining fourteen haciendas listed as having acasillado populations, none numbers over one hundred inhabitants. 9The decree referred to in the Maax presidential resolution specifies that a maximum of 300 hectares will be respected as the pequefia propiedad with 150 of those hectares planted in henequen and the rest to be uncultivated. Since the holdings of San Antonio spanned two municipalities, the actual remaining pequefia propiedad amounted to approximately 230 hectares rather than the maximum allowable of 300 hectares. Don Arturo, reportedly, also planted extensively during the 140 decade of ownership and it is likely, although not specified by the available documents, that the corresponding proportion of uncultivated lands was simply nonexistent within the boundaries of San Antonio. 10The casco and decorticator of Hacienda San Juan were expropriated along with the lands and a large portion was dotated to the acasillados of San Juan. The decorticating factory is presently operated and administered by the Banco Agrario de Yucatan. The loss of the decorticator represented the greatest financial loss to the family of Don Arturo. 11The opposition leader had received the shares following the death of his wife who was the daughter of the original founder. He maintained his linkages with the family by marrying the second time to his own niece, grandaughter of the founder (marrying WiBrDa). When asked why the opposition had sold his share to his mother, Don Manuel replied simply that "he was very much involved in politics at the time and didn't want to have anything in his own name." 12The auction and public sale of the property would have had the effect of creating an obviously undisguisable tax liability for all of the socios. 13As elaborated in the first chapter, President cardenas had intended the ejidatarios to receive lands and at least usufruct rights to the decorticating factories, if not outright ownership. Very few of the decorticators were actually expropriated and, with the end of cardenas' term of office (1940), most of those which were expropriated had already been returned to their former owners. The control exerted by the ex-hacendados has been diminished more recently by means of governmental competition. At the time of fieldwork (1970-1971), 220 decorticators (of a total of 360 in the henequen zone) were in actual operation. Private producers controlled 180, the Banco Agrario de Yucatan operated 37 decorticators, and the Federal manufacturing complex of Cordemex had three decorticators in operation and seven more under construction. One of the new Cordemex decorticators was under construction just outside of the town of Xamach, two kilometers from the factory of San Antonio. Cordemex factories decorticate leaves of independent parcel owners. The present owner expressed concern that his income from the factory would be severely reduced if, as rumored, Cordemex and the Banco Agrario would agree to both process ejido)and parcel leaves in their regional decorticators P.R.I., n.d. . 14The Agrarian Code specifies that a community of acasillados may be included in an agrarian census if located within a radius of ten kilometers of an existing center of population (Simpson, 1937: 769, Article 45). Although the acasillado community is closer to Xamach, agrarian reform in the henequen zone proceeded by municipality rather than according to calculated radii from existing towns. 141 15Attempts made to locate the archives of Henequeneros de Yucatén were unsuccessful. While searching for records with a Yucatecan col- league, Salvador Rodr1guez, we were informed that they had been stored in a warehouse for a time but were finally burned. It was unclear as to who had actually authorized their destruction; apparently they had long been released by the Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior, the institution originally charged with the liquidation of Henequeneros. The only data concerning organizational management are those included in the archives of DAAC. 16The original text, while perfectly clear, has one complete sentence. In attempt to maintain that clarity in translation, the grammatical structure was altered into several separate sentences. The structure of the original certainly seems to convey not only information, but a sense of moral outrage and indignation. Following this report, no other document was located, relative to San Antonio, which bore the same signature. 17The Banjidal study did not include mortgage payments on equipment since, in their estimation, the majority of the decortication plants were quite old and therefore essentially paid for by the owners. It is also possible that the $5.00 peso charge referred to in the DAAC report refers mainly to the few decorticators, such as San Juan, which had been totally expropriated. The amount mentioned would, then, correspond to the actual estimated costs of production. 18The basic figures are taken from the 1951 DAAC report; the discounted amounts are those reported by Soberon (1959: 104) for 1954. Since the discounts are based on kilogram production, and not tied to either the quality, quantity, or market price of fiber produced per thousand leaves, the discounts are assumed to have been in effect in 1951. 19Younger fields may be weeded three times per year, with the average for ejido fields in production of two weeding cycles per year. 20The governmental estimate of $0. 52/kilogram as the ejido income is substantially close to the figure which I calculated ($0.517) based on the DAAC report of 1951, the equal split of fiber with the decorticator, and the reported discounts of 1954. The negligible difference between these figures would tend to validate my estimation of total ejido income after deducting the costs of production. 21Henequen leaves, when harvested, are usually tied into bundles of fifty leaves each. The counter then has only to count the number of cords to calculate the number of leaves processed (a millar equals twenty cords). One of the criticisms against ejido production concerns the practice of producing bundles of less than fifty leaves. The ejidatario, it is claimed, does this to meet his quota of leaves with less work. The result is an apparent drop in ejido production per millar of leaves, at least statistically. In San Antonio, the ejidatarios have agreed that bundles of fifty are too heavy and have 142 settled on a standard of forty-leaf bundles, with twenty-five cords to be counted as a millar. The bundles are easier to manage and, in fact, with smaller bundles it is much more difficult to "miss" more than a few leaves. 22The references to Articles contained in the Agricultural Credit Law are based on the following source: 1970 edition of the Cddigo Agrario y Leyes Complementarias of the Coleccion Porrua (C6digo, 1970: 329-368). 23Article 45 of the Agricultural Credit Law specifies that a "grupo" must have a minimum of ten members. Article 47 instructs groups to elect a representative, a socio-delegado, who will act as intermediary between the Bangrario or Banjidal and the ejidatarios. For single ejido-groups, such as San Antonio, the elected president of the Comisariado Ejidal becomes automatically the socio-delegado for that ejido. 24Article 81 of the Agricultural Credit Law specifies that anticipo payment may be received only by local credit societies which collectively exploit the land. I once asked, in an interview with the assistant manager of the Bangrario, what would happen if the ejido members voted to terminate collective operation and parcelize ejido lands. He looked at me strangely and replied: "Nunca hemos tenido problemas de esta naturaleza." If unauthorized by the Bangrario, the ejidatario vote would be meaningless. 25After several months, persistence on the part of myself and the ejido officials resulted in the Bangrario providing a copy of the decortication contract with the pequefio propietario and debt summaries for 1968, 1969, and 1970. We were not able to obtain summary records of the actual income for fiber, nor the bank's statement including salary and other payments (including decortication) made to and on behalf of the ejido of San Antonio. The ejidatarios had not received complete fiscal statements from the Bangrario since 1968 and believed that the Bangrario was simply trying to keep them from receiving dividends due if the statements (as they suspected) showed an actual profit to the ejido. 26One official of the State Government of Yucatan maintains that as one of his last acts while in office (1964-1970), President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz cancelled all of the outstanding ejido debts from the Banjidal period. The official stated that the Bangrario personnel fear that unless the ejidos remain in debt, they will leave the bank (as grupos autonomos) and become once again involved in impossible credit arrangements with other institutions or individuals. Reportedly, the only concession made by the Bangrario to this presidential order was to terminate the mounting interest charges against the fiduciary debts. This assertion could not, at the time of fieldwork, be sub- stantiated but the bank did, in fact, terminate the interest increases in 1969. In 1972, the Bangrario announced a new comprehensive plan to restructure the indebtedness of the henequen ejidos according to the 143 individual ejido ability to pay on outstanding debts. The total value of the fiber produced for sale will be applied to the interest, avio and refaccionario loans which have accrued during the year. Of the -remainder, 25% will be set aside for distribution to ejido members as dividend profits, and the other 75% will be applied to outstanding and overdue interest and loan charges. With regard to the indebtedness of the ejidos, the Bangrario set forth five points which signify a con- siderable reform in the financial operation of ejidos such as San Antonio: 1. The accounts of debts incurred up to 1969 will be consolidated; 2. An ejido will be required to pay installments on avio loans only up to an amount equal to 50% of the profits; 3. An ejido will be required to pay installments and interest on refaccionario loans only up to an amount equal to 25% of the annual profit; 4. No further interest will be charged against the consolidated account; and , 5. As an ejido pays part of the avio or refaccionario capital in the consolidated (fiduciary) account, the Bangrario will cancel an equal portion of the outstanding interest (Diario de Yucatén, 2/26/1972: 9). It would seem that the Bangrario is attempting to create incentives for the ejidos to improve both the quantity and the quality of production by making available at least a portion of the potential profit remaining after.the payment of debts accumulated during the immediate agricultural cycle. Furthermore, the Bangrario is willing to at least reduce the size of indebtedness proportionately by cancelling interest charges as the older debts are repaid. With this new reform in the operation of the Banjidal, the fiduciary debt (as of 2/1971) would be potentially reduced from $463,855.37 to $265,727.43, and the total debt reduced from $482,116.21 to $283,988.27, a total effective reduction of 41% of the outstanding (now consolidated) debt. 27Yucatac Mayas, seemingly a rather somber folk, do exhibit wit and humor. A peasant in San Antonio, during a conversation concerning the castigation of fiber, turned to me and said: ”Deben llamar este Chingamex." When I asked why he replied: "Porque son los Mexicanos allé que nos estan chingando!" His reply communicated a sense of humor, a rather low opinion of the actions of Cordemex, and, at the same time, another indication of the sense of separateness and distinctiveness of Yucatan and Yucatecans from "Mexico" and the "Mexicans." As another play on words, one of the ejidatarios of San Antonio remarked on the "S.A." following the titles of Banco Agrario, S.A., and Cordemex, S.A. He claimed that they stood for "suciedad andnima" ("ananymous dirt") rather than "sociedad andnima" ("incorporated"). Both Cordemex and the Bangrario are officially stock companies. The Federal Government holds the controlling shares, and the remaining shares are distributed to other banking institutions, and a minority of the total number of shares is distributed to private individuals. Aside from the fact that they are federally controlled, the Bangrario must sell ejido fiber to Cordemex since it exerts a monopoly over marketing and production of finished products from henequen fiber (baler twine, rope, etc.). 144 28The ejidatarios of San Antonio did receive extra money at the end of 1970 in the form of a semana doble or "double payment" for work performed during the last week of the fiscal year. This last week was also the lowest in terms of work authorized by the Bangrario. Weekly income averaged $3,000 throughout the year; the last week amounted to $1,500 pesos or, with the semana doble, the normal $3,000 pesos. The extra aguinaldo or "bonus" was listed as an “extraordinary" loan and added to the avio account of the ejido in the Bangrario. This extra payment was accorded as the result of complaints by peasants (coordina- ted by officials of the National Peasant Federation--C.N.C.) over the well-publicized, high bonuses received by workers in the offices of the Bangrario and Cordemex (cf. Diario de Yucatan: 11/26/1970, 11/27/1970, 11/28/1970, 12/4/1970). 29Manero (1966: 39) provides a chart of average henequen production per mecate according to the age of the planting. The chart is summarized below: Classification Year Kilograms/Mecate Mateo 7 10 Explotacién 9 30 " ll 70 " 13 60 " 15 50 " 17 40 " 19 3O " 21 20 Decadencia 23 10 Lahpach 25 0 When a henequen field reaches the end of its productive cycle not only is production decreased, but the quality of the fiber produced deteri- orates considerably. Income from fields is thus reduced in two ways: reduced by lowering quantity of production and the rate paid per kilogram of fiber. 3oMecate refers to a section of land twenty meters by twenty meters, twenty five mecates to the hectare. Mecate is the most usual term used in discussing the size of fields. Fields themselves are marked with stone cairns (mojoneras) at the corners of measured mecates. Since governmental figures are often in both mecates (in State govern- mental reports) and hectares (Federal statistics), both are included in the table. 31There is support for this negative view. Article 117 of the Agricultural Credit Law of Mexico (C6digo, 1970: 364) specifies that, in this case, the regional ejido bank (the Bangrario), "cannot defer due payments on loans if other products are grown which could be applied to the debt." CHAPTER IV COMPADRAZGO AS AN ADAPTIVE STRATEGY Introduction The Nature and Flexibility of Ritual Kinship Becoming Human: the Ceremonial Rites of Infancy Quantification and the Methodology of Comparison Compadrazgo and the Ties that Bond Choice Patterns During the Hacienda Period Agrarian Reform: the State Period Agrarian Reform: the Federal Period The Changing Patterns of Coparent Selection Ascendant Emphasis: "Tradition" or Adaptation? Dimensions of Coparent Relations Summary and Conclusions 145 146 Introduction This chapter examines compadrazgo (ritual co-parenthood) as one indicator of the pattern and process of social interaction in San Antonio. Since an element of choice is involved in the selection of ritual or fictive kin (compadres), the quantitative analysis of compadrazgo provides important information with respect to the strate- gies employed in intitiating or intensifying lasting ties with others. Analyzed temporally, compadrazgo can be utilized as a significant means to identify kinds of social change that have occurred during the recent history of this ex-hacienda, ejido community. While much has been written concerning the importance of the institution of compadrazgo in Latin America, only recently have anthropologists begun to deal with the "real" (as opposed to "ideal") choice-making process in the selection of co-parents. Foster (1969) has outlined some of the major problems involved: Our data are deficient in at least 2 ways. First, most accounts represent ideal culture, the answers given by informants when asked to describe how the system works. Very little analysis of the institution has been based on real behavior in real situations. . . . Second, there has been almost no quanti- tative analysis of large samples aimed at revealing the inner dynamic of the compadrazgo, especially with respect to the exercise of choice, as it is manipulated in the building of social networks (1969: 263). Aside from Foster, relatively few anthropologists (cf. Ingham, 1970; Deshon, 1963; and Thompson, 1971) have attempted statistically to describe the selection process and the general characteristics of compadrazgo as it is actually practised in rural Mexican peasant com- munities. In all instances, the various authors acknowledge the several ceremonies involving the selection of co-parents, yet sole 147 analytic emphasis is placed on the baptismal ceremony as producing the strongest, most important bonds for the participants involved. In this respect, the studies suffer from an analytic bias of a type acknowledged and legitimized by Mintz and Wolf in their classic article on the institution of compadrazgo: This term (compadrazgo) designates the particular complex of relationships set up primarily, though not always, through participation in the ritual of Catholic baptism (Mintz and Wolf, 1950: 341). In this chapter, three ceremonies involving sponsorship (ritual co-parenthood or compadrazgo) are examined: the Catholic ceremonies of baptism and confirmation (which Mintz and Wolf (1950: 344) identify as originally two parts of a single ceremony), and the Mayan "role baptismal" ceremony of Hetzmek. The evidence indicates all three of these ceremonies are of considerable importance in the building and intensification of social networks and, in addition, the different ceremonies serve or had served to differentiate the categories of individuals to be included in the institutionalized network of ritual kin. The data demonstrate the flexibility and adaptibility of ritual co-parenthood revealing, in Foster's terms, the "inner dynamic" of the institution of compadrazgo. The temporal analysis of the data shows that the three ceremonies together form a strategy set which has changed with and adapted to the changing institutional context of this community. The patterns associated with the selection of co-parents have altered during each of the three major periods of pre- and post- agrarian reform in the henequen zone of Yucatan. From the end of the paternalistic hacienda period, through the period of control exerted 148 by the post-agrarian reform institution of Henegueneros de Yucatén, to the present period of extra-community control exerted by the 83299_ Agrario de Yucatan, emphases have shifted from vertical ties (inter- class and inter-generational) to horizontal ties of fictive kinship (intra-class and intra-generational). The final sections of this chapter add a further dimension to the study of compadrazgo and social change. The coordinated analysis of compadrazgo and demographic data support the hypothesis that changes in the patterns of selection within the community were facili- tated by a dramatic decline in the incidence of early adult mortality and subsequent remarriage of a spouse. Given the incest prohibition against marriage between coparents, an individual would severely limit the range of potential remarriage partners if coparenthood were extended to include peers (intra-generational) rather than primary relatives (inter-generational), who are already excluded by custom and law as eligible or potential spouses. The decline in adult mortality reduced the necessity to select lineal ascending relatives (the selection of parents or grandparents) as coparents and, in a sense, further liberated compadrazgo to respond and adapt to the changing context of this ejido of acasillados. The Nature and Flexibility of Ritual Kinship Compadrazgo can be described as a triad set of dyadic relations formally initiated by means of a ceremony which requires the ritual aponsorship of a main participant. Typically, ritual sponsorship is associated with the Catholic ceremonies of baptism, confirmation, first communion, fifteenth birthday mass (quinceafiera), and marriage. 149 Prior to the ceremony, the parents of a child request the services of an individual or individuals (frequently another married couple) to serve as the child's sponsor(s) during the ceremony. The termination of the ceremony signifies the completion of a triad set of enduring dyadic relations: (1) a parent/child dyad, which formally begins with the birth of the child; (2) a godparent/godchild, padrinazgg dyad; and (3) a parent/co-parent, compadrazgo dyadic bond. Of the three, the padrinazgo and compadrazgo dyads are specifically initiated by means of the ceremony itself (see Figure 5). Figure 5.--Ritual Coparenthood. Parents erg) Q19 Co-Parents )7! PARENT/CHILD DYAD PADSIXSZGO -.~___;, Chihd ‘:______.a' Anthropologists have long recognized that in Latin American society, the duties and obligations associated with the parent/coparent relationship (compadrazgo) are more significant than those associated with the godparent/godchild bond (padrinazgo). Foster (1967) and others (Mintz and Wolf, 1950; Ravicz, 1967; etc.) have noted that compadrazgo 150 provides a mechanism to intensify, regularize, and stabilize social relations between non-kinsmen and, as well, to renew and strengthen relations with actual consanguineal and affinal kinsmen: Tzintzuntzefios feel the need for an institution that has the formality and continuity of kinship, but which permits the freedom of choice of friendship. They find it in compadrazgo (Foster, 1967: 76). The resulting ritualized compadrazgo dyadic bond is generally both permanent and predictable in terms of obligations and expectations; and the potential for extending one's compadrazgo ties to non-kinsmen is, seemingly, only limited by the number of one's progeny and the number of ceremonies involving ritual sponsorship. Compadrazgo ties may be "horizontal," establishing reciprocal, enduring relations between socio-economic equals (co-workers, neighbors, friends, etc.); or may be "vertical," crossing class or social strata (upwardly) to formalize and intensify more asymmetrical patron-client relations. An individual who wishes to limit his obligation network of ritual kin ties may do so through a process of duplication, making "redundant choices" (Ingham, 1970: 286) so that for a given ceremony, the same coparent choices are made forsuccessive children. This "double-loading" may also include the requested sponsorship of "close relatives with whom the parents already have significant relationships, with all of the attendant obligations and expectations" (Foster, 1969: 274). The duplication or double-loading of compadres seems a logical strategy which at the same time satisfies the requirements of cere- monialism and provides a means to limit the extensiveness of obligatory ties. In San Antonio, "redundant choices" were frequently made and in 151 many cases, those individuals (kin and non-kin) selected as sponsors for the various ceremonies of the first born, would be repeated as sponsors of the same ceremonies for subsequent children. In some of the cases, different sponsors would be selected for male and female children and then repeated for subsequent children by sex of the child. Double-loading and, specifically, redundant choices, still occurred, but differentiated by the sex of the child. Informants indicated that the extension of ritual kin ties was undesirable: "too many compadres makes it difficult to get to heaven." Similarly, Redfield (1941: 221) noted that in Tusik, "the same godparents function for all children born of that couple: it is thought a sin to change godparents." For San Antonio, even in cases that show a change in the ceremonial sponsor from one child to another, very often the new name is that of a surrogate who had simply become the new spouse of a widowed comadre (female coparent) or a widowered compadre (male coparent). By this means, surrogate double-loading has occurred, a deceased coparent is replaced, and the spouse of a coparent is included in the already-existing network of social ties. Emphasis on the selection and duplication of kinsmen as co- parents correlates highly with the small size of the community of San Antonio and the tendency towards community endogamy. Given the extension of the incest taboo to include ritual kin and their children (Erasmus, 1950), the extension of compadrazgo ties would severely lhnit the number of potential marriage partners available to a child and. more importantly in the case of a high incidence of early adult mortality, would also limit the number of potential re-marriage partners 152 available to a widowed or widowered parent. Although I encountered no overt expression of this incest extension in San Antonio, I also found no instance in which coparents or the children of coparents had married. Inclusion and duplication of kinsmen also reinforces their obligation to a child, reinforcing those obligations through the ties of padrinazgo. In San Antonio there were two instances of adoption. In both cases, the parents were still living, but found it economically difficult to care for their large families. In one case, the child's grandparents (baptismal and Hetzmek compadres of the parents) assumed the economic and social responsibility for the care of the grand- daughter. The other case involved the adoption of a girl by a childless couple who were the girl's padrinos for Hetzmek and first communion. The padrino (godfather) was, at the same time, the girl's patrilateral cross-cousin and his wife, the madrina (godmother), was the girl's mother's sister. It is difficult to determine, in these cases, whether kinship, ritual kinship, or a complex of the two is most important. Extension as well as limitation of compadrazgo ties has been reported in the literature. In Pascua, Spicer (1940) noted that kinsmen of each of the compadres are also considered part of the obligatory network of ritual kin, thus extending the concept of compadrazgo from that of establishing dyadic ties between two individuals or couples to "polyadic" (Dévila, 1971: 403) or multiple ties that link two larger groups together. In Puerto Rican society, Elena Padilla Seda (1956: 295) and Sidney Mintz (1956: 387) have described "compadrazgo de voluntad" (voluntary coparenthood) for which there is no ceremony, 153 no godchild sponsorship, only the expression of a desire to formalize an already strongly felt bond of friendship. These polyadic and extra- ceremonial extensions or forms of compadrazgo were not observed in San Antonio. Becoming Human: the Ceremonial Rites of Infancy Baptism, confirmation, and Hetzmek constitute the three major ceremonies of infancy. All three ceremonies are ideally performed during the first year following birth and all involve ritual sponsor— ship of an infant by godparent-designates during the ceremonies. The first, baptism, recognizes the initiate as a member of the catholic church, as one who thenceforth is absolved of original sin and in possession of a soul. Confirmation, usually performed by a bishop, completes the sense of the baptism commending the initiate "signed and sealed as a soldier of Christ" (Attwater, 1958: 115). Finally, the Hetzmek, a Mayan "role baptismal” ceremony of precolombian origins (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1934: 374), symbolically introduces the infant to the tools and techniques that will have to be mastered before it can become a successful, fully-functioning, adult member of the community. Finally, all three of the ceremonies require both the parents and the sponsors to expend capital, to assume part of the expense of the ceremony. Baptism. The greatest danger to a new-born infant is that it should die before having been baptized; before it had been changed from a "creature" (criatura) into a "little angel" (angelito) with a soul. Especially dangerous to the unbaptized child is the ave de mal 1 (WAI-CH'ICH) or "evil bird." According to one local version, the bird 154 flies upside-down over the community early in the evening. You can hear it crying like a baby in the night and if it passes over a baby (criatura), the baby will die. You can take pre- cautions (such as) taking a new, small, unused gourd cup (jicarita) and placing it under the infant's hammock. When the bird flies over and cries, turn the gourd upside-down. Turn the gourd back over and there you will find a feather and 10, you have caught it (y ya la casastel). My father told me to look for godparents (padrinos) before a child is born, because otherwise the child won't be a Christian, a son of God, of Christ. If a child dies before it is baptised, its soul (alma) will be converted into the WAI-CH'ICH, the ave de mal. Angels, criaturas and the ave de mal are all white in color. These kinds of beliefs were held by our ancestors (Don Chato, field notes). Another version of the "ave de mal," related by two females of the community, differs in certain details of color and origin of the bird: Once in a great while, when it's cloudy out, a big black bird may fly over the houses upside-down. If there is a child crying, and the bird answers it (with a cry). the baby will continue to cry and die within twenty-four hours. The bird is actually a bad wind that takes the form of a bird and it always leaves a feather on top of the house. If it occurs to one that it was the bird that made the child sick and if the feather can be found, it can be used to cure the child (Field notes). Baptism does not protect the child from the WAI-CH'ICH, but it will protect the soul of the child, preventing its transformation into another "ave de mal" and ensuring its entry into heaven and its transformation into an "angelito." Since some expense is involved, it usually takes a month or more to arrange for the catholic mass, contact and secure the assistance of sponsors, and prepare for the ceremony, the ritual meal, and celebration that follow. The godparent-designates are first approached and asked if they will consent to sponsor the child: Chato Jr. and his wife visited Chato about two weeks before the baptism. They stated that they had come to ask a favor and presented gifts to the godparent-designates. Chato replied by asking what the favor was and the couple answered: "to do us the favor of taking the baby to the baptism." When they visited Chato, they took the following gifts: 155 $11.00 One bottle of habanero (aguardiente liquor) 5.50 Seven bottles of soft drinks (to cut the liquor) 2.00 One "ojaldra" (type of bread) 2.00 Small bread rolls 2.25 One kilogram of sugar 2.75 One pound of chocolate $25.50 Total cost, in pesos, to parents. The sponsors arrange for adesignated married woman to take the child from its house to the church. At the church, the woman (referred to as the w) hands the child to its mother who, hiturn, hands it to either the god- mother (if the child is female) orixiits godfather (if a male). The godparents hold the child as the priest administers the baptismal blessing, 2 places salt in the baby's mouth, and annoints its head with holy water. The godparents then carry the child back1x>the parents' home, where it is handed back to the parents (to the mother first, if a female, or to the father if it is a male child). The godparents usually assume the finan- cial burden of the expenses related to the baptismal ceremony, and the parents assume the cost of the celebration that follows. Cost to padrinos (Don Chato and wife): $10.00 Paid to the priest 1.50 Candles to be placed in the church (chapel of San Antonio) 28.00 Dress, booties, and cap (female child) 14.00 Swaddling cloth (sobre pahal) $53.50 Total cost to padrinos (in pesos). Cost to the padres (Chato Jr., and wife, the parents): $40.00 Value of two chickens (one supplied by parents, and one supplied by the child's maternal grandmother) 24.00 Twelve loaves of sliced bread (purchased in Mérida) 10.00 Ten small loaves of French bread 2.00 Chile jalapeho 2.00 Onion 1.00 Achiote (condiment: Bixa orellana) 15.75 Twenty-five bottles of soft drinks 60.00 One jug (5 Liter "garrafa") of cane liquor (habanero 3.70 Bus ticket to Mérida to make purchases 11.00 One additional bottle of habanero liquor (presented to compadres at the termination of the celebration) $169.45 Total cost to parents (in pesos) 1111 (1| 1199. 1'11 inf 156 $248.45 Total costs related to the baptism. $100.00 Estimated weekly income of Chato Jr. (parent) $147.00 Estimated weekly income of Don Chato (godparent). Although the baptismal costs are slightly less than twenty dollars (U.S.) they represent an amount nearly equal to the combined estimated weekly incomes of the child's parents and godparents, a comparison which places the financial burden in perspective as to its significance. When asked about the responsibilities of the godparent, one informant responded: The godparents should take the responsibility of educating the baby in the Christian faith. Actually, parents don't really like anyone meddling so the only responsibility is to say "hello compadre" when you see them and to help out if they should request assistance (Field notes). Parents and godparents should acknowledge the relationship (compadrazgo) through formal patterns of address, and godparents should be ready to assist their coparents or godchild if it is requested. In practice, coparents used the formal mode of address ("comadre," if speaking to a female coparent, or "compadre" if speaking to a male coparent) only if not closely related. The baptism detailed above occurred shortly after the initiation of fieldwork and, for the rest of the period of observation, Chato and Chato Jr. never referred to each other as "compadre" but, rather, as "father" and "son." Confirmation. Confirmation seems to be a highly variable ceremony as to the age of the initiate at the time of the ceremony. Accounts vary from reporting that confirmation "takes place at any time after baptism, and sometimes on the same day" (Foster, 1967: 78) to reporting that the confirmation occurs "one to two years" 157 following the first communion which itself takes place "when a child is between nine and twelve" (Nutini, 1968: 90). Attwater (1958: 114) states that: Confirmation is received at the age of reason, preferably just before the First Communion; but in Spain it is often given immediately after Baptism and in Rome to every infant who seems in danger of death. As described earlier (cf. Chapter II), infant mortality in this plantation community was extremely high for the first several decades of this century. Based on municipal death records, calculations indicate that for the decade 1911-1920, 68.8% of the children born had died before reaching five years of age. At the height of the epidemic periods of 1913-1915, and 1918-1920, 97.5% and 83.4%, re- spectively, of the children born failed to live beyond the fourth year of existence.3 Given this demographic context, it is not sur- prising that a preference would develop and be maintained to have a child pass through the confirmation ceremony, sometimes referred to as the "bishop baptism" (Buitrago Ortiz, 1973: 79), at the earliest possible date. Informants stated that the bishop came to San Antonio once a year to administer the confirmation rites. Parents of the children born between visits would take their children to the church. Arriving at the church, the parent hands the child to the godparent-designate, or ritual sponsor, who waits in line to receive the rite administered by the bishop. Again, if the child is female, it is given to the madrina and, if male, it is given to the padrino. If the child does not cry excessively, the godparents carry it back to the house where it is returned to the parents. The ritual is less important financially to 158 both the parents and the coparents. The party is usually small, including the parents, coparents, and close friends or relatives. While no confirmation ceremony occurred during the period of fieldwork, one informant estimated that the cost to the godparents was approxi- mately $30 pesos for the child's clothes and the donation to the church. Hetzmek. The Hetzmek ceremony is a community and family oriented, "role baptismal" ceremony. Although the ceremony takes place outside of the church and in the absence of a priest, syncretism is demonstrated in that the sponsor is referred to as the child's padrino or madrina (godparent) and the parents and coparents refer to each other as compadre or comadre. During this ceremony, which usually takes place in the house of the godparents, the padrino (if the child is male) or the madrina (if the child is female) symbolically introduces the child to the tools and techniques that it will have to master later in life to become a fully functioning adult member of the community. Since the child is only a few months old at the time, the ceremony has primarily a symbolic function for the adults participating. Hetzmek is, there- fore, a kind of role baptismal through which the child, the initiate, is introduced to the key technological and behavioral elements necessary to maximize survival. A more immediately functional aspect of the ceremony is to "open the legs" for the first time. During the ceremony, the padrino or madrina places the child astraddle the left or right hip, respectively, and forces the legs to Spread apart. Following the ceremony, until the child is able to walk, this will be the common mode of carrying the child. 159 1; Everyone does it here in San Antonio. It's done so that the child will learn to walk soon. They say that if you don't do the Hetzmek that when a child mounts a horse, he will get a rash between his legs. They also say the child doesn't learn to walk and eat (solid food) as quickly but I believe he will learn anyhow--especially how to eat. 2: They say the baby will more quickly learn how to walk and how to work, but I think they will anyway even if the Hetzmek is not performed. Ideally, the Hetzmek ceremony is performed when the child has reached the age of four months, if a male, or three months if the child is a female. The male emphasis on the number four is related (as explained by informants) to the four corners of the corn field (milpa). The number four is also significant with reference to other elements important to the cultivation of corn: the four seasons and the four directions which bring the various Mayan aquatic Spirits associated with rainfall. The female number three is related (according to informants) to the three stones that support the comal on which the tortillas are cooked. In addition, the small table on which tortillas are made is supported by three legs, as is the metate Stone for grinding the corn (while still found in the houses, the metate is presently used occasionally for grinding condiments). This extremely stable, three- 1egged tripodal structure associated with female occupations can be viewed, by extension, as symbolic of the importance of the woman to the stability of the household. Hetzmek for females: Francisco and Piha were the padrinos for Manuela's daughter. Although the Hetzmek is usually held in the house of the padrinos, Francisco ran one of the stores and they were afraid the other children would "get into things," so the ceremony was held at the mother's house. Pifia explained that if the ceremony were not held when the child was three months old, "it just wouldn't have any effect" (ya no sirve) on the child's walking early. Piha wasn't sure if it would affect learning its role but the mother maintained that children just don't learn very rapidly if the Hetzmek is not performed. 160 The madrina (Pifia) taught Rubi (the infant) to sew, eat (eggs and tortillas), write, wash clothes, make tortillas, and boil eggs. When teaching her to eat, they gave the child tortillas made with chaya (herb) so she would "learn to eat a humble meal (comida humilde)." It was explained that the poor typically made a type of tortilla from the chaya leaf and, not able to purchase meat or beans, etc., fill the tortilla with Small calabaza (gourd) seeds ( e itas). The madrina helped Rubi to make tortillas in the usuai way except that the dough became green with the small bits of chaya leaf in it. Everyone present was served tortillas with ground meat and eggs (hard boiled and crumbled) as a filler and, during and after the ceremony, every- one ate roasted pepita seeds (Field notes, Barbara Kirk). Pifia's expenses: $1.00 Pepitas 2.40 Four eggs (from Pifia's chickens, but she would otherwise sell them in the community for $0.60 each. 3.75 Diaper and swaddling clothes 2.00 Dress (made locally from a remnant of cloth) $9.65 Total cost to the godmother (in pesos). The following account of a Hetzmek ceremony as performed for a male child is somewhat atypical; an expression of interest in the ceremony resulted in my being asked to act as the sponsor and godparent of the child. One evening, I was approached by Don Peto and asked if I would take his sick "grandson" to see a doctor in a town some fourteen kilometers distant from the community (there being no doctor in either Maax or Xamach at the time). The child was not literally "his grandson" but was the great-grandson (DaDaSo) of his second wife. A few days after the trip, Peto and his wife arrived at our house, in the evening, with four bottles of Coca-Cola as a gift. Thinking it was simply another example of reciprocity for my refusing payment to take someone to visit a doctor, we proceeded to converse for almost two hours. Finally, as the two got up to leave, Peto turned and said: “I wonder if I could ask a favor of you?" I asked what it was, and he replied: "To be the padrino of my grandson." Not wanting to 161 enter into ties so early in the fieldwork period, I responded apolo- getically that I really couldn't do it Since I was not a member of the Catholic church. I was still thinking that he was asking me to sponsor the child's baptism, when he replied: "Oh, that doesn't matter, its for the Hetzmek ceremony, and it doesn't have anything to do with the church!" Not having any other recourse, I accepted and the ceremony was set for the following Sunday. My acceptance resulted in Don Peto's becoming one of the more open and cooperative of the various informants and, accordingly, we became quite close during the remaining months of our stay in San Antonio. I was not, however, Peto's compadre; I was the compadre of the child's parents (Peto's WiDaDa and her husband). The first time I visited the household4 following the ceremony, Peto immediately instructed me to go into the back yard and "say hello to your compadres and ahijado (godson)." Peto looked pleased as I approached the mother (c6mo esta, comadre) and father (y usted, compadre?) and proceeded to give Bombo, my godchild, a rather cautious tickle. The father of the child seemed uncomfortable using the reciprocal term, in large part, I suspect, because he had not taken the customary responsibility him- self of requesting that I Sponsor his child. Analysis of the event and community-wide patterns of coparent selection (discussed below) lead to two conclusions concerning Peto's actions. First, Peto, as eldest lineal ancestor of the child (surrogate great-grandparent), had been asked to perform the ceremony and had himself decided to pass that right on to a person who had assisted in helping the child overcome an illness. Secondly, Peto's action 162 indicates that compadrazgo is not used to initiate a relationship, per se, but that an already existing relationship is utilized and intensified by means of the ceremony. Peto, in making the request, acted as intermediary between myself and the parents. The father should have made the decision and the request but since we had had very little contact with each other, he had not. Peto, with whom a relationship had already been established, usurped, with his consent, the father's role. Hetzmek for males: After eating the special lunch prepared by Peto's wife and daughter, I asked Peto to explain the ceremony of Hetzmek. He said that the padrino takes the child (four months old), holds him on his left hip with his left arm; a pafiuelo (cloth) is placed around the child, and the padrino carries him out into the field (plantel). In the plantel, the padrino puts a calabacita (drinking gourd) in the child's hands and then, in turn places koa (cutting knife), axe, and machete into the child's hands with the padrino showing the child how to cut leaves (e1 corte), weed (e1 chapeo), and how to cut wood (cortar lefia). The padrino then takes the child to the well and shows him how to draw water. Peto then said that people did not do it exactly as it had been done in the past, and he added that we would just do the ceremony in the yard since it was too hot to take the child out into the open (henequen) field. We finally got around to the ceremony, and Peto asked me for a couple of pesos (par de pesitos) to get the child started in life. I handed him a five peso note which he returned, saying "he's too young to be rich." I handed him two one-peso notes which he placed inside the folded cloth (pafiuelo) and tied around the child. The mother passed the child to Peto who passed it to me. I had just placed the child on my left hip when Peto remarked that it was too bad I was not fatter since further spreading of the child's legs would have made him a good runner. I placed the various tools in the hands of the child as they were passed to me; I then took the child around the lot (solar) and into the Mayan choza hut, passing around the four corners of the hut before returning to the yard. All the while observors present were eating toasted calabaza seeds (pepitas) as they followed the padrino and ahijado. I was asked to sit at a table behind the house and, with paper and pen provided, I was asked to "show" the child how to write. With that, Peto indicated that the ceremony had ended (ya estuvo!) and the mother took the child as Peto handed me a "jaibalito" of mixed coke and rum. 163 Elements of both the Hetzmek ceremonies described suggest a further dimension or significance of this Mayan "role baptismal" ceremony. Not only is a child symbolically learning how to survive, but the child seems to also be "learning" its status and role in the context of the larger society. The child must not be deluded into thinking it had been born rich (only a "par de pesitos" should be placed in the boy's cloth). A child should learn to eat humble food, the food of the poor (tortilla dough mixed with chaya leaf). During both ceremonies, the other people present ate pepitas, the seeds of gourds or squash which are acknowledged as the food of the poor, as the filler to be placed in the tortillas if one has nothing else. Baptism and confirmation make the child a christian, in possession of a soul and assured of entry into heaven should death befall it. The priest, during the mass and accompanying baptism, reminds the people of San Antonio that they should bear their poverty and suffering, that they will be themselves assured of, and deserving of, everlasting peace and bliss in heaven. The Hetzmek ceremony "tells" the child that it is born into a life comprised of hard work and poverty. The child Should "accept" that role and status in life and not start out with delusions or pretensions which would make it otherwise difficult to function and survive as a member of the Yucatec Mayan community. Quantification and the Methodology of Comparison During the last month of fieldwork in San Antonio, key adult informants in each of 54 households were interviewed to secure specific information concerning compadrazgo. Those interviewed were asked 164 primarily two types of questions: (1) who are the padrinos of your children, and (2) who are your own padrinos? The first question asked the parents to name their compadres (coparents), by child and ceremony, and the second effectively asked the informants to name their parents' compadres. For each of the ceremonies involving ritual Sponsorship, the padrino's name, kin relation (if any), primary occupation and place of residence, were sought. The ceremonies included in the questionnaire were the baptism (bautizo), Mayan role baptism (Hetzmek), confirmation (confirmacién), first communion (primera comuni6n), fifteenth birthday mass (quinceafiera) and marriage (matrimonio). The first communion and the fifteenth birthday mass, especially the latter, seem only recently introduced into the ceremonial inventory of the community. Marriage ceremonies, not included in this analysis, presented Special problems concerning the analysis of choice-making patterns due to the unevenness in the selection process for padrinos of the couple to be married. Padrinos were, in the various cases, selected by either or both sets of parents and the betrothed couple themselves occasionally participated in this process or completely determined the selection of their "padrinos de boda.“ Still another problem concerned the determination of kin relations, particularly those existing between an older member of the community and a long-deceased padrino. Frequently a name would be provided, the informant would state that the padrino had been a relative, but the exact relationship could not be specified. Where a lcin relationship between a padrino and ahijado was suspected or in doubt, the information was cross-checked with household genealogies 165 and the municipal marriage records which had been copied from the archives of the Maax civil registry office. The marriage records, dating back to 1866, included the names of the parents of the individuals 5 This and often included the names of their grandparents as well. information proved invaluable in reconstructing family genealogies three and, in some cases, four generations beyond the shallow recol- lections of the informants. An informant, for example, would state the name of a baptismal godparent, declare that person to have been a grandparent, and then be unable to account for an obvious difference in surnames, replying: "he died before I knew him, I was just told that he was my padrino and my grandfather." In checking the marriage records of the municipality, it became clear that adult mortality (at a relatively early age) had been high, and remarriage frequent. The practice of serial monogamy and the remarriage of widows or widowers would result in someone with a different surname from the godchild "standing in" for, or taking the role of a surrogate primary relative. In the example given, the individual's godparent was not the biological grandfather (or genealogical grandfather), but was the classificatory grandfather and, for the purposes of this analysis, coded as such. The interviews were often prolonged and problematical if the padrino or compadre whose name I was requesting was deceased. I had to insist, in almost every case, that I did want to know the name of the individual even though he or she were no longer living. I have no evidence of the existence of a taboo against naming deceased relatives or compadres, but feel that the informants simply could not understand the investigator's interest in someone who was no longer living. 166 For each individual in the community the padrinazgo (their padrinos, their parents' compadres) information was coded as to ceremony, kinship relation, occupation, and place of employment for each padrino. Inclusion of the age of the initiate at the time of fieldwork allowed for a determination of the approximate time period during which the ceremonies of baptism, Hetzmek, and confirmation had been performed (occurring during the first year after birth). Accordingly, this indicated the time period during which the parents had selected the individual to be their coparents, the godparents of their child. Compadrazgo and the Ties that Bond Preliminary analysis of the data provides an indication of the relative importance of the three ceremonies of infancy (see Table 23). The baptismal ceremony, according to the percent of responses elicited (83.7%), is the most important of the three. Hetzmek (73.4% responding) and confirmation (74.1% responding) are also important, but fewer individuals could remember the exact names of coparents or godparents. By comparison, the first communion ceremony, which will not be con- sidered here in detail, only elicited responses (named padrinos or compadres) from approximately 40% of the sample. An examination of the responses, by ceremony, for select age groups indicates a relative greater importance of the coparent ties established (compadrazgo: 91.7% responding) over the godparent/godchild dyadic bond (padrinazgo: 44.4% responding). The group five to fourteen years of age represents those still living in the households of their parents. Accordingly, the parents, the key informants, were providing the names of their coparents (compadres). The group comprised of those 167 TABLE 23.-~The Ceremonies of Infancy. Compadrazgo Padrinazgo % Responses for all age 5-14 years 30 years and Ceremony groups. (N=282) (N=80) older. (N=84) Baptism 83.7% 93.8% 58.3% Hetzmek 73.4% 87.5% 34.5% Confirmation 74.1% 93.8% 40.5% Ave., all three 77.1% 91.7% 44.4% individuals 30 years of age and older were themselves the key informants and had been asked to recollect and name their own godparents (padrinos). With respect to both compadrazgo and padrinazgo, the Hetzmek ceremony proved to be less important than the other two ceremonies; fewer respondants could remember the names of their coparents or godparents with respect to this particular ceremony. In order to ascertain patterns in actual coparent selection, five basic dichotomous choice sets were examined: 1. Are kinsmen or non-kinsmen given preference? 2. If a kinsman is selected, are the child's matrikin or patrikin preferred? 3. If a kinsman is selected, is he/she selected from the child's or child's parents' generation (0, +1), or from the elder generation of the child's grandparents or great-grandparents (+2, +3)? 4. If a non-kin is selected, is the resulting dyadic bond horizontal in nature (parents select friends, neighbors, or co-workers 168 from the same socio-economic stratum), or is it vertical (parents select compadres from a higher class or socio-economic stratum)? 5. If a vertical, non-kin dyad is established, is the co- parent one who affects family income such as the patrdn or work manager (hacienda owner, ejido or pequeha propiedad administrator, etc.). or is the c0parent a professional or merchant who affects family expenditures (store owner, school teacher, doctor, nurse, etc.)? Aggregate analysis of the distribution of choices (see Table 24), indicates that kinsmen are given slight preference over non-kin (54.4%l45.6%) for the three ceremonies. Within the kin group, the child's mother's kin are given preference (58.3%/41.7%) over father's kin and of all kinsmen selected, members of the generations of elders are preferred in the majority of cases (72.7%/27.3%). If a non- kinsman is selected, he may be of the same socio-economic class (50.5%) or belong to a higher class stratum (42.1%). If the choice within the non-kin group establishes a vertical dyadic tie (crossing class lines), slight preference is given to professionals and merchants (22.6% of the non-kin choices) over individuals exerting control relative to the distribution of work and household incomes (19.5% of the non-kin ties involved the patr6n or work manager). Distribution of choices within each of the three ceremonies indicates the application of differential strategies in the selection of’coparents. In order to test the significance of these observed (differences, the Chi-Square test was utilized. For each of the .95, 2df) that any observable differences can be com- pletely attributed to purely random statistical error. From the father's point of view, this would constitute an extension of ties beyond his own kin to intensify relations already established by affinity. (b) All three ceremonies exhibit a decreasing importance of the customary selection of elder lineal ascendants (grandparents, great-grandparents or their surrogates) as coparents and an increasing selection of age-mates (co-workers, etc.) of the parents of the child. Since the selection of affinal kin already constitutes an extension of ritual kin ties, the preference of peers over elders is most pronounced 184 for choices made within the patri-kin group. With respect to baptism, for example, 44% of the patri-kin choices involved peers rather than elders and within the matri-kin, only 15% of the choices involved peers while the majority (85%) of the choices favored elder lineal ascendants within the matri-kin group. (c) The change from kin-oriented, vertical (inter-generational) bonds to an increasingly important selection emphasis on horizontal (intra-generational) bonds parallels the decreasing emphasis placed on vertical, non-kin (inter-class) ties as opposed to community-oriented, horizontal (intra-class) bonds (cf. Figures 6 and 7). Except for the most recent period of the Hetzmek ceremony, there has been little difference in the selection patterns which can be correlated to the sex of the child (the initiate). For Hetzmek, however, there are apparent differences which indicate that if the child is a female, greater preference is given to elder members of the child's matri-kin over all others. If the child is male, nearly equal weight is given to matri-kin over patri-kin and to peers as opposed to elder lineal kinsmen. The following table summarizes the distribution by sex of the child: TABLE 28.-—Kin-Group Choice by Sex of the Initiate. Hetzmek: Federal Period Male Female Matri-Kin selected 46.8% 75.0% Patri-Kin selected 53.2% 25.0% Peers selected (horizontal) 44.7% 25.0% Elders selected (vertical) 55.3% 75.0% 185 Figure 6.--Compadrazgo Selection: Kin Choices. 100% BAPTISM HETZMEK CONFIRMATION i—q 50%-il- I —-' C(b .1)- H S F H S F H S F a) Percent of Kinsmen Selected_(over Non-Kin). 100% 50%" 1“ H S F H S F H S F b) Within Kin Group: Percent of Matri-Kin Selected (over Partri-Kin). 100% 50%-I)- di- «(r- 1_—. var—r" + a a '— H S F H S F H S F c) Withjnnkiprroup: Percent of Peers Selected (over Lineal Ascendants). H) Hacienda Period 5) State Period F) Federal Period 186 Figure 7.—-Compadrazgo Selection: Non-Kin Choices. 100% BAPTISM HETZMEK CONFIRMATION ,_.___1. 50%‘b db 'P H S F H S F H S F a)Within Non-Kin: Percent of Vertical, Work-related Choices. 100% 50%.. .1 .. 417 .—_. "‘ T" H S F H S F H S F b)Within Non-Kin: Percent of Vertical, Professional Choices (Merchants, etc. 100% r_. 50%, —1— H S F H S F H S F c)Within Non-Kin: Percent of Horizontal, Intra-Class Choices. H) Hacienda Period S) State Period F) Federal Period 187 The degree of change is best illustrated by noting that during the hacienda period, matri-kin had been emphasized for both sexes (male initiates: 63.2%; females: 66.7%), and emphasis on elder ascendants was virtually the same for both male (89.5%) and female initiates (83.3%). Female initiates now seem more frequently "used" in a traditional way, and male initiates have kinds of godparents selected for them who represent a greater departure from the "traditional" patterns of choice as evidenced for the hacienda period. The data suggest that women are assuming greater responsibility in the selection of godparents for the Hetzmek of their daughters, and that men assume a greater role in the selection of Hetzmek godparents for their sons. Comparisons of choice patterns by sex of the initiate for the other two ceremonies do not indicate a similar bifurcation of choice responsi- bilities between the parents of the child. Ascendant Emphasis: "Tradition" or Adaptation? AS has been indicated above, the largest single sub-category given preference in the selection of coparents is that of lineal ascending relatives (or elder surrogates) of either the child's patri- kin or matri-kin. This preference, noted by many, is either briefly described as traditional (Redfield, 1941; Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1934; Villa Rojas, 1945) or merely mentioned and then ignored in favor of quantitative analyses of the matri-kin/patri-kin and kin/non- kin choice dichotomies (Deshon, 1963; Thompson, 1971) as they relate to, primarily, patterns of post-marital residence. While the latter type of analysis is useful in determining recent correlations between coparent selection and residence, it does not lend itself heuristically 188 to a discussion of the possible adaptive value of such an emphasis or the significance of the recent decline in the emphasis on lineal ascendants. On the other hand, it is common for a man to ask his father or older brother to act as godparent of his child. . . . The old people say that only if one is compadre with one's father and mother will one meet with them in heaven (Gloria) (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1934: 99). If either pair of prospective grandparents is alive (preferably the paternal grandparents), they must be chosen. Paternal grand- parents are the first choice, and even if only one is alive, he or she becomes the godparent and discharges all the obligations (Villa Rojas, 1945: 90). The persons selected as sponsors are always persons whose relationship to the petitioners is already such that respect is properly felt toward them. If either pair of prospective grand- parents are alive, these are properly the first choice; otherwise chiefs and maestros cantores are preferred (in Tusik) (Redfield, 1941: 221 . . . first ascending generation kinsmen are the most common choices, followed by zero generation kinsmen. . . . A complete characterization of compadrazgo as a device for constructing interpersonal resource networks requires more precise analysis of both the kinship and nonkinship constituents of compadrazgo in the community (town of Ticul) (Thompson, 1971: 386). Actually, the henequen hacienda exhibits a persistent dominant pattern of grandparent selection and horizontal relationships . . . we propose that the extended type or stage of a household has a conservative effect on sponsor selection in the hacienda, sustaining the traditional horizontal character of compadrazgo for the com- munity as a whole. . . . The older forms were found to be horizontal and intensive. . . . (Deshon, 1963: 577, 580, 581). For Redfield and Villa Rojas, grandparents are selected because they "must be" if they are still living. Thompson's "more precise analysis" correlates matri-kin and patri-kin choices with "patrilocal" and "nonpatrilocal" residence, but ignores the ascending category which he had already described as "most conmon." While Deshon presents a very'interesting analysis of compadrazgo in the context of domestic 189 unit cyclicity (nuclear/extended/nuclear), she had decided not to distinguish intra-generational (horizontal) from inter-generational (vertical) kin ties, preferring to classify them all as socio-economically horizontal (intra-class). The data and examples presented below support the hypothesis that selection of elder lineal kinsmen was highly adaptive to a situation in which adults frequently outlived one or more Spouses and, as a conse- quence, familial ties of affinity were in a constant state of flux. Given the tendency towards community endogamy, and the high frequency of re-marriage following the death of a spouse, it would be counter- productive (and socially maladaptive) to emphasize horizontal, intra- class compadrazgo ties. Such an extension beyond the close lineal kin group, by extension of the incest taboo to include ritual kin, would eliminate potential "replacements" of deceased spouses. The selection of elder lineal (ascending) kinsmen as coparents would have the effect of (1) not affecting an extension of incest taboos beyond those already defined and prohibited through kinship, and (2) in the cases of re- marriage of the parent of the child or the ascending coparents, compadrazgo provides a means to extend intensified ties (and the incest prohibition) to one's "new" affinal relatives or to "new" (surrogate) ascending relatives. The following two tables (Tables 29 and 30) reveal the effects (yf demographic changes on the frequency of re-marriage. A general decline in mortality rates and an increase in the average age at death (discussed in Chapter II) have resulted in a reduction of the iruzidence of re-marriage in the community of San Antonio. During the 190 TABLE 29.-~Frequency Distribution of Marriage in San Antonio.a Total Male: Male: Female: Female: Number of First Re- First Re- Time Period Marriages Marriage Marriage Marriage Marriage 1880-1894 (H) 44 77.3% 22.7% 77.3% 22.7% 1895-1909 (H) 45 62.2% 37.8% 64.4% 35.6% 1910-1924 (H) 21 61.9% 38.1% 71.4% 28.6% 1925-1939 (H) 22 81.8% 18.2% 90.9% 9.1% 1940-1954 (S) 20 85.0% 15.0% 90.0% 10.0% 1955-1964b(F) 8 87.5% 12.5% 87.5% 12.5% aCalculations based on marriage records of the Maax civil registry office. bRecords available only through 1964; the small sample number 0f the last period (1955-1964) makes it most subject to random error. (H) Hacienda Period (S) State Period (F) Federal Period TABLE 30.-—Average Age at Marriage and Re-Marriage by Sex.a First Marriage Re-Marriage Time Period Males Females Males Females 1880-1894 (H) 18.8 17.4 36.8' 30.1 1895-1909 (H) 19.0 17.0 36.6 31.8 1910-1924 (H) 19.9 16.7 35.1 28.8 1925-1939 (H) 21.3 17.5 35.5 36.5 1940-1954 (S) 22.2 16.9 46.0 44.5 1955-1964 (F) 22.9 17.9 52.0 49.0 aCalculations based on the marriage records of the Maax civil registry. 191 first three decades of this century, at least one out of every three marriages recorded in the municipality of Maax (for the community of San Antonio), involved a re-marriage of widows or widowers (most often to each other, but in a few cases a widower would take an un- married woman as his second or third wife). The increasing longevity of spouses is reflected in the overall decline in the number of marriages per time period (as the number of re-marriages declines), the increasing age at re-marriage, and the fact that in the most recent period, re-marriage occurs in slightly more than one out of every ten marriages recorded. That the re-marriage follows the death of a spouse is indicated by a word following the name indicating vjpg9_(widower) or vipga_(widow) in the Maax records. For an anthropologist interested in analyzing genealogical aspects of social relations, the high incidence of remarriage can be devastating. The effects of this complicating factor illustrate the "all roads lead to Rome" principle; it is almost literally true that beginning with one individual and tracing consanguineal and affinal connections, that individual could be "linked" to any other individual and back again without ever using the same connecting genealogical link twice and, in addition, without ever having to trace links back more than two or three generations. Of the various anthropologists who have conducted community studies in Yucatén (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1934; Redfield, 1941; Villa Rojas, 1945; Deshon, 1959, 1963; Thompson, 1971; Raymond, 1971), only Deshon mentions the occurrance of re-marriage (1959: 113); and none of the authors consider re-marriage and the subsequent re-allignment of affinal ties in their discussions 192 relative to kinship. These observations concerning the absence of discussions relative to re-marriage might lead one to conclude that it only occurs on henequen haciendas (Deshon, 1959) or that other investigators simply deemed it unimportant. 7 are not intended to The following diagrams and discussion illustrate some "typical" pattern of re-marriage nor do they reveal some set of rules that guide individuals in the restructuring of affinal ties and alliances. They are included to provide a glimpse at the complexity and fluidity of "affination" (if I may coin a term) involved in one's adult life during the latter part of the 1800's and the first part of this century. With respect to ritual coparenthood, the data indicate that the bonds of compadrazgo may be alternately used as a social basis for restructuring affinal relations, or used as a means to add further formality to a restructured set of affinal alliances. At the least, it is clear that when an individual selected a grand- parent or grandparents as coparents, and repeated that selection for subsequent children, in most cases he or she was extending ties which, potentially, could include an extremely large number of different people. The first diagram (cf. Figure 8) illustrates, with reference to a single generational group, what is here referred to as the fluidity of "affination." The order of re-marriage events is indicated by the ,year the marriage was recorded in the Maax office. In all cases, the re-marriage partners were described as a "widow" or "widower," meaning that the previous spouse had died during the period intervening between .an earlier marriage and the year of re-marriage; none of the cases 193 indicated that re-marriage had followed a separation or divorce from the spouse recorded earlier. For all of the following diagrams, the following symbolic system will be utilized: 19 O Conjugal Bond (with year of marriage indicated) Descent/Ascent Sibling Bond Lines intersect, showing genealogical connection. Lines cross (diagrammatic convenience), no genealogical connection. ++ Figure 8 exhibits the fluidity of marriage alliances over time, connecting individuals within generations as well as between generations (cf. Inset 1a). Of especial interest with regard to compadrazgo are the marriages to the Ek-Chi sisters of Buenaventura (B.V.) Narvéez and his father Esteban (Est.). In 1893, B.V. Narvéez married Bonifacia (Bon) Ek-Chi and shortly after the re-marriage of BV'S father, in 1894, Bon and BV had their first child, a girl (the year of birth was reconstructed from records of the child's marriage, 1915, and re-marriage, 1919, which indicated she had been born near the end of 1894 or early part of 1895). Following the birth of the child, it is most probable that Est. and his new wife were selected as the child's baptismal sponsors (68% probableselection of child's patri-kin and 93% probable selection of lineal ascendants during the hacienda period, see Table 25 above), thus intensifying and formalizing bonds between BV/Bon and Est/Puc (the latter, Puc, was recorded as 194 camp .5 Nump .n Acomv ego om mmw_ dml oou A my wa>gmz A.>.mv - ego em :ooa _oa use o_a;u some cooa oae coax .eowoaewee< co sowewepa camp P=~o wnoH A av oea ex Nowsoaz ease weave poo A.omwv veg em ecu new mmmwccmzimmii.w mcamwu 195 having married Est in March of 1894). For the child's Hetzmek ceremony, an elder female member of the child's matri-kin should have been selected as Sponsor (64% probable selection of matri-kin, 88% probable selection of lineal ascendant). Bon's mother, however, had died (father's re- marriage recorded in 1887), leaving as a replacement either the step- mother of Bon, or her eldest sister Petronila (Pet) who had herself been widowed and re-married in 1892. It is hypothesized here that Pet, as eldest sister, was selected as surrogate lineal ascendant of the child and Hetzmek godmother to the child. By 1896 Est and Pet, experiencing again the demise of their respective spouses, had married each other, Pet becoming both step-mother and sister-in-law to BV, and Est becoming brother-in-law as well as father-in-law to Bon. The above ethno-historical reconstruction of alterations in kin and ritual kin alliances supports three major propositions con— cerning the adaptive role of compadrazgo in the social system of this community. 1. Selection of lineal ascendants as coparents provides a means to intensify and formalize relations between a parent and his or her surrogate parent (following re-marriage of a lineal ascendant). 2. For cases in which intensive relations include both hori- zontal and vertical and, as well, affinal and consanguineal components, compadrazgo provides a means to emphasize the vertical and consanguineal components of these restructured relations. Since both father and son had married sisters, a potential for sexual competition and/or suspicion existed. The addition of compadrazgo bonds, however, would imbue such potential sexual encounters (between Fa and WiSi/SoWi, or between $0 196 and FaWi/WiSi) with strong incestuous connotations. With the addition of compadrazgo, such relations would be unthinkable and interaction between compadres would be above reproach. 3. Alternation between the selection of child's matri-kin and patri-kin as sponsors provides a basis for social interaction between the coparents of the parents (co-compadres), without the addition of a prohibition defining that interaction as potentially incestuous. In the example above, it is posited that Esteban and Petronila (before and after the deaths of their spouses) had a basis for interacting which would not be considered scandalous: they could visit close relatives (BV and Bon) who were also their common coparents. Since Petronila and Esteban were not themselves compadres, no prohibition existed which would preclude their marriage to each other. Relative to the above propositions concerning the importance of the incest taboo to the restructuring of social relations, Redfield noted that: A myth collected in Merida includes the assertion that incest between compadres is even more terrible than that between father and daughter, which in turn is said to be more terrible than that between mother and son. Breach of the taboo with respect to compadres is certainly the commonest of the three; the myth iS probably to be interpreted as putting the pressure of moral control where it is most needed (1941: 212). While Redfield interpreted the "myth" as merely a strong ideological expression of the associated incest prohibition extended to ritual coparents, it is my assertion that this "myth" should be taken more literally. Incest between compadres who are a part of a restructured network of affination j§_more serious than that between genealogical father and daughter or mother and son since the restructured relations would not otherwise be as strongly covered by prohibitions associated 197 with actual (genealogical) ascending or descending lineal relatives. It is compadrazgo that provides the mechanism to make the relations as nearly formal as actual father/daughter and mother/son kinship. The following diagram (Figure 9) provides the additional proof required to validate the above assertion. It documents a case in which the same kind of re-marriage occurred, and the same kinds of relations established which included horizontal, vertical, consanguineal, and affinal components. In this case, however, the father's re-marriage pre-dates the son's marriage to his new step-mother's Sister. In this case, compadrazgo and the selection of father and father's wife as coparents clearly would formalize relations in terms of their vertical components as asserted above. Here, the selection of coparents along "traditional" lines would obviate the possibility of sexual competition, actual or perceived, between father and son. Inset 2a of Figure 9 illustrates a reversal of the previous case. Marcos Cupul (M), widower, married Eustaquia Chan(U) in 1874. Within a few years (1880), Marcos' son by his previous wife, Hilario Cupul Kam (H), married Maria, sister to Eustaquia. Ties of compadrazgo most probably had been established between Hilario and his wife (parents) and Hilario's father and step-mother (coparents); one of their children had lived to the age of marriage and thus was recorded in the municipal records. Maria herself had to re-marry in 1887 (following the death of Hilario in 1887, recorded as due to embriaguez or intoxication) and had selected the brother of another sister's husband. Elena (E), daughter of Marcos and Eustaquia (cf. Figure 9), married in 1890, became a widow, and re-married to Domingo Ek Pech (D), himself a 198 ow ummca 42: .b . G 93m. .8 . Psmsu aaeo ease - emwp - om. omm_ com camp omm_ mwm_ : m A omc.eoo gm p: nu wsucmu mmw_ as .4 1V sax guano saga eaeu some xm ex om _ k smpmm wsucmu .eowoaewec< to eomoaeLece<--.m oL=m_d 199 widower, in 1896. Following the death of Elena, Domingo re-married the sister of his first wife, who had been widowed. Domingo re- married the sister of his first wife and also one who was very likely the child of a compadre. Comparing the complexities of affination as illustrated in Figures 8 and 9, one can conclude that the "traditional" emphasis on the selection of lineal ascending kin was highly adaptive to the demographic and social context of this community. Compadrazgo can be used to intensify restructured relations and, at the same time, can be used in such a way that it facilitates the selection of re- marriage partners without eliminating potential spouses. The fol- lowing chapters elaborate further on the inter-relationship between kinship, re-marriage, compadrazgo, and the politics of alliance in San Antonio during the period of fieldwork. Don Peto once described his own re-marriage to Doha Pacifica (1958). He said that following the death of his wife, life had become "very sad" for him. His elder daughter helped run the house until she finally married and moved to Xamach. At that point, he said, he decided to approach Doha Pacifica since "a man can't live without a woman to make his tortillas!" When I asked him if that was all, he replied, smiling, that of course that was all, they were too old to do anything besides keep each other warm in their hammock (Doha Pacifica giggled at this point). He knew Doha Pacifica from the com- munity and since her Sister had been married to Peto's brother, he stated that they were also "related." When Pacifica's husband died, she lived with her son Francisco until the time of Peto's decision. 200 Peto chose the day of action, waited until evening when the community had quieted down, and he approached and knocked softly at Francisco's door. Peto explained that he had come to talk to Pacifica and was allowed to enter the house. As Peto explained it, he was quite nervous at the time, but proceeded to tell Pacifica that he would like to have her come and live with him and that he would wait outside the door, giving her a few minutes to gather her belongings. Peto left the house, heard Francisco try to dissuade his mother and finally, much to his relief, saw Pacifica leave the house with her bundle. Don Peto and Doha Pacifica lived together for a few years until they were finally forced to marry; a priest who was to perform the marriage ceremony for Peto's younger son (by his first wife) refused to do so unless the ”parents" were also married in the church. Francisco and his wife remained childless but his sister and her husband began to name Peto and Pacifica as godparents to their subsequent children (5 in all). The husband alternated selection between Peto, his mother's (husband's mother's) second husband (who himself had been married three times), and Francisco. Dimensions of Coparent Relations As demographic pressures for the maintenance of the "traditional" pattern of selecting lineal ascendants has decreased, the choice patterns in the selection of ritual coparents have shifted from emphasizing inter-generational to intra-generational ties. A greater proportion of the ties of compadrazgo are being extended horizontally through the community, and fewer are being used to intensify vertical inter-generational or vertical inter-class bonds of ritual kinship. 201 The following case examples describe some of the negative aspects of vertical, inter-class coparenthood and some of the positive dimensions of horizontal, inter-class relations. These cases suggest that while establishing a formalized bond between oneself and a member of a higher class stratum may afford benefits, there is always the possibility that one may find himself abused in the relationship and, lacking relative power, be unable to avoid interacting with one who is a compadre or comadre. Rather than substitute vertical inter-class ties for the ascendant emphasis, the people of San Antonio have demonstrated a preference for compadrazgo ties that are potentially least hazardous. Two separate conversations with Peto provided a glimpse at the positive and negative aspects of coparenthood between patr6n and worker. I interviewed Peto one day as he was working in his small vegetable garden in a field adjacent to the 929252 (henequen waste) dump of the pequeha propiedad. At that time, I had been in the com- munity only for about two months and while not hostile, Peto seemed reluctant to engage in an extensive conversation or to offer much information voluntarily: (Is this your own plot of land?) No, it belongs to the owner. ("dueho" or Don Manuel) (Do you rent it from him? Do you pay him something for it?) IT: .3: No. (Followed by a long period of silence) (Do you give him some of the produce?) 3; Sometimes, but I don't really have to ("L0 hago por voluntad"). (Pues . . . how is it that you are able to use some of this land and not others of the community?) E: Es mi compadre, me tiene que ayudar si puede. (He's my coparent and he has to assist me if he is able.) At a later point in time, the owner and his son had decided that they wanted to undertake an experimental horticultural project 202 using the fields of bagazo (which also included the area of Peto's garden). The project was publicized locally and in the Merida news- papers as a project to explore the economic aspects of truck gardening, to experiment with ways to diversify production in the henequen zone, and, ultimately, to benefit economically the ejidatarios of the zone. The owner's son ordered the foreman of the pequeha propiedad to begin dumping bagazo waste in the larger area, which included Peto's small garden plot. Peto and his step-son-in-law (Peto's second wife's DaHu), who worked with him, both lost their harvest. The plants were just beginning to produce in their adjoining gardens when the dumping operation was ordered. Just as the dumping had begun, I again inter- viewed Don Peto: (It looks aS though you are going to lose your harvest.) P: I was able to get a few tomatoes, but most of it is lost. (Didn't you say anything about this to the owner?) P: No. Why should I say anything? He's the owner and he does want he wants with his land. That's the way life is! In the case of Don Peto, one sees that the concept of compadrazgo was only selectively operable. In the first instance, the bond of compadrazgo was used to explain favored treatment by the owner (the use of a plot on the private holdings) and in the second instance, compadrazgo was not even mentioned. The dumping operation was Simply an example of the private landowner exerting his right to utilize his own holdings as he wished. In no instance (as observed) did the owner or Peto refer to the other as "compadre"; the owner always used the familiar (t0) term of reference and Peto always replied using the more formal and respectful (usted) term. 203 Peto had been observed to interact very formally with a c0parent of the community. One sunday afternoon while walking with Javier (28 yrs. old) and his family, Javier suggested we stop at Peto's stand to have soft drinks. As we approached, he explained that Peto was his compadre (Peto and his wife had sponsored Javier's son's baptism and his daughter's confirmation). When we arrived at Peto's, Javier and his wife very solemnly exchanged formalized greetings with their compadre and comadre (all using the "usted" term of reference). They each asked how the other had been, if they were in good health, and both Peto and his wife commented on how tall their godson (ahijado term used) was getting to be and how happy they were that he was turning out to be such a fine boy (he was 9 years old at the time). Javier and Peto were not closely related and, although they saw each other every day of their lives, the pr0priety of formality in interaction was stressed in every instance of social interaction. Between close relatives (siblings, lineal ascendants, or surrogates, or immediate affines) the terms "compadre" or "comadre" were never used in place of the actual name or kin term of reference. The intra-class bond between Javier and Peto, Since they were not closely related, expressed fully the formality of compadrazgo. Daniel and his wife (both in their late 30's) had established and maintained c0parent bonds with Gustavo, former ejido work manager during the period of Henequeneros de Yucatan. Gustavo, following the end of Henequeneros, moved to Mérida, purchased some trucks and in a short period of time had become quite successful in his transportation business. Daniel and a couple of other members of the community continued 204 to request Gustavo to sponsor various of their children because, as they put it, "he always is willing and buys very nice clothes and gifts for the child." During fieldwork, Gustavo asked Daniel to send his daughter (Gustavo's god-daughter by baptism) to work as a servant in Gustavo's house in Mérida. Within a few months, the daughter appeared once again in the community and obviously not for a short visit. Daniel's wife seemed especially outraged as she began to complainabout the compadres. She explained that they paid their ahijada very little ($80 pesos a month with meals), they made her do the work of two servants, and they hardly ever let her return to the community to visit her parents. They could not directly confront compadres with such complaints, however, so they waited until the girl's saint's day (birthday) celebration and asked the coparents to allow her to return home for her party. Once home, the mother sent a message that she (the mother) had been taken ill and the daughter would have to stay home and help maintain the house- hold; they expressed regret that their compadres would have to look for another girl to work as servant. Within two weeks, the girl, who had made contacts through other servants in Mérida, obtained another job and left the community to work in another household but at the more current rate of $200 pesos/month. The above case illustrates some of the problems (actual or potential) that are created along with vertical, asymmetrical, inter- class ties of compadrazgo. The coparents obviously felt their godchild and her parents owed them the favor and, Since the ritual kin tie existed, there would be no need to pay more than what was considered 205 (by the coparents) as adequate. The relationship was convenient and economically advantageous to the coparents, and resented as abusive by the parents. Confrontation was out of the question, but careful planning to achieve resolution of the conflict was not. The parents handled the problem in such a way that the coparents would be neither challenged nor insulted, yet the daughter's freedom from the situation would be gained. The final case describes one informant, Maximo, who had selected his "friend" (also his MoSiSo), rather than his father, as baptismal sponsor for the first two of his children. The "traditional" practice was observed when Maximo's father sponsored the baptisms of the next two children, but the friend, Filo, who had been elected president of the ejido, baptized the fifth and youngest child. In this case, friendship was initially preferred to the customary practice of honoring one's parents. The customary privilege was afforded the patrilateral ascendants to sponsor two of the children's baptisms and, of the others, Hetzmek and confirmation were utilized to intensify bonds with the child's mother's parents and other close relatives and friends. The birth of the fifth child provided the parent an opportunity to "remind" Filo (now ejido president) of their bonds of compadrazgo through the baptismal sponsorship by Filo of that child. The remainder seemed to work. The father, Maximo, was appointed ejido work inspector by Filo--a desirable job since it involves very little actual manual labor. Compadrazgo ties with non-kin are highly variable in their effects. Bound to an outsider, there exists the probability that one 206 will either be ignored or, worse, economically or socially abused by the coparent. Within the community, compadrazgo is usually employed not so much to iniate a formalized relationship, but to give recogni- tion, intensity, and permanency to already existing relations involving friendship, neighborhood association, and more distant bonds of actual kinship. Summary and Conclusions Aside from describing ceremonial and social aspects of compadrazgo and patterns of interaction between coparents, this chapter has been directed, utilizing methods of ethno-historical reconstruction, towards analyzing the dynamics of this highly flexible institution of ritual coparenthood. The tendency in the selection of ritual coparents has changed away from emphasizing vertical inter- class and inter-generational bonds as exhibited during the paternalistic hacienda period (cf. Table 31). Compadrazgo has changed in a way that is responsive to and reflective of the general, changing institutional context, and compadrazgo now serves more to extend horizontal bonds on .an intra-class and intra-generational basis. Compadrazgo, reflecting the "proletarianization" of this plantation ejido, stresses more the intensification of ties between co-workers, neighbors, friends and peers, as well as close relatives. Compadrazgo assists in the formation of mutual support groups within this ejido community and appears to facilitate the equitable local distribution of work and to minimize the development of permanent competing factions. Another important dimension of compadrazgo as it seems to have operated in this Yucatec-Maya community, concerns its utility as a TABLE 31.-~Changing Patterns of Coparent Selection. Baptism Hetzmek Confirmation Hacienda Period (to 1940) Horizontal choicesa 8.3% 10.7% 32.4% Vertical Choicesb 91.7% 89.3% 67.6% State Period (1940 to 1955) Horizontal Choices 23.9% 32.3% 50.8% Vertical Choices 76.1% 67.7% 49.2% Federal Period (1955 to 1970) Horizontal Choices 39.5% 51.7% 58.4% Vertical Choices 60.5% 48.3% 41.6% aHorizontal: intra-generational, intra-class. bVertical: inter-generational, inter-class. means to formalize social networks restructured by demographic fluctuation. Examined in the context of the previously high rate of re-marriage, emphasis on lineal ascendant relatives (grandparents or great-grandparents of the child) is viewed as not merely "traditional," but adaptive. Compadrazgo lends formality where it might not otherwise exist and it provides one basis for individuals in search of spouse "replacements" to interact with others without eliminating potential mates by extending to them the incestuous prohibitions of compadrazgo. In a following chapter (Chapter VI), the discussion and description of the "Politics of Candidacy" adds to the analysis of the highly flexible and varied institution of compadrazgo. In dis- cussing alliance or social interaction in this community, it is 208 difficult to fully understand the processes and strategies involved without including a discussion of the existing bonds of fictive kinship. CHAPTER IV--FO0TNOTES 1Redfield (1941: 307) notes another variation in the color of the WAI-CH'ICH or ave de mal: 'A supernatural nocturnal bird, blue in color, brings illness to children when it flies above them as they sleep." 2Attwater (1958: 44) refers to the priest giving the child "the salt of wisdom." 3These figures related to infant mortality may be even higher. Parents often would not register children who had died at birth. Informants stated that some people would even wait a few weeks, or until the child was baptized, until registering the birth. If the child died before baptism, it was still a criatura, not yet human, and the parents would see no need to make a trip to the municipal center to record both the birth and death of an "unfortunate criatura." 4Peto's house lot (solar) contained three dwellings (a. block house, an attached shed which served as soft drink stand and house to Peto, and a Mayan choza thatched hut) which housed Peto and his second wife (the soft drink stand), wife's daughter, husband, and children (the block house), and two of Peto's wife's daughter's daughters and their husbands and children (the choza). In this case a compound household was comprised of four nuclear family units connected by a lineal core of matri-kin. The household is identified as compound rather than extended; the sets of Spouses are economically independent (purchase food and cook separately, etc.), although they do pool resources occasionally such as in the case of a particularly costly illness. While households connected by a matrilineal core are rare (this was the only case in San Antonio), the existence of compound households is not (cf. Deshon, 1959: 238-239). 5The practice of listing parents and grandparents of the couple being married was continued from 1866 until 1908, at which time the practice was changed to include the parents of both, but only the paternal grandparents of the groom. Following 1915, only the parents of the bride and groom were listed. In total, 174 marriages were recorded for San Antonio in the municipal records and 44 of those (25.3%) listed as re-marriages for males, and 37 (21.3%) listed as re-marriages for females. 6For the purposes of the statistical analysis of compadrazgo, the p<.05 level of significance was selected as necessary to justify rejection of the null hypotheses. 209 210 7The methodology used to reconstruct re-marriage patterns involved coding information for each spouse listed in the Maax marriage records in such a way that the data could be easily manipulated and information retrieved efficiently. Each individual recorded as having married was assigned a single Unisort card which contained the following information, as recorded and coded: (a) Entry Number (cross-referenced with master list of marriage records) (b) Year of Marriage (coded by decade) (c) Ego: First Name First Last Name (coded) Second Last Name (coded) Sex (coded), Age (coded), Year of Birth. Place of birth (coded by general category) First Marriage or Re-Marriage (coded) (d) Spouse: Same information as Ego, but uncoded. Spouse is listed on a separate card as Ego and coded. (e) Full names of Ego's father and mother. (f) Previous Spouse (full name, entry number and year of previous marriage (of Ego. The first and second last names of individuals, categorized and coded singly or in groups depending on their frequency of occurrance, proved most valuable in locating individuals and tracing family lines, in some cases, back to at least 1850. Although kin reckoning is bilateral (cf. Villa Rojas, 1969: 265-268) a patrilateral bias is indicated by the pattern of patronymic inheritance whereby an individual receives his or her first last name patrilaterally (Fa and FaFa first last name) and receives a second last name inherited from his/her matrilateral patri-kin (MoFa and MoFaFa first last name). The tracing of individuals and family groups is facilitated by the fact that neither males nor females change their names (regardless of marriage or re-marriage) during their life. Occasionally orthography would change over time (a common surname presently written as "Sulub" would appear also as "Sulu'," "Xulu'," or "Xulub") but in the majority of cases, the inclusion of the names of matri-kin and patri-kin of the individual (lineal ascendants) would permit verification of the surname and the standardization of codes to further facilitate analysis. CHAPTER V COMMUNITY LIFE: THE CYCLICITY 0F DOMESTIC GROUPS AND THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL Introduction Estimated Average Income in San Antonio. Martin: Nuclear Family in a Compound Domestic Group. (The Outsider's Strategy: Compadrazgo and Uxorilocal Residence.) Javier: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase of the Domestic Group. (The Untimeliness of Time Payments) Maximo: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase of the Domestic Group. (The Skill to Augment Income and the Debility of Health.) Prudencio: The Nuclear/Neolocal Phase of the Domestic Group. (Transitory Affluence and the Beginnings of a Family.) Jorge: The Nuclear/Post-Extended Family Phase of the Domestic Group. (Filial Engagement and Socio-Economic Change.) Alejandro: An Extended/Compound Domestic Group. (Marriage, Virilocality, and Resource Allocation in a Changing Domestic Group.) Time and Domestic Group Survival. Summary and Conclusions. 211 212 Introduction Continuing the general emphasis on socio-economic dimensions of life in the ejido plantation community of San Antonio, this chapter focuses more specifically on aspects of domestic group1 cyclicity. Variability in household composition, that is, the structure of the domestic group, is examined as it relates to associated variability in the income structure and the strategies employed in the allocation of those scarce resources to ensure the economic survival of that group. The cyclical pattern of fluctuating household composition observed in San Antonio closely parallels that reported by Redfield (1941: 191-193) for Yucatec Maya communities in general, and by Deshon (1959: 238-239) for a Yucatec hacienda community (Mukui-il). Domestic groups typically alternate between nuclear, extended family, and compound family forms of organization. When an individual marries, post-marital residence (preferably virilocal) incorporates the married couple into an extended family group; economic resources are pooled and the household can be characterized as a single unit of production and consumption. The married couple may continue to reside virilocally but, after the birth of the first child, becomes part of a compound family domestic group, with each basic nuclear component assuming relatively autonomous control over consumption and the allocation of its income. In yet other circumstances, the domestic group may undergo fission after the birth of the first or subsequent children, with the younger family unit entering into a nuclear/neolocal phase of residential organization. This phase continues until the children of that union marry and the domestic group once again passes through extended and 213 compound family stages but with the husband assuming the temporary role of patriarch instead of being economically subrodinate as in the previous extended/compound family phases. Production (income) and consumption patterns exhibited by domestic groups grossly vary as the transition is made from one phase to another. A seemingly obvious but often neglected result is that the per capita income of the domestic group varies cyclicly with the changing ratio of consumers to producers. The ratio is relatively low at marriage and increases steadily with the birth of each addi- tional child. AS male children become older, usually beginning at about ten years of age, they begin to assist the father in the culti- vation of a household garden and in completing work assigned in the henequen fields. Upon reaching the age of sixteen, the child may legally become a productive member of the ejido and contribute further to the maintenance of the domestic group. AS members of the group make the transition from consumers to worker-consumers, per capita income of the domestic group increases proportionately. With the marriage of a male child, another female is added to the domestic group (the wife, if the virilocal preference is followed), and the group becomes re-Structured as an extended family. While difficult to measure in terms of monetary equivalents, the woman contributes much to the survival of the domestic group, not only with respect to the completion of householding tasks but also in the care and raising of domestic animals (chickens, turkeys, pigs, doves, etc.). These animals, as will be demonstrated below, are absolutely essential to the economic functioning and survival of the domestic group and 214 represent, in a real sense, the sum total investments and savings of the domestic group. As children marry and leave the household, the domestic group again approaches a nuclear form of organization similar to that experienced in the initial post-marital phase. The transition is slower if there are several male children able to successively contri- bute to the maintenance of the domestic group both prior to, and subsequent to, their own marriages. While per capita domestic group income increases over time, much of that increase may be reduced by continuing ceremonial expenses associated with birth, infancy, court- ship, marriage, and the material costs of fission and the establish- ment of a new (nuclear/neolocal) domestic group in the community. As a married couple advances in age, they may begin to rely on an informal, extended family network in which married children may be expected to provide assistance, particularly if the couple (or the surviving spouse) cannot entirely provide for itself. At this point, two domestic groups (parents and a married child), or one domestic group and the remnant of another (a surviving parental spouse), may again combine into an extended form of organization, but with the married son or son-in-law controlling the allocation of productive income rather than the parent (or parents). Female children have a different effect on the domestic group. Females are generally viewed as absolutely essential to the survival of a domestic group and, indeed, as essential to the survival of every adult male. The female, prior to marriage, assists her mother in the completion of domestic tasks and, if there are no sons old enough, may even assist her father in the cutting operations associated 215 with the harvesting of henequen (usually assigned the task of trimming spines from the leaves, and tying leaves into bundles). During the period of courtship, the female's parents periodically receive visits and gifts from the prospective groom and his family as a demonstration of their good faith and of the male's ability to provide for the female and the future grandchildren of her parents. This receipt of goods seems more symbolic than compensatory for the real economic loss to the parents of the female upon the occasion of her marriage. The loss is relative, however, and future reciprocal assistance may be recieved as granddaughters increase in number and age, and are "loaned" to assist the grandmother in the making of tortillas, the washing of clothes, etc. The above brief description of the economic and social cyclicity of domestic groups is "typical" for a Yucatec Mayan community such as San Antonio. Since it is also "stereotypical," no single case fits the pattern precisely. If the virilocal household is too crowded, or if personalities conflict, for example, post-marital residence may be uxorilocal or, if a house is available in the community, neolocal. In the case of deviation from the virilocal preference, the groom's parents may encounter difficulties as they attempt to pay back money or animals borrowed to cover costs associated with courtship and the marriage of their son. If a couple wishing to marry encounters parental disapproval or financial barriers, they may forego the civil and church ceremonies, entering into a "free union" (uni6n libre) marriage. To accomplish this, a couple will typically arrange to "disappear" from the community, perhaps planning to meet at a fiesta in a nearby town. Remaining 216 together for the night, or for a few days, the couple will return to the community and present themselves (and the fait accompli) to one or both sets of parents. Recognizing the futility of opposition after- the—fact, the couple would usually be accepted as married, and in many cases the union would be legitimized through a civil ceremony or, perhaps, a church ceremony as well. These examples of "free union" marriages, although relatively infrequent (less than 12% of the family units recorded during field work), are nevertheless significant as variant types of union. In order to examine diversity and the socio-economic dimensions of domestic group cyclicity, seven "case families" were studied in 2 Aside from being interviewed detail during the period of field work. intensively, the families maintained daily logs listing itemized income and expenditures (including credit, fjggp, purchases as well as cash flow) for periods of time ranging from ten to fourteen weeks in duration (beginning in March of 1971). The summary data presented in this chapter have been calculated as weekly averages based on the ten week period from March 20, 1971, through May 28, 1971. The families were selected on the basis of two major criteria: first, their indicated willingness to c00perate in maintaining detailed daily expense records and, second, whether they represented a cross-section of diverse stages or phases in domestic group development and cyclicity. Except for a few personnel retained on salary (ejido officials and some employees of the private holdings, such as the muleteer, machinist and caretaker), incomes received by the workers of San Antonio fluctuate with the seasonal nature of plantation agriculture. Incomes increase during the periods of harvest in the ejido and the 217 pequeha propiedad, and decline during the intervening weeding operations. During the period of fieldwork, incomes further fluctuated as a result of necessary repairs and alterations made on the decorticating machinery (December, 1970, and January, 1971) which halted both harvesting and decorticating operations. In addition, an extraordinary drought (cf. Diario de Yucatan, 4/30/71 and 5/5/71), which extended from November, 1970 until the latter part of May, 1971, drastically reduced the quality and quantity of fiber produced from the henequen leaves. During the latter part of this drought, not only were harvesting operations reduced, but weeding operations, which usually are under- taken to provide income between the harvesting cycles, were no longer necessary since the weeds disappeared during the prolonged absence of rainfall. Fortunately, in the latter half of May, both rainfall and salaries increased. An adult male or female in San Antonio is not an individual so much as a member of a complex network of social relations. While born into a group of consanguineal kin, one remains isolated from both the extending ties of affinity and those of compadrazgo (ritual coparenthood) unless that individual marries and thereby makes the transition from membership in a family of orientation to partnership in a domestic, productive/consumptive/procreative group.3 One's primary responsibility is not to him or herself, but to the basic domestic group, however it may be structured at the particular point in time (including nuclear or extended family phases, but excluding, to some extent, the compound family phase). Secondarily, one is responsible for assisting, insofar as one is able, those close fictive and actual kin with whom one has also maintained close ties of friendship and alliance. Even 218 ' those nuclear/neolocal domestic groups, described below as residentially autonomous, are by no means exempt from the responsibilities of aiding and assisting actual and fictive kin. Two major themes are explored and analyzed with regard to the cases presented below. The cases are utilized to not only elucidate socio-economic dimensions of domestic group cyclicity but, where relevant to the particular case, additional material is presented with respect to individual life-cycle information and associated socio- economic effects on the domestic groups in this plantation ejido com- munity. The following summarizes (a) the type of domestic group represented by the particular case and (b) the supplementary behavioral themes explored in greater detail for each case: 1. Martin a. Nuclear family, member of a compound domestic group. b. Originally from outside the community, Martin not only resides uxorilocally, but has further intensified affinal ties (to community members) through compadrazgo. 2. Javier , a. Nuclear family, autonomous (neolocal) domestic group. b. Low income and the purchase, on time, of a water pump are reflected in the mounting indebtedness of this domestic group. Strategies to allay indebtedness include the raising of animals for later sale, gardening, and the periodic cash income derived from a private (inherited) parcel planted in henequen. 3. Maximo a. Nuclear family, autonomous (neolocal) domestic group. b. Augmenting his income by using his skills as a sastre (tailor), Maximo is able to offset some of the expenses associated with health problems in the family. 4. Prudencio a. Nuclear family, autonomous (neolocal) domestic group. b. Recently segmented from an extended/compound (virilocal) domestic group, Prudencio enjoys the economic advantages of a non-fluctuating (salary) income and small family Size. The case is supplemented by ethnographic data con- cerning child birth. 219 5. Jorge a. Nuclear, post-extended family phase of a domestic group. b. The second husband of Prudencio's mother, Jorge's potential earnings are reduced significantly by an accident associated with the remaining step-daughter's engagement. The engagement changed the economic charac- teristics of the domestic group, and the appearance of the step-daughter (who, as will be discussed, changed from a mestiza to a catrina style of dress). 6. Alejandro a. A domestic group which exhibits elements of both extended and compound family forms of organization. b. Two married sons reside (virilocally) in this domestic group: Pablo (originally an unian libre marriage), whose family is economically independent within the group, and Eduardo (married during the period of field work), whose family pools resources with, and is socio-economically subordinate to, Alejandro. The description of Eduardo's engagement and marriage focuses on the economic aspects of this important rite of passage. The final portions of the chapter examine general socio- economic characteristics of domestic groups in San Antonio. The case groups are compared from the perspective of per capita group income and expenditures, and conclusions drawn as to the cyclical nature of domestic groups and their apparent "survivability." Estimated Average Income in San Antonio As part of an initial household survey conducted early in the period of fieldwork (September to October, 1970), individuals were asked to Specify their community occupations and estimate their average weekly income. Of a total of 85 workers directly involved in the cultivation, harvesting and processing of henequen, 53% worked primarily for the ejido and 47% worked primarily on the lands and in the decorticating factory of the pequeha propiedad. Of those working on the lands of the ejido (45 workers), 49% performed additional tasks for wages on the private holdings and 40% of those working on the 220 private holdings (40 workers) performed additional tasks allocated to them as ejidatarios. Of the total henequen labor force in San Antonio, then, almost half (45%) derive incomes from work performed on both the ejido and the pequeha propiedad. The partial mobility of the work force (the capability of alternating work between the private and the ejidal sectors) assists in reducing the effects of the seasonal nature of plantation agricul- ture. Income fluctuation is considerable (See below) but would probably be much more severe were it not for the work available to ejidatarios on the private holdings. Both field workers and those employed in the decorticating factory experience reduced fluctuation in income due to the corrdination of harvesting activities in the two sectors. Harvesting, one of the more labor intensive activities, occurs typically during three cycles, each six to eight weeks long and, by alternating ejido and pequeha propiedad operations, harvest- ing and processing remains fairly continuous throughout much of the year. In spite of the strategy to coordinate activities, however, incomes do fluctuate between the rainy summer months and the period of winter dought. The weekly income averages presented on the table below represent, therefore, estimates obtained during a season of increased activity and increased productivity. The average per capita per year estimation presented below represents a calculation that is probably higher than the actual per capita annual income. The table below (Table 32) indicates clearly the degree to which economic survival of the ejidatarios of San Antonio is dependent on continuing employment 221 TABLE 32.--Estimated Average Weekly Income. Average Income Per Cent of Number of Per Worker Total Community Occupation Workers Per Week (Est.) Income Ejido, Primary (1) 45 $74.24 (Pesos) Ejido, Secondary (2) 16 30.06 Ejido, Total 61 62.65 45.4% Pequena, Primary (3) 40 81.53 Pequena, Secondary (4) 22 23.41 Pequena, Total 62 60.90 44.8% Other,a Primary 8 85.68 Other, Secondary 7 35.86 Other, Total 15 55.26 (9.8%) Total, All Workers 93 90.61 Primarily Ejido (l)+(4) 45 85.68 Primarily Pequena (3)+(2) 40 93.55 Total/Capita/Week (Est.)b . 306 27.54 (s 2.20 U.S.) Total/Capita/Year (Est.) 306 1,432.00 ($114.55 U.S.) a"Other" refers to commercial enterprises (store manager, baker, vendor of soft drinks, etc.) and includes, in a few cases, the com- mercial activities of women (two women, for example, sell pozole--corn meal mixed with water and salt--to workers at the factory as a nourishing refreshment during their work break). bAssumes the census data is representative of community income estimates in general. 222 by the pequeho propietario, the owner of the remnant holdings of Hacienda San Antonio. Martin: Nuclear Family in a Compound Domestic Group (The Outsider's Strategy: Compadrazgo and Uxorilocal Residence) With the closing of a decorticating factory to the north of Xamach (also owned by Don Manuel, the pequeho propietario of San Antonio), Martin migrated with his mother, sister, and her family, to San Antonio in the late 1950's. In 1965, he married the grand- daughter of Peto's second wife and, since his own Sister's house was too small, he established residence uxorilocally and for one year Shared household expenses with Domingo (Martin's WiFa and Peto's WiDaHu) and his family. At the end of the year, the domestic group changed from an extended family to a compound family phase and Martin continued to reside within the domestic group through the period of fieldwork. In 1966, Martin's wife's sister married Chato Jr. and, after two years residing virilocally, they too took up residence within the compound, matrifocal, domestic group made up of Doha Pacifica (Peto's wife), her daughter (Domingo's wife), the two grand-daughters (married to Martin and Chato Jr.), and their respective spouses and children. At the time of fieldwork, Martin and his nuclear family were members of a compound domestic group comprising a total of nineteen individuals and residing on a house lot (splar) originally owned by Peto. The following diagram (Figure 10) illustrates the relative ages and relationships of the members of the compound domestic group. The domestic group compound includes a concrete block house (residence of Domingo and his family). an attached refreshment stand 223 .xgo3upmmm eo we?» no pmsow>mucm mo mum on coca; meansaz Av .omcouc< cam cw mcopm aa=m oI II a. I (19) \(20) (16) (14) (12) (9) (5) (2) (18) (18) Extended _Fami1y__ z’ ‘—_—— \ Compound Family (I) / \_—___——_—_’_’ cases, represent a weekly average computed on the basis of a ten week period of detailed household accounting. Alejandro derived his average weekly income of $342.27 from several different sources. Aside from working on the lands of the ejido ($48.75 pesos/week) Alejandro was primarily employed as super- visor and inspector (chekador) of the weeding operations (ahapeg) on the lands of the pequefia propiedad and was therefore able to assign weeding tasks to himself as well as his sons. Alejandro himself earned an average of $141.21 pesos/week from the weeding operations (his sons' incomes are detailed on subsequent tables). On weekends and in his "spare time," Alejandro cut wood from the brushland to the north of San Antonio on consignment for the general manager of the 265 pequeha propiedad, and added an additional average of $24.90 pesos/ week (listed under "other") to his income. Alejandro's income, derived from his own efforts and the assistance of his unmarried sons, averaged a total of $214.86 pesos/week. He also received Eduardo's salary, keeping an average of $81.25 for the extended family domestic group, and returning an average of $27.75 to Eduardo and Simona for their own personal expenses. During the ten week period analyzed, Alejandro sold a pig and the meat of a deer that he had shot, obtaining a total of $461.60 pesos ($46.16/week and listed under "other income"). With the total income, Alejandro manages the purchase of staples and other expenses for an extended family comprised to ten individuals. In order to take advantage of the lower prices, Alejandro bicycles to Xamach to make the major purchases (meat is usually lower in price, and corn sells for $1.00 peso/kg. in the Xamach CONASUPO store rather than the $1.05 (Francisco's store) to $1.15 (private store) price in the community). Of all of the case families studied, Alejandro seemed the most industrious and the most frugal and careful in the use of income. Alejandro's was the only domestic group, during the ten week period under consideration, for which income exceeded expenditures. Pablo, married, with child, and part of the larger compound domestic group, derives his total income from work obtained in the decorticating factory of the pequeha propiedad. When an initial house- hold survey was conducted (October, 1970), Pablo's income averaged $90 pesos/week. During the ten week period (3/20-5/28/70), his income dropped to an average of $61.29 pesos/week as a result of the reduction 266 in factory production associated with the prolonged drought. Pablo, now responsible for the economic maintenance of his own nuclear family unit, received no cash assistance from Alejandro, nor did he receive assigned weeding tasks on the pequefia propiedad from his father. Pablo preferred to make his newly achieved economic independence as complete as possible and looked forward to the day when he and his wife could establish their own neolocal domestic group household. The following tables (Tables 39 and 40) summarize the expendi- ture patterns of both Eduardo and Pablo, the two married sons of Alejandro. The former illustrates a modest spending pattern associated with a dependent family within an extended family domestic group, and the latter illustrates an expenditure pattern more similar to those of other nuclear family units but, in this case, of one that is a part of a larger, compound domestic group. Time and Domestic Group Survival Following fission of an extended family domestic group, the nucleated stem family may pass through a phase of membership in a compound family or pass directly into a neolocal phase of residence. At this autonomous stage in the development of the domestic group, with the birth of each additional child, even seemingly minor fluctu- ations in weekly income severely affect the economic characteristics of the household. Of the five nuclear families studied (Javier, Martin, Pablo, Prudencio, and Maximo), three averaged expenditures amounting to between 12% and 31% in excess of their average weekly income (Javier, Pablo, Martin). The remaining two families (Prudencio, Maximo) maintained expenditures as nearly balanced 267 TABLE 39.-~Eduardo: Average Dependent Household Expenses Per Week. % of Ave. Pesos Income Average Weekly Income Ejido $ 68.95 Pequefia Propiedad 39.15 Total Average Income 109.00 Retained by Alejandro (father) 81.25 Average returned to Eduardo and Simona $ 27.75 Average Weekly Expenses Food and Other Consumable Items Meat (1 chicken, $13 peso purchase) $ 1.30 Other (soft drinks, cheese, bread, etc.) 12.13 Total Food-Related Expenses $ 13.43 48.4% Non-Food Expenses Medical (one trip to doctor, Xamach) $ 2.05 Ceremonial (chapel donations, etc.) 0.53 Amusement 0.26 Miscellaneous (cigarettes, etc.) 1.66 Total Non-Food Expenses $ 4.50 16.2% Total Average Weekly Expenses $ 17.93 64.6% Average Difference/Week (Income-Expenses) $ +9.82 +35.4% 268 TABLE 40.--Pablo: Average Independent Household Expenses Per Week. % of Ave. Pesos Income Average Weekly Income (pequena propiedad) $ 61.29 Average'WeeklyEapenses Food and Other Consumable Items Corn (5.9 kg.) $ 6.51 Corn Grinding 1.75 Meat 5.07 Eggs 4.12 Other Consumable Items 37.67 Total Food-Related Expenses $ 55.12 89.9% Non-Food Expenses Laundry $ 1.96 Clothing 3.00 Medical and Health Related 1.40 Animal Feed ‘ —--a Ceremonial 1.60 Amusement 1.16 Miscellaneous 4.71b Total Non-Food Expenses $ 13.83 22.6% Total Average Weekly Expenses $ 68.95 112.5% Average Difference/Week (Income-Expenses) $ -7.66 -12.5% aIncludes expenses related to a trip to a religious festival in Maax. bIncludes $11 peso repair of a bicycle tire and a $14 peso bribe demanded by the Maax military representative who had threatened to list Pablo as absent from military drill if not paid. This would have resulted in his induction into the army (discussed further in Chapter VI, below). 269 against income (weekly deficits averaging less than 3% in excess of income). Both of the latter families are independent, neolocal domestic groups, and both are atypical in that the former (Prudencio) enjoys a non-fluctuating salary as the muleteer of the pequena propiedad, and the latter (Maximo), through his skills as a tailor, is able to increase his income, partially compensating for seasonal declines in available work in the henequen fields. As the size of a nuclear family increases, per capita income and expenditures for consumable and non-consumable items decrease proportionately. While children do not consume as much as adults, they must, nevertheless, be clothed, cared for in times of illness, and the domestic group must periodically expend capital and household resources to cover ceremonial costs (baptism, Hetzmek, confirmation, first communion, etc.). Two of the nuclear domestic groups (Prudencio and Maximo) illustrate both the range of variation in family size and the consequent effects on patterns of expenditures and the differences between "new" and "established" domestic groups. The nuclear families are compared on the following table (Table 41). As the domestic group continues through time, children reach ages at which they contribute to household maintenance, in house- holding tasks, if female, or in monetary income, if male. Filial marriage precipitates a change in the composition and per capita income and expenditures of the domestic group. Variable patterns of virilocality and uxorilocality will, depending upon the sex of the child, either add to, or subtract from, domestic group personnel and alter the economic characteristics accordingly. 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