Rural Latin American Culture

Abstract

IN THE preceding paper Dr. Gillin has set forth certain hypotheses regarding a general configuration of culture which we may call Latin American. In this paper the present writer proposes to document certain traits which seem to be characteristic of this culture. The documentation is necessarily preliminary. For one thing, modern Latin American communities have not been subject to anthropological study on a large scale and the number of sources is therefore limited. In the second place, the present article is intended more as a demonstration of a type of work which may be carried on intensively for the purpose of analyzing the content and organization of what is postulated as a new and emergent culture throughout Latin America. Even so, as one reads the books of travelers and the scientific monographs which are available, he becomes aware of a series of recurring cultural patterns which appear over and over again in Latin American cultural situations. This becomes even more obvious as one travels in Latin America personally. To render these impressions explicit and amenable to check, therefore, is the primary purpose of this paper. I propose to document these traits from a small number of published sources some of which are still in press and have been made available to me in manuscript. As a further check, which could doubtlessly be duplicated by many other travelers, I note observations made personally in a series of towns visited by me in Mexico and Guatemala. In Guatemala and most of Middle America the culture, to which Gillin gives the general name of Latin American, is called the Ladino culture; in Peru, for example, it is called Creole. I have chosen to present a listing of cultural elements belonging to the rural phase of culture. The difficulties of making such a list can be easily recognized by the ethnologist. Particularly is this the case where the Ladino culture exists alongside of an almost purely aboriginal culture and in other instances in an urban civilization. With these difficulties clearly in mind some simple criteria may be used in determining what will be the limits of this listing. The criteria are: 1. This study will be limited to the rural phase of culture. 2. The elements themselves must fill the requirement that they be essential to a complete description of the rural phase of Latin American culture and that their mere presence is important in distinguishing this culture from others. Finally, it must be stressed that this paper represents a tentative study that cannot in any way be considered complete. It is being presented at this time for the primary purpose of setting the problem before the students of ethnology and to stimulate future study along this line. The scientific identification and appreciation of the culture that exists in vast areas of our hemisphere is of thegreatest importance both to the student of human culture and to the general public as well.