THE MUNICIPIOS AS PHYSICAL UNITS (Tax 1937:425-427)

"The geography of the region is simple, The continental divide runs diagonally through the center; here the altitude reaches 3,000 meters and never falls below 2,500 meters (about 8,200 feet). North of the divide the fall is gradual and not great; south, it is rapid with the descent to the Pacific coast. The three outstanding features of the physical geography are:

1. The string of volcanoes that breaks the descent to the Pacific coast. They afford barriers to passage from the highlands to the coast, and strictly limit the number of trade routes.

2. Lake Atitlan, which some geologists claim is a crater lake while others say it was formed by a damming of the river waters by the rise of the volcanoes to the south of the lake. The lake is more important as a means of passage than as a barrier to communication.

3. The great irregularities of altitude due to the general formation, the presence of hills, and the numerous barrancas (canyons) that intersect the surfaces of hills and plains alike. These are the real barriers to travel, even if they are, to a remarkable extent, overcome,

Although the extreme heights are not inhabited, the population is otherwise distributed without much regard for altitude. The density is about the same at altitudes of from 1,500 to 3,000 meters. The largest settlements are at altitudes of from 2,000 to 2,500 meters, and they throw the balance in favor of that median, but there are other settlements, and most of the farm country is higher, while the fewer lower altitudes are also proportionally represented." (Tax 1937:425-426)

"The Indians, far from being isolated by these geographic conditions, are much given to travelling in spite of them; in commerce (wherein man himself is the chief beast of burden), in travelling to religious fiestas, or simply in going to see new places and new faces, much of the time of the Indians is spent in plodding over the rocky trails. Insofar as it makes the distances longer, the forbidding topography therefore makes travelling more important rather than less, and any tendency it might have toward isolating Indian groups is counteracted by the energy of the Indians themselves. Contradictory though it may seem, nevertheless the Indian groups -the municipios-bear, in their differences, the marks of isolation ; and that they do cannot be attributed to their geographic isolation but rather to a resistance to the natural effects of constant contact!"(Tax 1937:425-427)

Tax, Sol. 1937. The Municipio of the Midwestern Highlands of Guatemala. American Anthropologist 39(3):423-444.