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THE PEOPLE OF THE SIERRA

Alcali de la Sierra

J. A. PITT-RIVERS

THE PEOPLE
OF THE SIERRA

Introduction by
Professor E. E. Evans-Pritchard

CRITERION BOOKS

NEW YORK

Copyright^ iQ^fa by Criterion Books, Inc.

Printed in Great Britain by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles

For
JULIO CARO BAROJA

in admiration and gratitude

f)70'177*-i*

Contents

Page

Foreword by Professor E. E. Evans-Pritchard ix

Introduction xiii

I El Pueblo, (i) The Boundaries of the Community i

II El Pueblo, (ii) The Community and the World 14

III Occupation and Wealth, (i) Agriculture 34

IV Occupation and Wealth, (ii) Industry and Trade 48
V Status and Age 65

VI The Sexes, (i) Courting: the Values of the Male 84

VII The Sexes, (ii) Marriage and the Family 98

VIII The Sexes, (iii) The Values of the Female 1 12

IX Political Structure 122

X Friendship and Authority 137

XI Law and Morality, (i) Nicknames and the Vito 160

XII Law and Morality, (ii) Bandits and Gypsies 1 78

XIII Law and Morality, (iii) The Supernatural 189

XIV Conclusion 202
Appendix: The Present and the Past 211
Glossary 224
Index 227

List of Illustrations

Alcala de la Sierra Frontispiece

1. The lower fountain facing page 16

2. The upper fountain 17

3. Gathering Esparto grass 32

4. The valley below the town 33

5. The Day of the Bull x 12

6. Corpus Ghristi procession 113

7. A sabia reciting an oration 128

8. An old gypsy 129

Foreword

I AM GRATEFUL to Dr. Julian Pitt-Rivers for asking me to
write a foreword to this book for he is in every sense a son of
Oxford and an Oxford anthropologist. His great-grand
father, General L. F. Pitt-Rivers, and Sir Edward Tylor
were the founders of anthropological studies in the Univer
sity. The General's grandson and the Author's father.
Captain G. H. L. F. Pitt-Rivers, at one time a Fellow-
Commoner of Worcester College, wrote a book on the peoples
of the Pacific which has long been recognised as an original
and outstanding study of primitive societies. Dr. Julian Pitt-
Rivers himself, also a Commoner of Worcester College, read
history at Oxford before the last war. After operational
service in the Royal Dragoons he was for a time tutor to the
young King of Iraq. He then returned to Oxford to study
anthropology. After taking the Diploma in Anthropology
with distinction he devoted himself to the research in Anda
lusia on which this book is based and for which he was
awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Social anthropologists have traditionally clone their re
search, and still usually do it, among so-called primitive
peoples ; and since the last war much research of the kind
has been carried out in Africa, Melanesia, Indonesia, South
America and elsewhere. Dr. Pitt-Rivers, however, was de
termined to show that the methods and concepts which have
been so successfully employed in studies of primitive societies
could equally well be used in the study of the social life of
our own civilisation. This decision demanded not only initi
ative but also courage because such studies have hitherto
generally been regarded as the preserve of the historian and
the sociologist, and the claim by anthropologists that they
have an original contribution to make to them from their
side has been treated with some scepticism. This book should
go a long way towards disarming criticism and gaining
acceptance of our claim that anthropological studies can be

x FOREWORD

made In any society, for it is a work of sound scholarship and
is presented without the unnecessary and pretentious jargon
that has sometimes marred studies of this kind.

Dr. Pitt-Rivers makes it clear that this account of an An-
dalusian pueblo is an anthropological account. It is not based
primarily on documents, though these have been used, but
on direct observation. The people he writes about are real
people and not figures taken from the printed page or
units in statistical tables. He lived for many months as a
member of the community he describes and he speaks
Spanish with quite remarkable ease and accuracy. His study
is therefore an anthropological study, for what constitutes an
anthropological study is not where or among what sort of
people it is done but what is being studied and how it is being
studied. What is being studied is a complicated set of inter
personal relations and the method of study is to get to know
well the persons involved and to see and hear what they do
and say.

This sort of study is therefore limited by the nature of the
method employed to fairly small communities. But the prob
lems investigated, though viewed only in relation to a small
community, are fundamental problems of the larger society
also, and the anthropologist can make a unique contribution
to their solution precisely because he, and only he, studies
them on a scale where they present themselves as problems
of personal relationships. The abstractions of the poli
tical and social sciences fiscal system, political structure,
religious cult, legal codes, judicial institutions, educational
system, health service, class distinctions and so forth are
here set forth and studied as relations between persons
and in terms of what these abstractions mean for them: the
inspector, the mayor, the policeman, the priest, the lawyer,
the school-master and the doctor, or perhaps we should
rather say the individuals who occupy these positions in the
pueblo.

I make no attempt to discuss the topics treated by Dr.
Pitt-Rivers in his fascinating study of the pueblo of Alcald or
the anthropological conclusions he reaches in it. The reader
will find that he needs no guidance from me, for all is set
forth with clarity. I have only to congratulate the Author on

FOREWORD XI

having accomplished successful research in what must have
been very difficult circumstances and on having combined a
most interesting account with an acute commentary in such
a way that the description and the analysis are seen to be
both essential to our understanding.

Oxford E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD

Introduction

THIS BOOK is about a Spanish town. More precisely, it
examines the social structure of a rural community in the
mountains of southern Spain. To demand the reader's
attention for a whole volume in order to interpret to him the
habitual goings-on in so insignificant a place might be asking
too much of him, but that in order to do this it has been
necessary or, might I say, through doing this it has been
possible ? to say a good deal about the nature of Anda-
lusian society, and even to sketch certain hypotheses of
sociological theory. Yet this is not a discourse on the
principles of social organisation. On the contrary, my con
cern is to set forth facts and only such general formulations
as are required in order to relate them one to another. For
I believe that every description of social life carries in the
method and terms it employs an implied theory of society,
while on the other hand theories which aim to lay down the
principles of sociology, however great their potential value,
remain until an observer can make use of them in a particular
instance something uncertain, unassessable as an unopened
seam of gold which may not, when brought to the surface,
repay the cost of mining it.

Nevertheless, there is one point of theory to which I
would like to draw attention before I begin, and that con
cerns the meaning of the term Asocial structure", since this
is used by some writers in quite another way. They use it to
mean the composition of a society in terms of percentages
of persons belonging to one or another category of age, sex,
monetary income or status, and so on. This is not what a
social anthropologist means by social structure. For him the
word "structure" implies something composed of inter
dependent parts, and the parts of a social structure are not
individuals but activities or institutions. A society is not an
agglomeration of persons but a system of social relations.

x j y INTRODUCTION

How exactly such a system "works", what is the nature of
the logic governing it, is a matter upon which much doubt
rests. Is a social system a system in the same sense as a legal
or an economic system, as systems of grammar or physiology,
or the solar system? This question is one which I prefer to
leave to philosophers to whom it properly belongs. But many
excellent monographs have examined different institutions
among different peoples and have shown how they determine
and are determined by the other institutions of their society,
how, in a word, their activities and beliefs are consistent
with one another. So, in this book, I have attempted to
define the values attaching in Alcald to possessions and
status, to sex and the family, to political authority and
the moral code of the community, to the supernatural
and the natural and to show how they are related to
one another and to the social structure of the whole
country.

It will be seen that these values are not uniform in the
sense that they are not shared equally by all members of
the community, as one is led to believe is the case in simpler
societies, but rather they (and the social perception upon
which they depend) vary according to the position of the
individual within the structure. This variation which gives
rise to strife in certain contexts, leads also to logical incon
sistencies which yet are not sociologically inconsistent. They
devolve, rather, from the necessity to reconcile conflicting
social ties within the same community and within the same
individuals. The modes in which this reconciliation takes
place give to the structure of this society many of its
characteristics. If this book makes any contribution to
sociological theory it does so through tracing the conflict of
ties to the divergent demands of the local community and the
central government and suggesting that, while the resolu
tion of the problem is peculiar to this place and time,
the problem itself is one which exists in all centralised
states.

At a less general level this book aims to throw light upon
the culture of Andalusia through defining its structural
background. Such typical features as the popular bull
fight and the bandit, the witch and the cult of the gypsy, are

INTRODUCTION XV

shown as components of this social system, as possessing their
structural raison d'etre.

In a final appendix it attempts to reinterpret the social
history of the sierra of Andalusia and in particular the
rise of the Anarchist Movement there in the nineteenth
century.

This book makes no claim, on the other hand, to con
tribute anything to controversies regarding Spanish politics,
and any attempt to put the facts contained in it to polemical
use is likely to do violence to them. In examining the values
of another society I have been at great pains to avoid,
myself, making any " value judgements".

Those whom I would like to thank are many. There is,
first of all, the debt to be acknowledged in a first work to
my teachers, Professor E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Professor
Meyer Fortes and the late Dr. Franz Steiner. Secondly,
to those who lent me the assistance of their advice when I
first approached the problems of Spanish culture and history.
Of them I would particularly like to mention Mr. Gerald
Brenan, Mr. Raymond Carr of New College, Oxford, and
Mr. Arthur Lehning, formerly of the Institute of Social
History of Amsterdam. I am grateful to many other Spanish
friends who patiently forgave my ignorance and endeavoured
to help me towards an understanding of their culture. To
the Hon. Mrs. Joan Rayner I am indebted for her photo
graph which forms the frontispiece.

Finally I take this opportunity to express my friendship
and my admiration for the people of AJcald. Save for the
natural beauty of the land they live in, fate has given them
few material advantages. With less wealth they are more
hospitable than more fortunate people. In the face of greater
disadvantages they dress more finely upon feast days. The
benefits of learning have not been showered upon them yet
they are often masters of the spoken word. Their manners
and their feelings possess a natural refinement. Convinced
at first that I must be a spy (for what else would an English
man be doing in Alcald?), they behaved nevertheless with
the greatest kindness and courtesy.

I have been anxious to avoid indiscretions which would
repay most heinously the friendship which they gave me, and

XVI INTRODUCTION

have taken such steps as are necessary in order to prevent
implicating either directly or indirectly any living person.
Thus, for example, while all the nicknames mentioned are
authentic, I have not given them to the people to whom
they belong. There are no individual personalities in this
book.

CHAPTER I

El Pueblo
(i) The Boundaries of the Community

LIKE MANY other Spanish place-names the name Alcala
derives from an Arabic word. It means a fortress, and it is
normally possible to discover in places which bear that name
the remains of Moorish fortifications. There are four towns
called Alcala in Lower Andalusia; Alcala de Guadaira,
where the bread of Seville is baked : Alcala de los Gazules,
on a knoll in the southern plain : Alcala del Valle lies in
broken country east of Olvera: while in the mountains
between Ronda and Jerez stands Alcala de la Sierra.

The name as well as the masonry of the town testify to its
Moorish history, but Alcala de la Sierra is older than the
Moors who built upon the site of a Roman town named
Lacidula. It appears to have come into prominence only
during the later Moorish period when it was the stronghold
of a Berber tribe. For some two hundred years it stood upon
the frontier of the kingdom of Granada, and the Christians
sacked it during the campaign which put an end to Moorish
rule in Spain. Nor was that the termination of its troubles
for nearly ninety years later, in 1571, it played a leading part
in the rebellion of the Moriscos and was the scene of another
year's embittered warfare during which it was burned down
again. After this, the town was resettled and rebuilt by people
from the plains to the west, and has remained ever since in a
backwater of the national life, uncelebrated in Spain's his
tory and unmarked upon its maps.

Richard Ford, that indefatigable traveller, visited it a
century ago and does not appear to have been seduced by
it. "Plastered like a martlet-nest upon the rocky hill," he
wrote, "it can only be approached by a narrow ledge. The
inhabitants, smugglers and robbers, beat back a whole

p.s. i

2 EL PUEBLO

division, of the French who compared it to a land Gibraltar.
The wild women, as they wash their parti-coloured garments
in the bubbling stream, eye the traveller as if a perquisite of
their worthy mates."

I cannot claim to have been aware of being regarded in
that fashion, and I selected the town in the first place, among
many other considerations, because I was invited into the
casino, the club, and given a drink more promptly here than
in any other place I had been. This was due, I think, not
so much to the greater generosity of those of Alcald, certainly
not to their greater wealth, but to the fact that, being more
cut-off than other towns, my appearance there in winter
was more of an "event" than elsewhere* This first encounter
was for me the prelude to an attachment which lasts still.

The mountains around Alcald look bare and very pre
cipitous, but they are not devoid of vegetation. Between the
rocks lie grassy hollows and glades of evergreen oaks whose
abundant acorns are the best fodder for pigs and whose
wood makes charcoal for the towns in the plain. Below the
grey crags and wooded spurs stretch valleys of not very
fertile soil. The hillsides are lined by watercourses which are
torrents for a few weeks and, for the rest of the year, dry
pebble-beds edged by the oleander and the iris. But the
bowls of the valleys are scattered with springs whose waters
zigzag down the slope, charted by poplar-trees, white farm
houses and the geometric patterns of irrigation* These
springs have never been known to dry up, for they are fed
by underground reservoirs replenished each winter from the
hollows in the high ground.

The towns of the sierra are much smaller than those of
the plains and appear on the map to be situated somewhat
closer together. El Jaral is only eight miles from Alcald as
the raven flies., but the road there is more like twenty miles
long, for it descends into the valley, skirts round the foot of
the mountain and then rises once more to El JaraL The valley
across which both towns look out is known as the campifia, the
plain* It is not called a plain because it is flat but because
its agriculture resembles that of the flat country to the
west, arable land divided in large properties with few trees.
That is the reality which the peasant's eye sees. The tourist's

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 3

eye sees a rampageous landscape of swelling hillsides and
tilted escarpments brought at last to the sky-line by a flat-
topped crest upon which are strewn the broken columns
which once supported the temples of Accinipa.

Not quite as far as El Jaral in the other direction lies
Benalurin, where Napoleon's troops burned the church : and
following the road round the mountain one comes to the
town of San Martin, no farther from Alcala than Benalurin
by donkey-track, but it must be a sturdy donkey to do the
journey. San Martin, back to back with Alcala and separated
from it by the mountain, faces Gddiz and the Atlantic eighty
miles away. Beneath the mountain in a cleft lies Jacinas and
beyond that the cork-covered and bandit-ridden foothills,
and beyond these the corn lands of the Andalusian plain.

These towns are much alike at first sight. The houses,
whitewashed and red-tiled all, cluster together on knoll or
mountain-flank overlooking their approaches. Jacinas is an
exception for its siting is based upon the reversed principle.
The rocks fold round it on three sides, and its lowness
affords it as much protection as height does to the others.
The only town whose situation is not strategic is Guadalmesi,
but it has grown into being in the last thirty years. It is the
only modern town in the area.

Just outside each town, a matter of two or three hundred
yards, are the cemetery in one direction and the calvario>
the chapel, in the other. The cemetery is usually below the
town, the calvario above. There are no detached houses. The
built-up area begins and ends as abruptly as the Spanish
day.

Outside the towns there are not many habitations. In the
plain the big farms are homes for no one, though the fore
man lodges there with his family. Labourers are housed
there while they are working, but they keep their families in
the town. There are sometimes apartments for the owner
where he may come with his family to spend a month during
the summer. Yet areas of small-holders' farms are commonly
found on irrigated land, or within one of the colonisation
schemes founded within the last thirty years. 1 The straggling

i "Interior colonisation", as it is called, is not confined to the last thirty
years. In the village of Algar near Jerez a colonisation scheme was founded by a

4 El, PUEBLO

collection of mills and huertas, or irrigated gardens, is a
feature peculiar to the sierra.

The wealth of this area appears to have been declining
for a long time. The liberation of the Americas from Spanish
rule damaged the commercial supremacy of the port of
Cddiz, and the loss of Cuba finally destroyed it. There are
few modern manufactures in the area. The development of
modern means of communication, of modern industry, the
improved technique of agriculture in the plain and the
phylloxera have each in one way and another contributed to
a general decline in prosperity among the towns of the sierra.
Jacinas with its flourishing leather-factories is an exception :
but Alcald has been particularly hard hit by these develop
ments, for it formerly exported wine and in addition it
possessed a cloth industry which was the pride of the region.
Its products were once advertised as far afield as South
America. Ninety years ago the population was double what
it is today.

Some people might see in this economic decline an
explanation of the intensity of social unrest which developed
in the area during the latter years of the last century. The
trial which made the secret terrorist society called the Black
Hand famous in the eighties concerned people from this
sierra, and local tradition has it that the Black Hand was
active in Alcald itself. At the beginning of the Civil War in
1936 these towns were not lacking in revolutionary ardour.

But to return to Alcald today. The number of inhabitants
living in the town is 2,045. The number of dwellings is 604*
Considering the size of the average family five to seven
children is normal and up to ten is not exceptional it
appears that there are sufficient houses for the number of
families. People complain of a housing shortage, but the
relatively low rents (10 per cent of a day-labourer's monthly
income is normal), and the fact that few houses are lived in
by more than one family would indicate that it is not very
acute. Moreover, the population is still falling.

nobleman in the eighteenth century. An account of this, as well as of many
other features of the area, is contained in Viqje dt Espafia, by Antonio Ponz
(Madrid, 1787). See also Los riyesy la colonizctcidn interior de Espafta dtsde el siglo
XVI d XIX, by G. Bernaldo de Quiros (Madrid, 1929).

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 5

Houses vary in size. There are fine three-storeyed mansions
in the centre of the town, built in the eighteenth century
by the wealthy clothiers. But no house has any pretensions to
nobility, and where arms are found over the door they are
those of one of the religious orders which, before the church
was dispossessed, owned property here. The seigniorial
lordship of Alcala belonged to the Dukes of Arcos together
with that of three neighbouring towns, but there is no
evidence that they ever kept up a residence in any of them.

More modest houses have two storeys whose top floor
may be no more than an attic, while the upper town is com
posed mainly of single-storeyed dwellings where the greater
number of poor families live. Almost all have a yard at the
back, including perhaps a stall for an animal, an open
veranda where the cooking is done and a trellised vine. The
only modern buildings are a cloth-factory and a gaudy villa
put up by a retired lawyer at the entrance to the town.
In spite of its incongruity it is much admired.

The hillside which folds round Alcala is scarred by what
were once streets which housed the greater population of a
former epoch. The buildings are of uncut stone, granite
boulders collected from the slopes, plastered both inside and
outside and whitewashed. From the houses which have fallen
into disuse the doors and roofs and windows have been
removed much material was taken by the builders of
Guadalmesi and the jagged walls, washed bare, have
become almost indistinguishable from the rocks behind them.
The ruins now serve as pens for animals. The buildings which
have been abandoned in this way lie on the outskirts so that
the town appears to have shrunk in upon its kernel, leaving
streets of goat- and hog-pens between the inhabited dwellings
and the hill.

In this way it has retained the compact appearance
typical of the Andalusian town. Nor is it strange that this
should be so, for, quite apart from the fact that the outlying
streets were inferior, more precipitous and the houses
rougher, the life of the community centres upon the fountain,
the church, the town hall and the shaded square where
people walk in the evening. The distance of a house from
these is something of a measure of its desirability. In

6 EL PUEBLO

addition, people do not like to live in isolation but prefer the
crowded atmosphere of the street. The climate is warm for
half the year and much time is spent out of doors. The old
women sit in their doorways by day. The young people do
their courting there in the evening. The streets of Alcala
may be said, in fact, to be the social centre of a community
which stretches for eight kilometres around. This is called
the tirmino of AlcakL

This territory is the rural area of the township, and a
further 1,740 people live within its bounds. Of these about
half live in a village called Penaloja, which stands beyond
the mountain at the far end of the tfrmino. The remainder
may truly be regarded as country-dwellers, people living
upon isolated farms or in the mills or cottages in the valley
below the town.

One of the facts which an examination of the statistics
reveals is that the relation of houses to number of inhabitants
is very much lower in the town than in the country. In
Alcald it is i : 3*4, while in the country it is i : 5. This is
because the families who live in the country almost all own
houses in the town* These remain vacant for the greater part
of the year, being used only to store grain which must be
concealed from the visting inspector, and to house the family
when they go to stay in the town. Nor is this an innovation
which the black market in agricultural produce has made
possible and also necessary possible through the increased
wealth of the small-holder and necessary on account of the
inspector's visits, though this explanation would seem reason
able at first sight. On the contrary, it is an ancient tradition
that every family possess its house inside the town, and this
tradition is common to the greater part of Spain whose
empty countrysides bear witness to it. 1

This desire to live in compact communities for so we
must for the moment consider it is one of the prime con
ditions of the social structure of central and southern Spain,
and corresponds to that strong sentiment of local patriotism
which has been observed by many writers upon Spain,

* The parts of the country where the agricultural population lives entirely
in central communities rather than in farms upon the land corresponds very
roughly to the distinction between "dry" and "wet** Spain,

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 7

and which is a recurrent theme in Spanish literature.
Geographically, Alcald is something of an exception with
25 per cent of its souls living in the country. In its sentiments,
however, it is no exception.

This identity of place and community is clearly revealed
in the language. The word for "town", which might equally
be translated as " village" since it covers any community of
from a few hundred to thirty thousand inhabitants, is
el pueblo. 1 And this word means, not only in the dictionary
but also in everyday parlance, both the place and also the
people who belong to that place. This conception of the
pueblo as a human community expressed in a geographical
idiom was well illustrated to me when people explained;
"Peiialoja is a street of Alcald." This in spite of the fact that
ten kilometres and a mountain pass separate the two places.
Moreover, the language reinforces this identity by a converse
example. The word poblacitin, meaning population, is most
commonly heard in the sense of a populated place, a city,
town or hamlet.

Membership of the pueblo is acquired primarily by birth.
Those born within the town remain "sons of the pueblo"
until their dying day, no matter where they go to live. They
will remain "sons of the pueblo" not only for legal purposes,
as in the parish register; "Hijo de Alcald, empadronado en
X ..." ("Son of Alcald, numbered among the neighbours of
X ..."), but also in people's minds, for it is likely that they
, will never bear any nickname other than that derived from
the place of their origin; "El Alcalareno" or "El de
Alcald", This does not follow if a man goes to such a dis
tance that the name of his town is unknown, or to a big city
where nicknames have not quite the same significance. A
man from another province may be known by his province,
or if from farther away still, by his region. Thus a man of
Alcald is; "Alcalareno", "Gaditano^ ("of the province of
Cddiz"), "Andaluz" ("Andalusian"). I was known in
Alcald as "el Ingl6s".

i I use the word "town" rather than ** village" because although it is the
residential unit of agricultural workers, 'it also has shops, a market and a
municipal administration. Moreover, I do not wish to use both words and make
a distinction where the language of the people themselves makes nonet

8 EL PUEBLO

Legal membership of the municipal commuity, vecindad y
neighbourship, is acquired by the act of empadronamiento,
inscription in the parish register as a neighbour of the
pueblo. This is performed automatically after two years'
continuous residence or after six months should it be
solicited. Public functionaries, on the other hand, receive the
legal status of neighbour upon taking up their post. This
status entitles a man to vote in municipal elections, to hold
municipal office and to participate in the privileges of the
community such as common pastures and agricultural and
social benefits. The quality of neighbour has greater effects
in the sphere of law than the place of birth, yet the moral
quality derived from the latter enters into the definition of the
personality for legal purposes in a term which reveals its
mystical importance. The word naturale&z, nature, means,
when applied to a person, simply his place of birth.

The inhabitants of a pueblo are frequently designated by
a collective nickname. 1 Those of Alcald are called "the
Lard-eaters", a reference to their fame for raising and
fattening pigs* Those of Benalurfn are the "Bumpkins 5 '. In
this instance the people of Penaloja are differentiated from
those of Alcald by a separate nickname.

In addition, each pueblo is distinguished by the posses
sion of a patron saint who stands in a particular relationship
to the community. The pueblo is under the protection of its
patron to whom, in many cases, it was formally dedicated
at its foundation. The name of the town sometimes derives
from this fact. Thus, Villaluenga del Rosario, Puerto Santa
Maria, San Pedro de Alcdntara, San Martin. The festival
of the patron is always a holiday of importance and in many
cases it is combined with the/m"#, the lay festival and market.
Though devotion is not accorded uniquely to the patron
of the pueblo, there tend to be strong feelings regarding him
and not only on the part of persons of religious zeal. In this
regard Alcald is distinguished once again from Pefialoja by
separate patrons.

The sentiment of attachment to the pueblo is counter-

i There is an article by Gabriel Maria Vergara Martin in the Boletin de la
Real Sodedad Geografica, Vol. XV, 1918, which gives a collection of such nick
names from different parts of Spain,

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 9

balanced, as might be expected, by a corresponding hostility
towards neighbouring pueblos. Thus, for the Alcalarefio,
those of Jacinas are boastful and false, those of Montejaque
cloddish and violent, those of Benalurin are mean, those of
El Jaral drunken and always drawing their knives. There
appears to be little objective basis for such accusations, but
such as exists is worth noting. Jacinas is a rich town with
twice the number of inhabitants now as Alcala. It threatens
on account of its greater wealth to oust Alcald from its place
as judicial centre of the region. There is far more animosity
in Alcald towards Jacinas than towards any other town.
Montejaque is an entirely pastoral community, and shep
herds' manners are held to be uncouth by agricultural
people. Benalurin is a poor pueblo which cannot afford to
pay high prices. While El Jaral is where the wine-growing
country begins. 1

This hostility finds expression in various customs. It is
usual for the boys of a pueblo to object to the visits of
forasteros a word which I shall translate as " outsiders",
since it means a person born elsewhere for the purpose of
courting one of their girls. In some places they follow the
practice of ducking the visitor in the fountain when he first
comes, but allowing him to come freely thereafter. In
others, however, they ambush him and beat him up when
ever they are able to catch him there. Two Alcalarenos have
had to break off their engagements on account of the rough
treatment which they received in their fiancee's town. Such
a custom applies only to the town itself. A girl who lives on a
farm within the tirmino of another pueblo may be courted
with safety.

Each pueblo possesses a collection of ballads recording
local history, and of sayings and rhymes in which the praises
of the pueblo are sung and derogatory observations are made

l Casual conversation does not always reveal the animosity between pueblos,
for the educated tend to laugh at it, while the informant may feel the solidarity
of the area in face of a foreigner and give an account in which each pueblo seems
more marvellous than the last. When travelling, one day, up the valley of the
Rio Genal with a local man, I was amazed at the praises which he bestowed on
each pueblo in turn. Coming finally to the most miserable of them all, I asked
whether this was not a rotten place. "This one?" he replied, "No, indeed, a
fine pueblo. A very rich pueblo. It has many acorns."

10 EL PUEBLO

of its neighbours. So, a common expression of denigration is
to say of someone that he is :

"Mas bruto que el alcalde del Gastor,"
" Rougher than the mayor of El Gastor."

or

"Como la gente de Jerez que mientras no tocan no yen."
"Like the people of Jerez who can't see without touching/ 5

A rhyme inspired by the same spirit can usually be found
for any pueblo, and I give one which is known in Alcald :

"En el pueblo de Zahara "In the pueblo of Zahara
Hay dos cosas regulares There are two things

which aren't up to

much
Una p'arriba y una p'abajo One in the upper town

and one in the lower
Y en medio los mula'res." And in between are the

dung-heaps,"

In the folklore of its neighbours Alcald is represented in a
similar light, but within the pueblo its name is heard only
in the most complimentary contexts. A ballad recounts how
a visiting official was outwitted and put to shame by the
noble people of that place, and a more ancient saying tells
that after the Resurrection the Saviour stopped off on his
way to Heaven at the calvario of AlcalA, a signal honour which
has afforded the inhabitants special protection ever since
from the damage wrought by thunderstorms. In a rhyme
the excellence of Alcald is contrasted with the wretchedness
of its neighbours :

" El Jaral corral de cabras " El Jaral is a pen for she-goats
Guadalmesf de cabritos Guadalmesi for kids
Benalurin de cabrones Benalurfn is for he-goats 1
Y Alcald de sefioritos." And Alcali for gentlemen/'

The most proud saying of all comes from the town of
Jimena, which challenges the rest of the world in terms of
piteous contempt :

"Ay ! que pena "What a shame !

No ser de Jimena ! " Not to be from Jimena ! n

* The reader unacquainted with the symbolism of the Mediterranean
countries is referred to the word cabrfa in the glossary.

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 1 1

But, typically, the neighbouring pueblos have found a line
to add :

CC Y arrastrarse el culo en la arena."

ce And drag your arse along in the sand. 35

for the people of Jimena enjoy a local reputation for being
short in the leg.

The festival of the patron saint is the day upon which the
hostilities between pueblos are traditionally expressed. Upon
El JaraPs Saint's Day the young men are supposed to fight
with those of Villa Faderique, and it is told that upon the
day of St. Martin, in the village of that name, the young men
would hurl rocks down the hillside upon those of Jacinas
coming to attend the occasion. Another story recounts how
the latter attempted to make away with the image of St.
Martin during an open-air ceremony, and how, foiled in their
design, they later stole the bull from San Martin's bull
fight (an affair in which the animal is hauled through the
streets by a rope attached to its horns) and dragged it half
way to Jacinas, when the boys of San Martin, rather than
submit to such an affront, slew it with a dagger upon the
border of their territory. A bull's head painted upon a rock
commemorates the event. This kind of thing is common
throughout the greater part of Spain. The traditional fight
ing between two towns near Seville, Mairena and El Viso,
is well known, though today it takes place only between the
school-children of the two towns. At the fiesta of Haro in the
Rioja, not many years ago, the bull-ring was festooned with
an announcement reading: "A hearty welcome is extended
to all outsiders with the exception of those from Logrono."

Pueblos are commonly linked in pairs, each one, sup
posedly, hating its rival above all others. Thus, El Jaral
Villa Faderique, Montejaque Benaojan, Ubrique Graza-
lema, even, on a far greater scale, Cddiz and Jerez. Today,
with the rise of Jacinas, its rivalry with San Martin appears
to have diminished, for the latter is poor now and econom
ically dependent upon its more powerful neighbour, but at
the same time its rise has accentuated the tension with
declining Alcald.

Yet in none of these cases does fighting take place today.

I2 EL PUEBLO

Though there Is likely to be indiscriminate fighting upon
Saint's Days because more wine is drunk then, it cannot be
said to be anything but casual. So, it is permissible to wonder
whether these enmities are anything more than a piece of
folklore which people enjoy repeating, whether the fights
ever took place in fact or whether, as has been suggested in
the case of the ritual murder of the Shilluk kings, the myth
was not always sufficient. There are reasons to believe, how
ever, that these stories, though sometimes much exaggerated,
are in essence true and that recent times have brought a
weakening of the spirit of local chauvinism.

The body of custom, the folklore which was studied under
the influence of Machado who founded the review El Folk-
tore Andaluz in 1890, is generally similar throughout Anda
lusia. In speech there is a recognised Andalusian accent
which is thought to be funny by the rest of Spain (indeed it
is as much a necessity for the stage comedian as is a Yorkshire
accent in the English music-hall). The methods and imple
ments employed in agriculture vary little save in accordance
with the demands of the terrain. The pattern of land-tenure
varies, but the same customary law, the same forms of
exploitation and co-operation are found. In spite of the con
tinual attribution of this or that characteristic to the people of
one province or another, there seems to be little variation in
the values underlying social behaviour throughout Andalusia.

Yet, if the spirit of custom is the same, there is a prolifera
tion in the detail which distinguishes one town from another.
There are differences of speech, both of accent and vocabu
lary from one pueblo to another, Benaocaz pronounces the
"11" as in Castile and not as a soft "j" like the surrounding
pueblos. There are distinctive intonations in the speech of
Zahara, Villa Faderique, Montejaque and Benalurfn which
make it possible, it is thought, to tell where a man is From as
soon as he opens his mouth. Between AlcalA and Jacinas
there is little difference in intonation, but there is a difference
in vocabulary and in the use of language. Differences are
particularly noticeable in the customary slang and in
obscene language. Women swear more and more shame
lessly in Jacinas than anywhere else, so the Alcalarefios say.

THE BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMUNITY 13

Courting is done in much the same way everywhere; but
in one town the young couples talk through the window, in
another they stand in the doorway. The modes of cele
brating religious festivals vary from place to place. The
essentially dramatic interpretation of religion in Andalusia
clothes itself in individual customs in each pueblo. Moors
and Christians, Romans and Jews, dancing acolytes and
dancing devils lend picturesqueness to the local fiesta,
giving a distinct character to that of each pueblo. And these
distinctions are found not only in the feasts of the patron
saints but in most of the important days of the calendar, and
not only in the processions but in the pueblo's activities for
the whole day.

Differences in material culture stress the same point. Men
carry their lunch in one town in a bag of woven palm-leaf,
in another in a basket, in a third in a cotton bag. In Alcald
mattresses are filled with wool, even in the houses of the
poorest. In Guadalmesi, where people are less poor, many
are filled with straw. Certain pueblos have established
excellence in a particular craft. These observations are far
from complete, nor are they significant to the study of social
structure, in their detail. What is significant is that they
should exist, for they are the ways whereby membership of
the community is defined. They maintain the basic premiss
of the Andalusian peasant's political thought, which is the
moral unity of the pueblo. Thus, it is sincerely believed that
the women of Benaocaz have stronger characters than their
menfolk and than the women of other pueblos. 1 And even
where the veracity of such an assertion might be questioned,
the legitimacy of this method of generalisation is not.

i "En Benaocaz la hembra na* ma'

Y en Villaluenga ni el macho ni la hembra
Y en Grazalema huye que te quema'"

"In Benaocaz only the women (i.e. are worth anything)
And in Villaluenga neither the men nor the women
And in Grazalema flee lest they burn you."

This is the statement of a sociological truth, but the first line is founded upon
an historical legend. It is said that when the Catholic Monarchs visited the
town of Benaocaz only the women came out to greet them. There are several
variations of this legend. (Cf. Pedro Perez Clotet, La serrania de Ronda en la
literatura, an address to the Ateneo de Cadiz, 1940.)

CHAPTER II

El Pueblo
(ii) The Community and the World

IF THE cultural reality has been given before the facts of
political organisation, it is only in order to stress the more
permanent of these two interrelated aspects of the com
munity. Each in the long run acts upon the other ; but since
this is the study of a community and not of the political
structure of the country, it seems proper to begin by defining
the community as it exists upon the ground and in the minds
of its members, before examining the laws which regulate its
government. The same law applies, in Murcia or Galicia, to
pueblos whose social structure is very different.

When Granada was conquered by the Christians it was
annexed to the Kingdom of Castile, which was still separate
from the Kingdom of Aragon, the two being united only by
the marriage bond of their sovereigns. Since that date the
work of centralisation stretches down not without periods
of regression 1 to the present day. The local rights which
derived either from an autochthonous tradition or from
charters accorded to townships during the Middle Ages have
today virtually disappeared, except for certain regional
diversities in matters of private law* The country is governed
from Madrid. Yet the regions cling firmly to their cultural
traditions. Within them, the provinces show only slight
variations, but they, not the regions, are the political seg
ments of the structure of the state, It is also the regions not
the provinces which are divided by natural barriers and by
historical tradition. The provincial system was only Intro-

1 Notably through the sale by the Crown of seigniorial rights in the seven
teenth century, Garcia Oviedo (DtrechQ Administratiw* 1951, p. 315) sees a
tendency against centralisation from 1877 to 1935. This is discussed later,
p. 319.

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 15

duced during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and
the present division was established in 1834. Thus, while the
country as a whole is both a cultural and political unit, the
region is today chiefly a cultural unit and the province
chiefly a political one. How membership of these groups
defines a person has already been discussed. What this
membership means to the individual varies according to his
social status and must be discussed elsewhere. For the
moment we are concerned only with the lowest level of
political segmentation, the pueblo.

All the municipalities of the province come directly under
the orders and administration of its civil governor. The
province is divided, however, into partidospartido judicial is
the full term for certain purposes, the chief of which is the
organisation of justice. The advisory council of the governor,
the diputaci6n provincial, is made up of one mayor from each
partido elected by the others from among their number. The
Church also uses this unit in its administration, though the
dioceses do not always correspond to provincial territories.
The Civil Guard is also organised by partidos.

The syndicates, the government labour organisations, are
controlled directly from the provincial office which is
situated, normally, in the capital. A single syndical head
quarters in the pueblo under the secretary of the syndicates
administers the affairs of all those of Alcald.

At the level of the pueblo power centres in the hands of
the mayor, just as at provincial level it centres in the hands
of the governor. The mayor is responsible to the governor
and to no one else. All the other official bodies require the
co-operation of the Town Hall in one way or another, and
they are to a greater or lesser extent subject to the mayor's
authority.

How these various organisations function in detail must
be left till later. Let it be underlined here that, excluding
Penaloja whose mayor is a delegate of the mayor of Alcald
and whose presence within the tirmino appears in view of its
geographical position something of an anomaly, they all
centre in the town. Nor would it be practical for them to
operate in any other way, given the geographical and ideo
logical formation of the peublo. Power is therefore vested in

EL PUEBLO

a very few hands, those of the governing body of the pueblo,
the persons of influence: the officials and the resident
wealthy. The officials are mostly outsiders, appointed to
their office by the state (though they may be paid by the
Town Hall), and are only temporarily part of the com
munity of the pueblo. Neither the mayor, nor the priest,
nor the judge, nor the secretary of the Town Hall, nor the
Secretary of Justice, nor the Chief of Posts, nor three of the
five schoolmasters, nor the doctor, the vet nor the chemist,
nor the state tax-collector, are sons of the pueblo. Nor the
head of the municipal guards, nor any of the civil guards,
(It is a firm principle with the latter that no man is ever
posted to his own pueblo.) While of the large landowners,
the majority though sons of the pueblo live now in Malaga
or Jerez, sixty-odd miles away, and come to Alcald only for
the summer months. The sentiment of solidarity with the
pueblo is a thing felt far less strongly by these people, for
whether sons of the pueblo or not, their ambitions and
interests, both social and material, revolve within far wider
horizons. "This place is dead", "Nothing ever happens
here", they complain. Except perhaps for the elderly women,
very few of them would not move to a larger town if they
had the chance. (During the past forty years several wealthy
families have sold their lands and moved elsewhere.) These
people all lead lives whose interests focus to a large extent
upon objects outside the pueblo.

But the lives of the working-people are contained within
narrower horizons. The ttmino of their town defines the
extent of their relations with organised institutions. For a
man's health, there is the town's doctor; for his animals its
vet ; if he requires to borrow money, there is its branch of the
Monte de Piedad, the agricultural bank; for the rites of
birth, marriage and death, there is its priest, 1 If he wishes to
prosper, he must be on reasonably good terms with the
authorities, for while they work together they are too power
ful to be defied. On the other hand, the man who is well
thought of by them need fear no outside interference. When
a man is arrested on suspicion in a strange place, the first

i The distinction between civil and religious rites, introduced under the
Republic, has been abolished.

i . The lower fountain

- ' ' ' '

. ;* *if* . '

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 1J

thing done by the Civil Guard is to communicate with the
commander of the section in the man's pueblo. His subse
quent treatment will depend largely upon the character
which he is given. l Travel, other than on foot, is expensive
and to do so other than for business reasons is a luxury which
few can afford. From ten to twenty men go down every
year to the plain to work in the harvest, and others go from
time to time on various pretexts, but their families and their
interests remain in Alcald. A special pass is required to leave
Andalusia to work elsewhere. Some have never been to
Jacinas, and some have never seen Ronda. To have seen the
sea other than from the top of a mountain is to have travelled,
and though many have been as far as Africa or the Pyren-
nees in military service, this experience is something apart,
like a relative in America, which gives knowledge of another
world but does not affect everyday life in the community.

The concentration of political powers at village level
appears so natural in Andalusia that, though it provided a
basis upon which the system of caciquismo 2 rested, the doctrine
of Anarchism, the movement which attacked that system,
never questioned it. The concept of the pueblo as the unique
political unit was so deeply embedded in the outlook of the
peasants that it became a corner-stone in Anarchist policy.
The Anarchists sought, in fact, not to break this political
monopoly, but rather to become empowered with it and to
eliminate the governing class which represented external
influences. An example of their activity may be drawn from
the neighbourhood of Alcala. A successful rising in the town
of El Gastor at the end of the last century was followed by a
declaration of the Republic of El Gastor. Its men marched
over to Alcald and invited the inhabitants to follow their
example and declare a republic also, entering into a defensive
alliance with them. They had been in secret touch with
people in AlcalA and elsewhere and hoped to secure their

1 The traditional attention which the law pays to the "good name" of a
person is to be found in the dispositions relating to Buena conducta. See Emilio
Galatayud Sanjuan, Encyclopedia Manual Juridico-Administrativo (1933),

P- 323-

2 A system of " political bosses" which obtained during the period between
the second Carlist war and the first dictatorship. Gf. G. Brenan, The Spanish
Labyrinth (1942), who gives an extensive bibliography of the subject.

P.S. 2

PUEBLO

position through a series of these alliances. According to
some accounts they marched over to conquer Alcald, While
the matter was still under discussion, the forces of the Civil
Guard rallied and sent a column upon the scene, whereupon
the Republic of El Gastor vanished into thin air,

The insistence upon municipal independence in the policy
of the movement was tempered, as time went on, by practical
contingencies which required a certain measure of centra
lised organisation. Yet this was an adaptation to the neces
sity for co-ordinated action rather than a change of heart.
The same spirit reigned and was to be discerned in the events
of the Civil War. The rise to power of the Anarchists in the
towns of the sierra in June 1936 was followed by the establish
ment of " communism" : Money was abolished and a central
exchange bureau was set up in the pueblo which collected all
produce and redistributed it in accordance with a system of
rationing. Thus, though clearly the situation demanded
extraordinary measures and this example cannot be treated
as conclusive, the assumption of power by the Anarchists
rendered the pueblo not only, theoretically, an exclusive
political group but exclusive economically as well. There are
some indications that this conception of the pueblo in the
minds of small-town Anarchists created tension between the
regional leadership and the local community. The Anarch
ist leaders from the large towns attempted, in the interests of
organisation, to interfere with what the small-town An
archists regarded as the autonomous rights of the pueblo
which they themselves embodied, and in that they were
often resisted. 1 The very word pueblo cloaked the disagree*
ment. For, in addition to the two meanings which have
been given above, the word has a third meaning: "people"
in the sense ofpltbs as opposed to the rich, and although the
people of Alcald recognise this meaning, it is for them
synonymous with the other meanings, for the rich do not
really belong to the pueblo but to that wider world which has
already been delimited as theirs. In this sense the pueblo is a
potentially revolutionary force which at any time may rise

* Gf. Gamcl Woolsey, Death's Other kingdom (1939) for an account of a right-
wing person defended by the Anarchists of his village from those of Malaga on
the grounds of being "un hijo del pueblo" ("a son of the village")*

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 1 9

to see that justice is done as in the rebellion of Fuenteove-
juna, 1 or as in a story told of Jacinas, when the priest
apparently omitted to observe the same courtesies in the
burial of a poor person as he had in the case of a wealthy
widow. The pueblo demanded the same treatment for both.
"Sin6 se levanta el pueblo", 2 said the story-teller. A final
example is provided in the words of one of the leaders of the
Anarchists in Alcald, a man named "Argolla". When the
forces of the Right had taken Alcald they wished to avenge
the victims of the Left with a public execution, and this man
was given public trial. When he was charged with the murder
of those who had been shot there he replied that it was not
he who had condemned them but "el pueblo". He would
make no other answer to the charge.

The main market for the products of the area is found in
the large towns of Ronda, Jerez, Cadiz, Seville and Algeciras.
And it is from them that manufactured articles reach Alcald.
It is by these centres of trade, rather than by the neighbour
ing pueblos of the sierra, that the economy of Alcala is
complemented today. Entrepreneurs from them establish
trading centres in the town to buy up such commodities as
game, eggs or esparto grass. The visiting copers buy the cattle
and wool. Contractors come with lorries to buy the charcoal,
or the merchants of Ronda come with donkey-trains to
fetch it. The couriers of Alcald bear produce as far as Jerez
on their donkeys, returning with such purchases as they are
charged with.

Yet there is a considerable volume of trade between the
towns of the locality. First of all, in controlled agricultural
produce. For the foodstuff-control organisation does not,

1 The pueblo of Fuenteovejuna in the province of Gorddba, angered by the
tyrannical behaviour of the comendador, rose one night in 1476 and murdered
him. When the judges came to inquire who was responsible for his death they
could get no answer but "Fuenteovejuna". Gf. Diaz del Moral, Historia de las
agitaciones campesinas Andaluzas (Madrid, 1929). Lope de Vega wrote his play
Fuenteovejuna upon this incident.

2 "Otherwise the pueblo would have risen." Diaz del Moral (op. cit. 9 p. 24)
describes the popular revolt: "La muchedumbre se hace pueblo" ("The
multitude becomes a pueblo"), and refers to the seventeenth-century expres
sion: "La gente se levantaba en forma de pueblo'* ("The people rose in the
form of a pueblo"),

20 Ek PUEBLO

in fact, get its hands on more than 50 per cent of the crop.
This is easy to understand. The officials who are responsible
in the town for countersigning the returns of the farmers are
farmers themselves. Less than what is sown is declared, and
upon the declared area only about half the harvest is
admitted. It is always an inexplicably bad year. In addition,
the farmer is permitted to retain the grain to sow the follow
ing year and a certain amount for his subsistence in lieu
of rations. Since the price paid by the government for the
grain collected bears no relation to the real price, a farmer
who made an honest declaration every year would soon be
bankrupt. The official grain is taken away by the inspector,
and other grain, inferior, so people say, is sent to the town to
provide the inadequate bread-ration. This is milled by the
officially authorised mill, an electrical one, situated in Alcald.
The crop which remains undeclared follows a different and
less unnatural course from producer to consumer. It is ground
illicitly in mills which are officially closed, and eventually it
furnishes the unrationed bread which is sold openly through
out the country. There are a great many mills working
unofficially in the area, powered by the waters of the sierra,
Alcali has some fourteen of them, some of them converted
from old cloth-factories and fulling-mills. 1 The grain which
they grind comes mostly from the plain of Guadalmesf . It
is borne by donkeys which make the journey singly or in
pairs, sometimes at night, for fear of the inspector. There are
also two olive-mills in the valley, both of them authorised,
though how much of the oil produced is declared to the
inspector can only be a matter of conjecture* The miller
smiles and changes the conversation when he is asked how
much he mills.

One can see then that agricultural produce flows in two
parallel channels : the official and the illicit. But the latter
is so essential, so much more extensive and so generally
accepted, that it dwarfs the former and makes it appear not
so much as an attempt to keep down the cost of living of the

i Six of these mills were matriculated already at the time the law making
them illegal was introduced, and they are paid compensation for being denied
the right to mill (at the rate of 7,000 pesetas per annum). In fact they mill just
as much as those who are paid no compensation for not milling* All of them
pay the municipal tax upon industry*

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 2 1

poorer people, 1 but rather as the central government's
method of levying tribute in favour of a parasitical hierachy,
the food-controllers. Be this as it may, the inspectors enjoy
a wide reputation for corruption, and popular feeling is high
against them ; the consumers on account of the inadequacy
and irregularity of the rations, the producers since they
would prefer to sell the whole crop at the unofficial price,
and both together because it is thought to be an immoral
organisation which meddles in the affairs of the town and
imposes unjust fines.

Apart from illicit trading between pueblos there is a
certain body of local trade, though less than formerly. A
cork-factory in Benalurin supplies itself from the area. The
cloth-factory in Alcala buys most of its wool locally. There
is a chair-factory in Penaloja whose products are common
throughout the area. There is also a certain trade in the
produce of the irrigated gardens, for crops ripen earlier in
Jacinas, while some pueblos have no irrigation. Farmers
sometimes send a son with a donkey-load to get the better
price in a neighbouring town. The high towns specialise in
hams which cure better at their altitude. On the other hand,
many local industries have succumbed to the economic
changes of modern times. The cloth production of Alcala
has been much reduced. The leather industry of Jacinas uses
imported leather today since local skins are less well cured.
Mill-stones are no longer quarried locally but are imported
from Barcelona or from France. The blacksmiths of the
pueblo no longer make agricultural implements. In many
items local craftsmanship has given way to the manu
factured product. These changes have meant not only a
change in the directions of economic co-operation but also a
contribution to the general impoverishment of the area,
which, being country unsuitable for modern agricultural
techniques, has benefited little from their improvements.
The money which leaves the community in this way does
not return in exchange for increased production.

1 There are three rationing scales whereby the well-to-do receive fewer
rations than the poor. It is argued that they can afford to buy upon the black
market. This argument involves a logical contradiction between the aims of the
control order and the aims of rationing, but its equity cannot be denied.

22 EL PUEBLO

The degree to which towns are economically independent
of one another can be inferred from a comparison of price-
levels which vary from place to place according to supply
and demand, and to the success with which traders manage
to corner an article in short supply, Manufactured articles
are always more expensive in Alcald than in Ronda, and,
except when local crops come on the market, agricultural
produce also. The cost of transport, due partly to the nature
of the country and partly to the bad conditions of the roads
and the shortage of motor vehicles, is responsible for this.
Motor transport is not used for local trade, and animal
transport is costly: for, apart from other considerations,
the quantities seldom justify the use of a two-ton lorry,
which is the smallest transport vehicle employed in the area.
What, in fact, has happened is that while great advances
have taken place during the last century in long-range
communication, local communications remain much as they
were one hundred years ago, In a sense they have deterio
rated, for the scarcity of beasts following upon the war has
made them more expensive, and their upkeep is relatively
more expensive also. In addition, though roads have been
built, they take longer and less direct courses than the tracks
which, not being built for motor vehicles, use steeper
gradients. And since the roads exist, the upkeep of the tracks
has been allowed to fall off.

Another factor is the lack of economic uniformity at
national or provincial level, which means that there are
stable and general prices only for things like newspapers,
patent medicines, etc., while the fiscal liberty which the
Town Hall possesses favours local variations. Variations in
local taxation are sometimes considerable, and accentuate
the local variations in price level.

Wages also vary a great deal from one town to another.
During the harvest they reach, in Jacinas and in the plain of
Guadalmesf , the figure of double the agricultural wage in
Alcald. They are always appreciably higher in the plain of
Jerez. Theoretically, a minimum wage is laid down for the
whole province, but it is the custom for employment to be
given with meals ("con la comida"). A worker can only
claim the wage-rate if he is employed without meals ("a

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 23

seco"). The difference between what he is paid and the
the wage-rate is technically a subtraction for his food. It is
recognised that the labour involved in cultivation of the lands
of Alcala and the poor return which they yield does not
permit payment of the same wages as in the plain. Yet, in
spite of this, men are unwilling to go there if they can find
a job in their own town. "It is all very well making a lot of
money/' they say, " but away from home it costs twice as
much to live, and you have no friends there so anyone may
take advantage of you." A labourer who is an outsider
appears to be at a disadvantage because he does not belong
to the community. The majority of those who go away to
work do so in answer to the summons of a friend already
established as a permanent employee upon a farm which
requires additional labour. Moreover, at certain times in
the past, the provincial governor has issued an order for
bidding men to seek work outside their own pueblo. l The
Civil Guard were then entrusted with the enforcement of this
order, sending home those who arrived from outside.

For the most part, the economic relations of Alcala lie
towards the north and east, not towards the other towns of
its partido. The main road passes to the north of Alcala. The
railway station lies to the east on the Ronda-Algeciras line.
Fish comes almost daily to the pueblo by one or other of
these routes ; a man with a donkey meets the fish lorry from
Cddiz on the main road. It is also sometimes brought from
the railway station* Grain for the mills comes from the north
east, and it is in that direction that the transhuman flocks
go after the harvest. The wine drunk in Alcald, other than a
small quantity vinted in the town, comes from the same
direction.

The main shopping and business centre is Ronda. The
motor-bus runs in the morning from Jacinas to Ronda via
Alcald and returns by the same route in the evening. This
means that while it is possible to go by that means for the
day to Ronda, to go to Jacinas involves spending two nights
there as well. Though one kilometre nearer by road, the
journey to Jacinas is more arduous to animals on account of

i This was originally the Ley de los tfrminos muncipaUs.of 1933. Similar legis
lation has been brought in at various times since the war.

QA EL PUEBLO

the mountain pass. Also, Ronda is five times the size of
Jacinas, and a place of much greater importance.

An examination of the parish register gives some indication
of the range of human contacts. 1 Those born in other pueblos
number 13*4 per cent of the population. This includes both
families which have moved into Alcald, single persons who
have married into the town, and children born to Alca-
larenian parents while away. In addition, it represents a
time-span of the last seventy years or so. The total number of
persons born elsewhere is 433. Of these, 300 were born within
a radius of fifty kilometres. If we break up these 300, we find
that 226 come from the north-east side of the mountains and
only 74 from the south-west. Graded according to the towns
from which they come, the four highest figures are : Monte-
jaque, 60; El Gastor, 50; El Jaral, 41; and Ronda, 35.
Fifth in order comes Jacinas with 22, the highest figure from
the south-west and from thzpartido of Alcali.

To sum up, then, Alcald is tied to the other pueblos of its
sierra by a common material culture, by the exchanges of
goods and services between similar economies, by a certain
tradition of being mountain people who consider themselves
tougher and more moral than the people of the plain because,
perhaps, they are poorer, and by membership of an adminis
trative unit, the partido judicial. It is linked to the north and
east by a very different set of ties, by complementary
economies and by human contacts including kinship. The
difference in the nature of these two sets of ties might be
summed up as ties based upon similarity, and ties based upon
reciprocity, or one might also call them corporate ties and
diffuse ties. 2 At the present stage, rather than seek a pair of
"portmanteau" concepts into which to fit the various but

1 The hamlet of Peflaloja is torn between its administrative dependence upon
Alcate and its economic dependence upon the nearer and better communicated
Jacinas. It is therefore excluded from the statistical data here considered.

2 It might be possible to say, using DurkheinVs terms, that Alcald possessed
"mechanical solidarity" with the mountain pueblos and "organic solidarity'*
with the towns of the plain. However, as will be seen, neither set of ties con
stitutes solidarity in itself. Where I use the word solidarity I shall use it to mean
the identification of members of a group through a common allegiance in a
specific social situation, and their differentiation thereby from non-members. I do
not wish to imply any necessary attachment between members of a group. It is
a sociological, not a psychological term. Groups, not individuals, possess it.

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 25

by no means complete observations which have been made,
it is more useful to make one further observation, namely,
that these ties are exercised in the main through two different
elements of the society of Alcald. A further examination of
the parish register brings this point to light.

Of persons living in the town itself 117 per cent were born
elsewhere, while of those living upon farms within the terri
tory of Alcald the percentage is 17-1 per cent. Yet the former
includes the families of all the officials who are outsiders, and
of the landowners who live in the large towns where their
children are born these days. Together these two classes
make up about one-third of the outsiders resident within
the town. The following table shows the exact percentages
of outsiders (a) among the inhabitants of the town, and
(6) among the inhabitants of the country.

Place of Total From under From over

residence 50 km. 50 km.

(a] The town: 11-7% 6 *9% 4-8%

(b) The country: 17-1% 14-6% 2-5%

The great majority of the officials and of the children of
the landowners were born more than fifty kilometres away,
and if, therefore, these be excluded, then the figures are
even more emphatic; there is double the percentage of out
siders among the mills and farms than in the town. So that
it appears that the path towards assimilation into the com
munity lies through the peripheral countryside. The reasons
for this are many. To begin with, those who live outside the
pueblo live correspondingly nearer to another town with
which trade and human contacts are easier in consequence.
In the second place, they are largely persons of a certain
substance tenant and owner-farmer, miller, charcoal
burner, and so on men of independence who work for
themselves 'and do not depend upon a daily wage. They
travel about in pursuit of their business, and their contacts
are more extended as a result. Millers are seen to change
their place of residence more frequently than any other class,
and many of them, if not born outside, have passed part of
their liyes working in a mill in another valley. In addition,
their position today on the margin of legality alienates them

26 EL PUEBLO

from the official administration which centres in the town.
Owner-farmers are sometimes outsiders and so are tenant-
farmers, brought in by landowners who may have interests
in other pueblos and who in at least one case prefer to employ
an outsider. 1 The outsider, who comes seeking work, goes
round the farms asking for a job rather than ask for it in the
town. Or he may come at the invitation of the farmer. He
lives upon the farm and returns home once the work is
finished. If he remains therefore as permanent employee, he
is likely to do so as a country-dweller,

No doubt other reasons could be found to account for the
higher percentage of outsiders in the country than in the
town. For example, the importance of marriage in bringing
an outsider into the community and this will be discussed
later. It is enough for the moment to point out that the same
classes which are more free in their movements are those who
are most likely to marry a girl from another pueblo.

It may appear surprising that in a place which has a high
birth-rate and a declining population there should be so
many outsiders. The number of sons of the pueblo living
elsewhere is certainly far greater, though it is not possible to
know exact numbers* Prior to the Civil War, some went to
America. Many went to Jerez during the last century. Today
they go in all directions wherever it is possible to make a
living. Most of all have gone to the Campo de Gibraltar in
recent years, where the end of international hostilities has
brought a boom in its traditional industry, contraband.

The Civil War has carried away many men and some
whole families, creating gaps which outsiders have filled,
dispersing people throughout the country. But for this, the
problem could be seen far more clearly.

Yet how do people behave towards outsiders? The
stranger, as in Ancient Greece where he was protected by
Zeus, enjoys a special status. It is a duty to assist him, for
the reputation of the pueblo is felt to be at stake in his eyes.
The visitor of wealth or standing is treated with great

* In somewhat the same way certain of the officials prefer to get
domestic servants from another village. "It is better," they say "if <

their

, one's

servant-girl does not have a family in the village* The household money goes
further."

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 2 y

courtesy and hospitality. He is probably invited to a glass
of wine in the casino 9 the club. People inquire what brings
him and put themselves at his disposal.

This standard of hospitality is a very noble feature of the
Spanish people, yet its analysis would not be complete if one
were not to point out that it is also a means whereby the
community defends itself against outside interference. For a
guest is a person who, while he must be entertained and
cherished, is dependent upon the goodwill of his hosts. He
has no rights and he can make no demands. On the other
hand, the good name of the pueblo is his protection. For the
sake of that, the members of the community prevent one
another from taking advantage of him.

The vagrant labourer who comes in search of work is in
rather a different position to people who come for business
or pleasure. For one thing he is potentially taking the bread
out of the mouths of the sons of the pueblo. He is also a
potential black-leg who will work for less than that which is
being paid there. 1 In addition, those who purport to come
seeking work may be in reality shameless vagabonds, ready to
steal or commit any felony. For a man who wishes to escape
criticism in his own pueblo must go elsewhere, where the
sanction of public opinion is less effective over him. A man's
behaviour is not necessarily the same once he has left home.
Among those who go away to seek a living, some are pre
pared to beg who would be ashamed to do so in their own
village. Stories circulate in the valley telling how this or that
beggar from outside is really a prosperous person in his own
village, to whom no one would dream of giving alms. Men
who rob the crops, seldom do so within the termino of their
own pueblo. To work as a prostitute is something which a
girl must go away for. To do so where she had a family
would be regarded as very shocking, quite apart from what
they might have power to do in order to prevent her. The
power of public opinion is very great. It is expressed in one
word el quedirdn the " what- will- they-say". It is recognised
that people are virtuous for fear of what will be said "por

i The labour from the poor villages of the mountains was used to break
strikes in the plain of Jerez at an earlier period. Vide V. Blasco Ibanez, La
Bodega (Valencia, 1905).

PUEBLO

miedo del quedirdn". 1 Those arrested for stealing in the
tlrmino of Alcald are almost invariably from El Jaral, Villa
Faderique, or El Gastor. In this way the low opinion of the
character of neighbouring pueblos is reinforced. Not that
stealing by residents of the valley is unknown, quite the con
trary. Yet, when it happens, the case seldom comes before the
law. Private action is preferred, for to call in the Civil Guard
against a neighbour would be considered very "ugly". At
the same time, there is a far greater inducement to beg or rob
when away from home, in that other means of maintaining
oneself are no longer available.

When men come seeking work they are treated at first, if
they are unknown, with a coldness which contrasts with the
reception afforded to the affluent. 2 People are chary of
giving work to a man whose reputation they do not know,
for he may take advantage of the fact that his good name
matters less to him away from his own pueblo. The first
question asked of any outsider is: Where is he from? Yet if
a man has a friend there then he is alright, his friend is
responsible for him, and if someone can give him a good
name, then he may find work. The importance of friendship
and acquaintanceship is very great. One often hears men
boast: "Here everybody knows me" or "I am known in
every town from here to wherever-it-is. 5) A good name is a
literally valuable asset.

Discussion of friendship as an institution must be put off
till later. The Andalusians are well known for the fineness
of their manners and the volatile quality of their sympathies.
Lovers of the new, they are quick to enter upon terms of
friendliness with a fresh acquaintance and people who settle
in a pueblo do not take long to be absorbed into its life. With
in a couple of years they will have developed relationships of
reciprocal trust, and enter into co-operative ventures such
as share-cropping with the people of the pueblo. The senti*

1 Much of the murder and church-burning during the Civil War appears
to have been committed by outsiders for, perhaps, the same reason. Cf. G.
Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth^ footnote on p. 189.

2 The two contrary forms of behaviour contain a common factor : distrust,
Whether he is entertained or treated ofF-handedly, in either case he is obliged
to keep his moral distance. The fact that he does not belong to the community
gives him a particular standing.

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 2Q

ment of hostility towards those of other pueblos and the
reality of co-operation appear to exist comfortably side by
side. How is this compromise effected?

The hostility towards an enemy depends upon his remaining
in the enemy camp, and one who leaves his native town to
settle in another escapes most of the distrust which is attached
to it by those among whom he goes to live. At the same time,
there is a tendency, among those who regard themselves as
educated persons, to consider such sentiments old-fashioned
and brutish. Nevertheless, the prejudice persists for many
people in Alcald, and though it may be hidden in the daily
give-and-take of living, it is always liable to be brought out.
When I was moving into a farm-house in the valley where
the tenants were people from Jacinas who had come to
Alcala fourteen years earlier, I was warned by several
persons on no account to trust them, on the grounds of their
origin. One man, in particular, an intelligent craftsman,
added great feeling to his warning, saying: ce My father was
a man of the world and of great wisdom, and he used to tell
me, 'Never trust a man from Jacinas, for not one has yet
been born who was not a twister ! 3 "

In fact, however, most of those who gave their warnings
against the family in question had additional grounds for
distrusting them : present jealousy or a past quarrel. For
every person possesses a number of different guises under
which he may conduct social relations, and which one he
appears in is largely determined by the present circum
stances. He is not only an outsider, he is also a member of
many other categories of age, status or occupation. Conse
quently the suspicious origin of a person is recalled only
when the context warrants it, when, that is to say, he has
given offence or some past offence of his is remembered.
Then his antecedents are brought up as an explanation:
"What do you expect from him, he is from Jacinas?"
Until that moment the fact of his birth-place was overlooked.
The personal tension becomes transfused into a structural
one.

The sociologist may detect here a principle with which he
is familiar in other contexts, whereby the tensions of the
internal structure are projected outside the group where they

QQ EL PUEBLO

serve, as an exterior threat, to strengthen the group's
solidarity. 1 It is always the people of the next-door town who
are the cause of the trouble, who come stealing the crops,
whose wives are unfaithful, who swear more foully, are more
often drunk, more addicted to vice and who do one down in
business. In all things they serve as a scapegoat or as a
warning.

Yet this very principle implies a degree of proximity and
co-operation. If we are to blame the people of the next
village, then they must have some share in our enterprises.
If their shortcomings are to provide a compensation for our
own, we must be concerned in their affairs. It has been
suggested earlier that the hostility between pueblos is
weaker today than formerly. It is now possible to put for
ward a reason for this. The pueblos of the sierra are no
longer as closely co-operative. The focus of their social
relations has shifted.

To sum up, then, the pueblo is a highly centralised com
munity, both structurally and also emotionally. In Spanish
political jurisprudence it is the " natural" unit of society
compared with which the state is an artificial structure. 2
In many aspects it resembles other rural communities of the
Mediterranean. All are composed of agricultural workers
living under urban conditions, with a background of dry-
farming and olive cultivation. All possess a strong sense of
local patriotism; devotion to the patria chica m Spain; in
Italy campanilismo, attachment to the local campanile, the
highest building in the village. A conception of community
based upon locality runs through the cultural idiom of
Southern Europe, which is demonstrated in many ways:
for example, in their legal codes the preference for the
principle of jus soli> in contrast to the Germanic jus $anguini$;
in the institution of local patron saints, in everyday con
versation the importance attached to their place of birth.

In fact, the Greek word polis far more nearly translates
"pueblo" than any English word, for the community is not

1 Witchcraft and sorcery in primitive societies may often be interpreted in
this light.

2 Article i of the Ley de Regimm Local puts the point succinctly: **E1 Estado
Espaftol se halla integrado por las Entidates naturales que constituyen los
Municipios, agrupados temtorialmcnte en Provincias/*

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 3!

merely a geographical or political unit, but the unit of
society in every context. The pueblo furnishes a complete
ness of human relations which makes it the prime concept of
all social thought. That is why Argolla uses the word
"pueblo" in a way which recalls Sophocles. During the
Reconquest pueblos were founded, with special municipal
charters, for the express purpose of defence against the
Moors. And in the archives of later pueblos the vestiges of a
concept of purpose may be detected. Upon the foundation
of the town hall of La Carolina in 1835, the municipality
solemnly pledged the pueblo to defend, among other more
temporal things, the "misterio de la Purisima Concepcion".

This moral unity of the pueblo is achieved through a
lively and highly articulate public opinion. People live very
close to one another under conditions which make privacy
difficult. Every event is regarded as common property and
is commented upon endlessly. Where good manners demand
frankness it is perhaps natural to find that individuals are
well skilled in intrigue. Here the subtlety of intrigue is only
matched by the wealth of imagination expended in unravel
ling it. People's observation is sharp, and they are quick to
satirise each otheH^hind their backs. The least eccentricity
is rewarded by a nickname which will be used universally
throughout the town. 1 Yet a man's nickname is particular
to the pueblo. If he moves to another place it will find its own
nickname for him. Another pueblo will see him in a different
light.

The public opinion of the pueblo is not only exclusive to
other pueblos. It possesses a unity derived from physicial and
moral proximity, common knowledge and the acceptance of
common values. That is to say, the sanction of public criti
cism is exercised, not, as in the open society, by a number of
separate groups which largely ignore one another, but by a
single group, the pueblo. It is this which gives to public
opinion its strength, its sense of the completeness of human
relations. It is this which, as in a primitive tribe, makes
custom king.

Looking, now, at the pattern of relations between pueblos,
what surprises one is not the tension which exists between

i See Chapter VI.

EL PUEBLO

them, but the lack of techniques for co-operation. No
organised institution appears in this role which overlays the
frontiers of the teminos. No principle of exogamy, no county
cricket league, no Kula system, provides a framework within
which the relations between pueblos can be organised
other than that of the political structure of the state and the
social ties of the wealthy. Kinship has some small significance
in this connection, but that honorary kinship provided by the
compadrazco (co-godparenthood) has not, as in Mexico,
evolved in order to fulfil such a function, 1 One institution
only, friendship, reinforces the economic co-operation
between pueblos, and that exists upon an individual basis,
unencumbered-r-one might say, undefended by ritual of
any sort. The instability of this institution and the reasons
for it are dealt with in Chapter V.

In fact, the exterior relations of the pueblo are conducted
by different classes of people indifferent ways. The influential,
professional and wealthy people link it to the structure of the
state through political and social contacts. These together
are designated in future as " the ruling group"* They form
a group since they possess a solidarity which is essential to
the exercise of their power in the pueblo, 2 and which finds
its institutional expression in the "Movement", the single
political party. They possess common values and common
opinions upon many matters though they are by no means
always in agreement with one another. These are the people
who represent the government to the pueblo, and who
represent the pueblo to the government. From the ambiguity
of this position certain tensions merge. According to the
situation they may express solidarity in sentiment and
behaviour, either (a) with their pueblo against the rival

1 I am indebted for this observation to Mr. George M. Foster, whose book
Empire's Children contains an account of the compadrozco in Mexico.

2 The words "group" and "class" appear to be much misused, A class is a
number of objects which may be classified through the possession of a common
characteristic. Group, on the other hand, implies a proximity which in soci
ology one might interpret as solidarity, as for example in the expression " to act
as a group", Yet modern practice allows "a traitor to his class ** and "the
. 500-^750 per annum income-group". In fact, the terms art used indis
criminately much of the time, and the assumption that social solidarity is
purely an economic matter passes between them unquestioned. This assumption
may be reasonable in * * Middletown ", in AlcalA it is not permissible.

3. Gathering Esparto grass

THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD 33

pueblo "We, the Alcalarenos, against those of Jacinas",
as in the power struggle for leadership of the partido ; or
(b] with the ruling groups of other pueblos in the business
of administration and in commerce (this solidarity sometimes
shows a hostile attitude towards their social "inferiors",
sharpened by memories of the Civil War "We, the en
lightened and responsible people, against the uncultured
masses' 3 ); or (c) alternatively with either or both of these
against the central government or its provincial representa
tives, as when the whole pueblo co-operates in order to
deceive the visiting inspector, and word is sent in order to
give warning of his approach "We, the responsible people,
defending the pueblo against the predatory bureaucracy."

Linking pueblos in a different way, though sometimes in
co-operation with members of the ruling group, are people
such as millers, farmers, owners of flocks, dealers, artisans.
These people carry on trade within the restricted area of the
neighbouring towns. They show no solidarity as a group,
since there is no situation in which they are juxtaposed to
any other group. They are, rather, the richer element of a
number of occupational classes, from the remainder of
which they are distinguished neither by manners, speech,
dress nor education. They are part of the pueblo in the full
sense of the word. These people move about in order to
extend their relations beyond the boundaries of their towns,
gaining through such an extension both economic advan
tages and prestige. In contrast to them, there are those who
go away to seek a living because they cannot get one in their
own home : journeymen to work in the harvest in the plain
on the one hand, and on the other, beggars, doers of odd
jobs, hawkers of anything from lengths of cheap cloth to
religious medallions, gypsies who offer to clip a horse or
find a buyer for a donkey, the hangers-on at fairs; shoe-
shines, ice-cream vendors, prostitutes people who, for one
reason or another, have gone into vagabondage.

~ 3

CHAPTE RIII

Occupation and Wealth
(i) Agriculture

IN THE first two chapters Alcald was defined in relation to
the larger scale structures of province and state, and in
relation to other similar communities of its neighbourhood.
It is now time to turn to the internal structure of the pueblo.

It is common for authors of sociological studies to employ
the concept of "social class" in order to classify the members
of a society, and this method seems adequate in dealing with
the modern Anglo-Saxon world. In reality, there is consider
able variation in the meanings which different authors have
attached to this term. 1 But quite apart from the dangers
arising from this fact, to accept any of the ready-made
theories of social structure implicit in the different definitions
would run contrary to the method of analysis of social
anthropology. For analysis must always be preceded by
description. The questions, therefore, which must be asked
are not: " What are the social classes in this society?" and
"How are they differentiated ? ", but : " What social distinc
tions are recognised in this society?", "In what situations
are they evident?" and "What is their significance?" Only
by framing the problem in this way is it possible to avoid
assuming beforehand that which one seeks to discover, and
though in practice certain analytical distinctions must be
made in the course of description, it is nevertheless wise to
begin by describing those aspects of the society which are
most evident, and which can be most unequivocally inter
preted, before venturing to use so ill-defined a category as
social class.

Social distinctions are discussed in the course of the fol-

* Gf. in particular : T. H, Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge,
1950).

AGRICULTURE 35

lowing chapters under various headings, and the first which
I propose to treat is occupation.

The majority of male occupations are connected directly
with the land. The termino of Alcald measures a total of some
twelve thousand hectares. Slightly more than half of these
are classified as forest, though this includes both the acorn-
bearing holm-oaks on the high ground (about a quarter of
the total), the pine forests on the mountain and the fine
glades of cork-trees whose naked trunks glow like red velvet
after the descorche* It also includes areas of bushes and scrub.
The arable land, a tenth of the total area, is of poor quality
for the most part of second and third quality according to
the official rating and it is hard and costly to cultivate on
account of the slope and the frequent boulders and outcrops
of rock. No modern machinery is used in the agriculture of
Alcald nor would it be feasible to use any save in a few
chosen places. There is no doubt that but for the high prices
of grain on the black market during the post-war years
(1939-50), much less land would be tilled than is the case.
Much of the hillsides are terraced and formerly grew vines,
and the wine of Alcald is held in good repute; but the phyl
loxera destroyed the industry, and most of the vine-growing
land was replanted with olives or reverted to pasture. The
soil is suitable for the cultivation of the olive, and many
groves have been planted within the last fifty years. There
are 175 hectares of olives, that is, 13 per cent of the arable
land. Crops are grown beneath the olives in order to take
advantage of the ploughing which the ground must have.

Pasture accounts for 16 per cent of the total area and
another 19 per cent is classed as barren land though there
are few rocks where the hardy goat cannot find a mouthful.
There is a hillside of one hundred hectares covered by esparto
grass, and some more is to be found among the pastures.

The irrigated land covers less than fifty hectares in all,
but its value under the meridional sun is out of all proportion
to its area. Up to three crops a years can be taken off it by
a skilful farmer, and it is here that the most profitable
produce is grown: the fruit crop, walnuts, vegetables,
maize.

gt> OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

The land is divided into properties of all sizes. Altogether
there are over eleven hundred properties, though of these
two-thirds are of less than two hectares in area. There
are a hundred properties of ten hectares or over. Expressed
in a different way, two-thirds of the total area of the
tlrmino are owned in twenty-five properties of over one
hundred hectares. There are four properties of over 500
hectares, while at the other end of the scale 400 hectares are
owned in a total of 800 properties.

There are, it must be pointed out, farmers who own more
than one property, and, as will be seen, there are areas where
the land-holdings have tended to agglomerate in recent
times. Yet there are still today 1 14 farmers of agricultural
lands of more than two hectares.

The smallest properties are agricultural land. Those of
medium size are either agricultural or of open pasture or of
olives. The large properties are all forest and pasture. There
are also lands which are the property of the state. There are
the passage-ways for flocks (c&nadas) which vary in width up
to one hundred metres. The grazing there is public. There is
a hillside near the village which is common land, The Town
Hall owns a property of 800 hectares of pasture and forest
which is administered today by the Ministry of Agriculture,
though its grazing rights are leased for three-yearly periods
by the Town Hall. There were once common lands of far
greater extent, but they were put on the market by the state
a century ago. In this regard the Spanish Liberals of the
nineteenth century achieved the same ends, though in
the pursuit of a different ideology, as the magnates of
the English eighteenth century.

The produce of these lands is as various as the methods of
exploiting them. The livestock raised consists of pigs, goats,
sheep and cattle, the latter a hardy half-brave breed, giving
no milk and good only for veal in the market-towns or for
bull-baiting in the local pueblos, * All the people who have to
do with livestock, from the owner of a ranch of fighting-

i The term " bull-baiting" is used in order to distinguish the various bull-
festivals of the pueblos from the formal corridas de torosm the bull-rings of Ronda,
Malaga, etc., for which the true fighting-bull, toro bravo^ is bred.

AGRICULTURE 37

bulls in the plain down to the humblest shepherd, are called
ganaderos.

The large properties of grazing land are administered
directly by the owner or by his steward. The owners have
flocks, but they also frequently let off pasture for short
periods of a month or a few months. They employ ganaderos
and guards for a salary. Those who stay up in the sierra with
their flocks are usually employed on the basis of cabaneria, a
system whereby a reduced salary is augmented by monthly
supplies of victuals.

Apart from the large landowners there are also flock-
owners who own up to several hundred head but who have
no property, or not enough at any rate to suffice for their
flocks. Their flocks tend to move more than those of the large
landowners and, apart from the general transhumance, their
movements are adapted to the condition of the pastures. The
irregularity of the rainfall causes this to vary considerably
from year to year. These flock-owners are men who work
with their own hands, but they also employ a number of
men. Several of them have amassed sufficient wealth to buy
properties of several hundred hectares. It is one of these who
rents the property of the Town Hall.

There are also smaller flocks of sheep, pigs and goats
owned by independent ganaderos, or by small farmers whose
children look after them. They do not employ a man regu
larly, though they may do so from time to time for shearing
or castrating. Every farm and also a number of households
in the pueblo keep two or three animals, which supply
household needs and graze upon the owner's plot of land
or on the neighbouring canada.

The animal from which most money is to be made is the
pig. The beasts which are to be fattened for killing are
castrated and sent up to the acorn-forests in the autumn when
the acorns begin to fall. They stay there for three or four
months and are killed during the cold winter weather. There
are no flies then, and the risk of the meat going bad is small.
These forests are populated not only with the animals of the
landowner. Additional animals are accepted both from the
herds of the ganaderos and also from the individual house
holds, for it is every family's ambition to fatten a pig or two,

og OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

since the hams and highly spiced sausages arc the traditional
delicacies of Andalusian fare. The method of payment is to
weigh the pig when it goes on to the property and weigh
it again when it comes away, and pay according to the
weight it has gained. While on the farm it is the responsi
bility of the landowner's ganadero, but if it dies it is the owner's
loss. The landowner, equally, gets paid nothing for having
kept it, so that an outbreak of disease upon his pastures may
rob him at the last moment of his year's gross profit. Pigs
are also fattened upon maize in the farms in the valley,
though this is not a general practice. There is less risk of
disease, but it is more expensive. The animals kept for stock
and the young animals cost little to keep : they are fed on
household slops, grazed on the grass on the edge of the roads,
on the passage-ways, or on the properties, and thrown a
handful of maize or peas in the evening. Apart from the
acorn harvest there is rough grazing in the forests during the
rest of the year. Goats and the young pigs are kept there, but
when the pigs come into the woods to be fattened all other
animals must go.

There are other forms of co-operation in the raising of
stock. To have an animal "by halves" (llevar a mdias
or llevar a rmta) is one. Goats may be lent by their owner
to a ganadero for a specified time. In return, the ganadero
takes the milk and also the kids, allowing the owner
one kid per four goats per annum, regardless of their pro
ductivity. The owner, therefore, gets a small return on his
stock, but he pays nothing; and it is a gilt-edged security,
for the ganadero must bear all the risk. If one of the owner's
beasts dies then the ganadero must replace it. And the kids
which the owner receives are the best, for he may choose
them himself* They remain with the herd until the end of the
contractual period. A similar custom exists for the exploita
tion of sheep.

An arrangement based upon the same conceptions is
common in the raising of pigs. The pregnant sow is given to
another party to feed and care for until the piglets are
weaned. In return for this service he receives haljf the litter.

A valuable product of the forest is its wood. This is made
into charcoal. The owner of the forest may employ a char-

AGRICULTURE 39

coal-burner to work on his account. But a form of exploita
tion by halves is commoner. The representative of the
forestry commission gives permission for the trees to be
felled. These are then marked, and the charcoal-burner
moves in. When his work is done he meets the owner's
representative and together they weigh it, dividing it into
equal shares. It is stacked on the edge of the property nearest
a road or track, and then mule- and donkey-drivers come and
buy it to take to the big towns.

The cork is cut from the trees every nine years. A dealer
or the owner of the factory in Benalurfn comes and buys it on
the tree. He then brings his men who cut it, weigh it in the
presence of the owner's representative and cart it away.

Other produce of the non-agricultural land which provide
employment in various ways are the timber of the pine-trees,
the esparto grass, and the partridges and rabbits.

The agricultural land of Andalusia has largely been held
in latifundia, ever since Roman times. 1 The complex of dry-
farming, with its uncertain yearly returns and fluctuating
demand for manpower, may be seen throughout the history
of the Mediterranean to have tended to encourage the
agglomeration of property, and also of habitations, into
large units. The vast expanse cultivated by short-term, town-
dwelling labour for a single master is common not only to
Betica, la Mancha and Castile, but to much of Italy as well.
This type of land-holding is typical only of the plains, 2
and it is rarely found today among the mountains. The soil
of the sierra tends to be poorer than that of the plain and is
more laborious to cultivate and more subject to erosion. In
any case its unevenness makes it unsuitable for large-scale
exploitation. There are large properties in the campina of
Guadalmesf but they are almost all exploited by tenants in
small-holdings or parcelas, under the direction of a foreman
who represents the owner, as well as himself cultivating a

1 See Julio Gonzalez, Repartimiento de Sevilla (Madrid, 1951), pp.

Also, E. Lvi-Provenalj UEspagne musulmane au Xtme sikle (Paris, 1932),
p. 161.

2 P. Carridn, Los latifwdios en Espana (Madrid, 1932), quoted by Brenan,
op. cit., states that 68 per cent of the land of the province of Cadiz is owned in
properties of over 350 hectares,

40 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

parcela. Casual labourers unite with the small-holders for the
performance of certain tasks in the harvest, when labour
forces of over a hundred men take the field on one property
after another.

Upon the smaller arable farms of Alcali these methods of
exploitation are not known There are three main areas of
agricultural land within the Urmino, the chief of which lies
in the valley below the town. As has been seen, the farms vary
greatly in size. On the lower land, farther from the town,
the holdings reach up to forty hectares. The richest farmers
own several of these and exploit them directly themselves.
Others are owned by people of Alcald, sometimes people
who reside elsewhere, and are let to tenant farmers ; more
commonly these days, they are owned by the farmers them
selves. High prices since the Civil War (particularly on the
black market) and a law protecting the rights of tenants
giving them security of tenure and the right of first refusal
in the case of sale have enabled many to buy their farms.

The higher land nearer the pueblo is poorer. Much of it
is terraced where the vines once grew. Much has been
planted with olives. The holdings here tend to be smaller.
There are, however, olive-groves of up to twenty-five
hectares.

Another type of agricultural property is the huerta or
small irrigated farm. 1 There are about twenty of these in
the valley. The average size is from one to three hectares,
though such farms often include an adjoining patch of non-
irrigated land. The area irrigated is determined by the
amount of water which is available to irrigate them. Certain
springs are the property of the farmer upon whose land they
rise, and he can irrigate as much as the water-supply permits.
Some patches of irrigation are no more than half an acre
where a meagre trickle starts from the ground. But the main
water-supply derives from three strong sources on the hill
sides at the head of the valley. The water of these is not
privately owned, but rights to its use are attached by tradi
tion to certain lands. The water belongs to the millers for

i The term huerta is also used for an irrigated area as in the name M la Huerta
de Benamahoma'*, In the case of a very small irrigated farm or the patches of
irrigated land which surround each mill, the term huerto is used*

AGRICULTURE 41

their industry, except for Tuesdays and Saturdays in between
St. John's Day (24th June) and St. Michael's (sgth Sept.) or
such other days as the mayor, at the request of the hortelanos,
or cultivators of irrigated land, may proclaim. These days of
irrigation are divided up into periods of a few hours during
which each huerta receives its water. These periods were
formerly determined by the movement of the sun. When it
was light enough to distinguish which side up a coin lay in
the hand the right of the irrigators commenced. When the
sun's first rays struck a certain farm-house the right to the
water changed hands. When the shadow reached the navel
of the Infant Jesus which stands in the niche in the front of
another house the water must change its course once more.
For the most part these signs were shadows upon the rocks on
the far side of the valley. These rights have, today, become
converted by common consent into the hours of the clock,
but whenever a dispute arises concerning the rule, the old
farmers refer to the traditional senas del agua, the signs made
by the sun. The rights are supposed to devolve from the
regulations of the Confederation Hidraulica, which has
jurisdiction over them, but in fact during the period with
which we are concerned, the titles to water-rights were few,
out of date and of doubtful validity. Nobody had bothered
to regularise their water-rights for many years, and in the
meantime both the course of the water and the accepted
practice in using it had changed. It is not, therefore, sur
prising that the great majority of disputes which arose in the
valley concerned water-rights.

The huertas are all farmed either by tenant or owner with
the exception of the largest in the valley, which was exploited
by an employee until 1950 and after that by a system of
share-cropping which will be discussed later. As in the case
of the other small farms, the huerta is a family concern. The
farmers live with their families upon the land. Nevertheless,
this does not preclude them from employing a man for a
few weeks at a time when extra help is needed. Equally, at
other times there are hands to spare, and a member of the
family may well go out to work for a few days for a daily
wage. They are at different times both employer and
employed.

42 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

Finally, there are a great number of plots of land owned by
people whose main source of income is the work of their
hands some eight hundred of under two hectares whose
average size is half an hectare. Most of these lie within three
kilometres of the town* The land is usually of poor quality
and there is an area, called los terrajo$> composed almost
entirely of such holdings and dedicated mainly to the cultiva
tion of the vine. These were distributed from common lands
when the commons were put on the market in the last
century. There has been a tendency for these small-holdings
to fall in recent years into the hands of wealthier people.
The two vintners have been buying them up. Nevertheless,
most poor families still own a plot somewhere or other.

There are 440 labourers and the majority of these men are
employed by the day. Others are employed for a fixed period
at a slightly lower salary, and others yet again are employed
permanently at a further discount (jijos). The mean figure of
employment is 350, but this does not take into account the
periods of rain in the winter when work is laid off altogether,
and no one is employed other than the fijos* nor does it
include those who go away to work for the harvest in the
plain. Employment by the day is a common feature of
Mediterranean dry-farming, and the general practice in
Andalusia used to be, and still is in many places, to collect
in the central square at daybreak in order to contract for the
day's work. This system is used in Guadalmesl, for example,
but not in Alcald where the arrangement is made privately,
usually the night before.

Another system of employment is by piece-work. This
system is used for weeding sometimes, l and is general in the
harvesting of olives which is paid according to the quantity
gathered. The olive harvest of 1951 was so abundant that
there was a shortage of labour to collect it. Very favourable
terms were offered to induce people to come. One small
farmer even offered to go halves with anyone who would

* In which instance it b contrary to syndical regulations, Piece-work was
bitterly opposed by the Anarchist movement in Andalusia, which regarded it
as abusive. It is not generally resented today in Alcal&, for it is practised only
in the case of an individual arrangement between employer and employee.
This is called un ajuste*

AGRICULTURE 43

come and pick for him, though the normal reward is one-
ninth or one-tenth of the quantity picked.

A variety of other forms of co-operation in agriculture
exist which are reminiscent of those already mentioned in
connection with pasturing. Plots of land on the large farms
of the lower valley, small plots in the huertas or in the
terrajos, are exploited in partnership by two men, whose
motives are often social as much as economic. These are
called aparcerias. The various requirements of the enterprise,
land (irrigated or dry), seed, manure, and the various tasks
which the cultivation demands, are shared between the
two, and the crop is divided at the end. In theory it is the
co-operation of two men, each of whom has something to
offer, but who lacks either the time or material to venture on
the undertaking alone. The man who needs grain to sow
seeks a partner rather than pay for it and risk its loss if the
year turns out badly ; the man who needs labour because he
is himself engaged in other work (or expects to be) makes an
aparceria rather than pay the money of a daily wage. So that
the system has the aspect of an insurance policy. The risk is
divided between the two participants, and the shared
interest induces a keener co-operation than that which wages
can elicit. It is nevertheless frequently difficult to see why a
man has accepted to exploit his land in this way other than
in order to render neighbourly service, repay a favour or
cement a friendship. He may well be partner in an aparceria
upon his own land, and at the same time upon the land of
another. Moreover, he may also subdivide his share in the
enterprise, bringing in an additional partner.

Another variant of the aparceria is the partnership between
the landowner and the landless labourer, the former putting
up all the capital and equipment and the latter doing all the
work. The landowner lends the seed to the enterprise and
recovers it before the crop is halved. Yet another form applies
to the clearing of woodland and its conversion into arable.
Aparcerias may be made for a few months for a potato crop,
or for the full three-yearly cycle of the land. The essence of
this type of arrangement is the freely made contract, and as
such its form is always liable to fluctuate. A certain stiffening
in the demands of landlords has been noticeable since the

44 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

war on account of the greatly increased demand for land
and the high prices of agricultural produce. In fact, any
arrangement, un convenio, may be made provided both parties
agree. Thus, for example, the large huerta already mentioned
is cultivated under an arrangement whereby plots of land
are given over to different fanners of the valley in return
for a fixed quantity of the crop sown, while the ground
beneath the olives, which produces only a poor crop, is
sometimes given over for nothing for the sake of the plough
ing it will receive. If it is a good year the farmer makes a
present to the owner of the land of a measure of grain, a
gesture evoked by the social code and not by any legal
obligation.

It can be seen that money is made from the land in
the following ways :

(1) Through ownership only. Rent is paid yearly on
St. Michael's Day. The landlord has no responsibilities
other than the paying of taxes. Formerly, when tenants
were not protected in their tenure and rents were uncon
trolled, the landlords were prepared to put money into
the land and deal with major repairs, now they tend not
to. The traditional forms of contract l were clearly designed
in order to protect the interest of the landlord and free
him from responsibilities. They were normally made for
three years (or multiples of three). The rented farms are
all agricultural land with the exception of the property
of the Town Hall, which is exceptional in every way. All
tenancies date from before the introduction of the law
which gives the tenants security of tenure, for no one will
put a tenant in now that he cannot be evicted save by
paying heavy compensation, Today there are more owner-
farmers than tenants.

(2) Through ownership and exploitation through an
employee, an encargado. This is the system on which the
large pastoral properties are run. The part played by the
owner in the direction of the land varies a great deal. There
is the absentee landlord who seldom visits his land; the
landlord who lives elsewhere but comes frequently and
takes an active part in its management ; the resident land-

* Sec Zoilo Espejo, Costumbres de demhoy economia rural (Madrid, 1900).

AGRICULTURE 45

lord who leaves to the encargado no more than the duty of
seeing that his orders are carried out. The degree of
responsibility with which the encargado is entrusted varies.
" Overseer" would be a good translation in many cases.
He works with his own hands and is not differentiated
from the mass of farmers and farm-labourers by any
cultural standard. Few small properties are run in this
way, and in Alcala it is generally considered unsatisfactory
as a method of exploitation, save on the large pastoral
properties which require very little administration, or
when the owner is a practical farmer who directs the
enterprise himself.

(3) Through ownership and exploitation by the owner's
own hands, together with such additional labour as he
may require. This is the commonest form of exploitation
of agricultural property.

(4) Through ownership combined in partnership in an
aparceria. This has already been discussed.

(5) Through the exploitation of rented property.

(6) Through the work of a man's hands in return for a
daily wage, contracted for the day or a short period, or as
a permanent employee. The wage varies according to the
nature of the work.

(7) Through a man offering his labour and such other
assets as he may possess in partnership.

(8) Through independent action ; hunting game either
with gun or more usually by snaring or trapping; picking,
preparing and sometimes working esparto grass, picking
wild asparagus, making picdn, a kind of charcoal made
from small wood by a simple and rapid process, or work
ing a lime-kiln. These are methods used by those who can
find no work or who prefer their independence. They are
mainly outside the letter of the law since, in the majority
of cases, they involve either poaching (though shooting-
rights are not generally enforced by the owners of prop
erty) or pilfering.

The variety of forms of co-operation and also the con
tinual fluctuations in the price-levels, both of produce and
labour, which have already been mentioned, can be seen to
relate, in the first place, to the insecurity which attaches as
much to the role of exploiter as to that of employee (or

46 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

formerly to the insecurity of tenure itself). All arrangements
are short-term ones, for no one can have confidence in the
future. Every harvest is a gamble, and the history of Anda
lusia is one of alternating plenty and famine. Under such
conditions one would hardly expect to find a steadily
balanced system of exploitation such as is usual in countries
of reliable climate and adequate rainfall

What is more, this instability is visible not only in the
system of exploitation but in the distribution of landed
property itself, In the evolution of land-ownership two
tendencies are simultaneously apparent in the valley:
agglomeration and dispersion. The first owes its existence, in
this instance, to the recent enrichment of the larger farmers.
They have put their profits into land, and where possible
have enlarged their holdings by the acquisition of neighbour
ing ground, or they have bought other farms. In this manner
a number of the larger properties have been built up out of
smaller holdings in the last fifteen years. The tendency
towards dispersion is caused by the fission of property which
the law of inheritance imposes. The intricacies of this law
need not be examined here. Its general effect and in this
it is in harmony with the values of family life is to divide all
inheritance equally among the children of both sexes.
Families tend to be large, and while in some instances the
heirs sell their share to one of their number, in others the
inheritance itself is divided up. In this way a number of
small-holdings have sprung up in the lower valley, where
young men have built themselves a house upon their share
of a larger property and settled down to farm it* A change
in the controls and marketing values or a few bad harvests
might well reverse this situation, for these small-holdings are
uneconomical to exploit. In fact, both tendencies are
inherent in the land-tenure of Andalusia, which might be
described as either stagnant or dynamic from one period to
another, but never as stable.

In ri$um&) this instability finds its most obvious correla
tions in the uncertainties which surround the exploitation of
land, and in the hazards of the law of inheritance, but
alongside these must be counted the lack of a mystical
attitude towards the land, the value system of a people who

AGRICULTURE 47

dwell in towns from which they go out to cultivate the earth,
but who do not love it. 1

i This characteristic of the agriculture of Alcala, like many others, is typical
of the whole Mediterranean, though it contrasts with the north-west of the
Iberian peninsula. Gf. "Amour et labeur ont egalement manque" a la terre
syrienne ; le fellah la cultive sans doute, mais comme a regret, et sans que son
exploitation sache voir au dela des ne'cessite's imme"diates ; il travaille pour lui
et non pour sa terre; il ne sent pas que celle-ci le dpasse et le prolonge."
J. Weulersse, Paysans de Syrie et du proche- Orient (Paris, 1946), p. 173.

CHAPTER IV

Occupation and Wealth
(ii) Industry and Trade

IF THE possession of land bestows no social virtue and its
cultivation, so far from being a sacred duty or a labour of
love, is simply a hard and unrewarding way of making a
living, it follows that the distinction between persons accord
ing to whether they are engaged in agriculture or not carries
no more than a purely practical significance. Occupation is
a matter of choice, not of calling, and the nature of a person
is not thought to be influenced by his occupation in the same
way as it is, for example, by the place of his birth. It is true
that the distinction between labourers and herdsmen is the
subject of certain generalisations and the basis of not a few
jokes. People who work the land sometimes jeer at the un-
couthness and lack of ambition of the goatherds who are
prepared to spend weeks at a time away in the mountains ;
while the latter are proud of the independence which their
life gives them. Yet in no situation do the two elements
confront one another and in no sense are they opposed.
Indeed, a great number of people have at one time or an
other followed both the goat and the plough. In the same
way we shall see that occupational distinctions, such as that
between the millers and the hortelanos, even when they lead
to opposition of material interests, are never extended beyond
the occupation itself, never become the basis of a cleavage in
the community. Neither millers nor hortetanos are thought
even by the rival faction to be in any way different from the
rest of the society. Some irrigate and some mill and both
want the water, but there the matter ends.

This conception is the antithesis of the notion of caste, a
notion which will also find its place in this study when the
gypsies come to be dealt with, but which is not found within

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 49

the structure of the pueblo. Here, indeed, we touch upon
one of the essential values of the pueblo which is the equality,
in the sense of the identity of nature, of all those who are
born in the same place. Whatever they may do and precisely
because of the lack of such distinctions their versatility is
very great they remain by nature the same. The dichotomy
between the agricultural and the urban classes which has
dominated English history down to the present day is one
which cannot be made. Here everyone, conceptually at any
rate, is a town-dweller. How he gets his living is another
matter.

An important number of the dwellers in the valley are
occupied in exploiting the source of power provided by its
waters. These were once, before the advent of mechanical
energy, at a greater premium than they are today. The cloth
industry owed its existence in Alcala to the mountain pastures
which produced the wool and to the streams which powered
its numerous fulling-mills. The technical advances of modern
industry, and Alcaldes lack of communications, had already
almost ruined its prosperity when the electrically powered
cloth-factory was built there in 1938. In recent years, the
lack of electrical current almost brought that enterprise to a
standstill, so that its owners started another venture, revert
ing to the traditional technique and rehabilitating one of the
old water-worked factories in the valley. Until 1951 the
factory in the pueblo worked on an average only two or
three hours in the day, and it is still threatened with power-
cuts. It employs eight men and six women of various ages.
The factory in the valley will employ perhaps half as many
when it is working.

The milling industry has encountered fewer difficulties.
There are fourteen grain mills in the valley. A few ruined
edifices litter the banks of the central stream, and those in the
confluent valley whose water-supply enabled them to work in
the winter months only, have disappeared altogether. Several
of the mills working today were converted from old fulling-
mills, though in their total number there are only two more
than there were two hundred years ago (according to the
census taken in 1 752 by the Intendant-General of theKingdom

p.s. 4

c O OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

of Granada, the Marquds de Campo Verde). The activity
of these mills is continuous and profitable, particularly since
the war. There is an electrical mill in the village which is
restricted by power-cuts to the same hours as the factory. It
is the only mill authorised by the present economic controls.
Nevertheless, even with its restrictions it manages to mill
all the flour required by the rationing system, and a bit more
on the side which is more lucrative to the miller, but gets
him into trouble periodically with the inspectors.

Being officially closed the water-mills are all entirely
devoted to the black market, but grain from the campifia of
Guadalmesi keeps them fully occupied. The techniques of
milling have altered little since the Marques de Campo
Verde's day. All the mills now employ stones imported from
France, or failing that Barcelona, which are harder than the
local granite, but only one has so far equipped itself with a
ball-bearing for its central pivot, a local and imperfect
invention which broke down after a few months* The re
mainder continue with the traditional brass post-and-socket
bearing. The volume of the mill-stream is not great, and no
mill has more than one stone. Output depends upon the
speed at which the stone can be driven, which again
depends upon the amount of water. During the summer
months the springs diminish and water is also required for
irrigation.

The mill is a family unit and can be worked by a single
adult male aided by wife and children,* but the work really
requires at least two grown men. Several millers keep one
permanent employee. One mill is rented and one is exploited
on a system of halves. The remainder are the property of the
millers. The millers are therefore independent men whose
livelihood is made outside the economic structure which
the state recognises, though the illicit nature of their work
is never and, indeed, in such a society as this, never could
be a cause for moral reproach, Nevertheless, they are not
lacking in the traditional qualities of their calling. The
millers of Alcald know all about mixing a little plaster in with
the flour, dampening it in order to increase its weight, and so
on, and their reputation for craftiness rests upon these prac
tices and has nothing to do with their relations with the

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 51

official hierarchy. Like the farmers of the valley, they also
have profited by the high prices.

In addition to the flour-mills there are two olive-mills. One
is worked by electricity (though a petrol engine has been
used in recent years to supplement its meagre source). The
other makes its own electrical power from a small dynamo
turned by a mill-wheel. Since olives are milled during the
winter months the miller is not hampered by shortage of
water as much as are the millers of grain during the summer
and autumn. Both these mills are larger and much more
lucrative concerns than the flour-mills and they employ
several men during the milling season.

Since both the owners are persons of influence and will be
referred to later, it is convenient to introduce them at this
point :

The owner of "la Pileta", the mill worked by electricity,
is Don Antonio. He is the son of a former landowner in
Alcald who was also the chemist of the village. He himself has
studied for the career of lawyer. His father was shot by
the "Reds" together with his brother. Don Antonio has
properties in Jacinas and Seville apart from the olive-lands
and huerta of the Pileta, and he himself lives the greater part
of the year in Seville where his children are being educated.
His two spinster sisters live in the family's house in the
pueblo and go down to the Pileta in the autumn for the olive
harvest. The family reunites there for Christmas. The sisters
play a leading part in Church affairs in the pueblo. While
they are in residence in the valley the priest comes from time
to time to say mass in the chapel which is part of the building.
An employee goes round the farms to give notice and those
who wish (and also those who wish for the favour of the
Pileta) attend. The sisters supervise the milling and keep
the count of the loads of olives which are brought in, but the
family is not popular. The majority take their olives to be
milled, at a more favourable price and more promptly, it is
said, in "el Juncal".

This is the name of the other olive-mill which was set up
fourteen years ago in an old fulling-mill. The owner is
"Fernandito Pinas", the son of a tenant farmer of Alcald. A
bachelor of fifty-five, he is the youngest of four brothers, but

52 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

it Is he who "has the voice which sings"* A story is told that
the origin of his fortune was a treasure which a bandit hid
upon his father's farm. He was not rich before the war but
was a leading personality among the farmers so that he was
made Mayor of Alcala after the flight of the "Reds". He did
not remain mayor for long but has since been one of the two
chiefs of the farmers' syndicate. He has made much money
and bought much land, so that he is now the largest farmer
and landowner in the valley. He lives in the Juncal in a
modest manner, works hard and follows the way of life he
was born to. He does, however, sometimes use the local taxi.
He goes frequently to the pueblo and wields great influence
in local affairs. He is a man of impressive appearance and
old-fashioned manners, courteous but without social preten
sions, shrewd and tough in business but charitable and a
good employer, on which account he is popular. His heirs are
two sisters' sons.

The relationship of these two men to the community of the
valley could not be more diverse. To begin with Don Antonio
is seldom there. His sisters are in charge of the olive-mill
most of the time. This limits the part played by the Pileta in
local affairs. It is also limited by the fact that since it is
powered by electricity they do not require the water of the
valley. Their huerta possesses its own spring. It is sometimes
suggested that his title to the water is false and that it is really
the water of the community. There does not appear to be
any justification for this suggestion. The Pileta derives its
influence in the valley through property, through its power
to employ and to provide an alternative to Fernando Pinas*
mill, and through its relationship with the church organisa
tions and the " Movement", the officially sponsored political
organisation.

Fernando Pinas is far closer to the community* He belongs
to it as a person. He lives there. He also employs more men
than the Pileta, and more people take their olives to him. He
also has great importance on account of the fact that he has
the right to employ water for milling, In the ill-defined
condition of water-rights it is not difficult for the hortelanos
(garden cultivators) to take advantage of the millers, since
the latter, on account of the illicit nature of their occupation,

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 53

cannot go to law. A traditional right exists to irrigate with
the romanienteS) (properly remanentes)^ the water which seeps
down the main channel after it has been cut off above. The
millers use this to irrigate plots around their mills, but, in
recent times, other farmers owning land on the banks of the
channel have begun to use this water in order to irrigate land
which has no claim to it. Hortelanos have tended to extend
their hours of irrigation at the expense of the millers. In this
situation a key position is held by those who use the waters of
the valley for power in a licit manner, the owner of the cloth-
factory in the upper valley, and, lower down, Fernando
Pinas on the waters of the Juncal. They are able to go to law
and can defend their rights, and they therefore become
champions of the rights of the millers. When four years ago
a meeting was called to discuss a project of employing a
water-guard between the millers and hortelanos, it met at the
cloth-factory. Agreement broke down over the question of
the division of the expenses involved. Since then quarrels over
water-rights have occurred every summer.

Modern trends have treated the craftsmen of the pueblo
less well than the millers and have contributed in ways which
have already been mentioned to the general economic de
cline of the area of the sierra. The destruction of the archives
of Alcala by the Anarchists makes an exact comparison im
possible, but it is not rash to surmise that the percentage of
craftsmen in the total population is considerably lower than
it was, say, one hundred years ago, even without considering
those of the wool industry. In the days when cloth-making
was at its height, it provided work in various crafts. The
fulling-mills, the water-worked looms with their various
processes, the washing of the wool, the spinning, the weaving,
combined into single buildings as time went on (though the
spinning of wool by hand and also hand-weaving as home
industries did not disappear until the nineteen- thirties), the
dyeing and all the dealing in a trade which was traditional
throughout Europe at that time for the wealth which it
brought made Alcala an exceptionally wealthy place for its
size. Antonio Ponz 1 noted at the end of the eighteenth

l Op.cit.

54 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

century that in Alcali mendicancy was unknown thanks to
the wool industry. But this is not the only craft to have
declined. Soap is no longer made in the pueblo for sale,
though many households make their year's supply at the
time of the olive-milling. The soap offered for sale in the
shops is brought from Ronda, whereas in 1846, according to
Madoz, 1 there were two factories in Alcala. The sugar
shortage of present times has virtually ended the manufac
ture of chocolate. The copper foundry in Penaloja has closed
down and sold out. The blacksmiths of Alcald no longer
make the agricultural tools nor perform more than elementary
repairs. Serious repairs are sent to the workshops of Ronda
which have oxy-acetylcne welding plants. The decline of
population has produced a glut of building materials so that
the tile-kiln of the area has gone out of business. Now modern
building is beginning to employ bricks where none were used
before, and reinforced concrete makes its appearance among
the plastered granite. These modern materials are imported
into the pueblo, which was hitherto able to satisfy all its
requirements from its own resources, its tiles and timber and
its sand and stone. The plaster-burner still deals with the
locality's requirements, and there is a kiln in the valley and
another up on the hillside. Lime-kilns are numerous and are
exploited by craftsmen either working independently or as
employees of the owner of the land where the kiln stands.
This, however, is not a whole-time occupation for anyone*
The chair industry in Penaloja, powered partly by water and
partly by electricity, continues to work. In Alcali one
carpenter uses electrical power. One in the valley is buying
piece by piece the machinery necessary to use water-power.

The craftsmen are independently minded people, though
they are by no means so independent in fact as the millers.
The builders are employed by the day, and in wet weather
they must usually stop work. The carpenters are employed
either by the job, by the day or for a longer period. The
blacksmiths work by the job in their shop.

The only industry which seems not to have suffered in
modern times is the shoe-maker's. Alcali has a long tradition
in this art and men come from other villages to get their boots

l P. Madoz, Dicrion&rw G&ogrqficQ*G$tadi$tUQ~histom0 d Expatta (Madrid, 1846).

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 55

there, the heavy rough-hide boots which wear better than
the products of the shops of Ronda. Yet the curing of hides
is no longer done in Alcala except sporadically and inexpertly.

As early as 1862 Mateos Gago, a politician of eminence
and a son of Alcala, directed a report to the government
pleading that the railway, which was being projected to
connect the area of the sierra, should take the path of the
valley of the Guadalete from the plain of Jerez to Ronda,
giving among his reasons the necessity of bringing transport
facilities within range of his native pueblo if its wool industry
was to be maintained in prosperity. His plea failed, and the
railway was built to Ronda from Algeciras. The gloomy
prophecy of this far-sighted man was in due course fulfilled.

The first motor-road reached Alcald in 1917 from the main
Jerez-Ronda road. By 1935 the town was also connected
to Jacinas, and another road to El Jaral over the mountains
was under construction, though it was not finished until after
the war. A local road down the valley to the main road was
completed in 1930. Since the war a road was built over the
pass to link up Penaloja with Alcald. It is not easy country
in which to make roads. The sudden and heavy rainfalls on
such steep slopes undermine all but the most soundly built
and had by 1930 carried away segments of both mountain
roads cutting off Penaloja from its parent. It can now only be
reached by car by a roundabout route nearly fifty kilometres
in length. Continual work is required if the roads are not to
be lost during the bad weather. The roads are a state re
sponsibility administered from the provincial capital, and
only within the confines of the towns are they a local charge
which explains, perhaps, why Andalusian roads tend to
disintegrate at the entrance to a pueblo. The state-employed
staff are mostly men from the area but not necessarily from
the pueblo, and a foreman responsible for the tfamno^ lives
in Alcala. The building or improvement of roads is put in the
hands of contractors, but extra labour is also employed in
the winter by arrangement between the foreman and the
mayor, partly for the sake of the roads and partly as a
measure to deal with the unemployment.
On weekdays a bus runs from Jacinas to Ronda and

56 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

returns In the evening. There is one taxi in the town and no
lorry. The scarcity of transport is general throughout the
country, and the roads are in a much worse state than they
were in the days of General Primo de Rivera. Before the war
Alcald had three taxis and a lorry. Now lorries come only
occasionally, bringing goods, or collecting the charcoal which
is stacked by the roadside near the large properties.

For the daily needs of the community the form of transport
is the pack animal : horse, mule or donkey. Carts were once
used, though only to transport machinery and such things as
could be moved in no other way. Now there are none. A
system of tracks connects the pueblos of the sierra which
were, before the building of the roads, a state responsibility,
though there were also tracks which were the responsibility
of the Town Hall. Nowadays both have fallen into disrepair,
and where they were cobbled there are now only scattered
stones. A number of mule-and donkey-teams were owned by
members of the community which carried the products
of the sierra far afield. Alcald, for example, even^ supplied
Cddiz and Seville with ice, packed snow conserved in pits on
the top of the mountain and carried down on mule-back
during the summer. Today there is only one donkey-team
left, which travels between Alcald and Jerez, Donkey-
and mule-teams also come from Ronda to collect charcoal
from the properties. Individuals who own a donkey and have
no other work sometimes make up a team and go to Ronda
with a similar load. The high price and high maintenance
cost probably account for the fact that there are not more
teams in the village. The farmers and millers own their own
beasts.

AlcalA receives mail on six days a week provided the bus
does not break down, and the newspapers come from Cidiz
only a day late. A single telephone post is open during the
day-time.

The high cost of transport, whether by motor vehicle or
beast of burden, has an important effect upon the structure of
the pueblo's economy through the inequality of price-levels
which exists from place to place and from time to time.
Buying and selling is an activity which can be very profitable,
and the ambitious small capitalist turns to speculation. There

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 57

is no clearly defined limit to the class of people devoted to
trade. No social barrier separates those who trade from those
who do not, and, except for the largest landowners who have
neither the incentive nor the possibility since they do not
live continuously in the pueblo, most of those who consider
themselves sharp enough indulge in some form of exchange
from time to time. Trade, in fact, is a general activity in
which some specialise more than others.

To begin, however, with the pueblo's shops : as in all small
communities the degree of specialisation is small. The shops
architecturally are no different to other houses. There are
no show windows. Everybody knows what is sold in which
house. The shopkeeper is nevertheless distinguished from the
private person who happens to have something to sell by the
fact that he pays a municipal tax, the matricula, for the right
to trade.

The prices in the shops of Alcala are, on an average, 10 per
cent higher than in the shops in Ronda. Not only are there
the costs of transport. Manufactured goods are frequently
bought from dealers in Ronda or Malaga so that they have
in addition to their cost price the percentage which the latter
regards as his due. Wines and spirits pay a municipal charge
on entering the pueblo. Those who have enough to buy to
make it worth their while go to Ronda on the bus to make
their purchases, and those who go there for any other reason
take advantage of the opportunity. As in many other con
texts things are cheaper for the rich. In addition, the bus-
conductor makes his position a profitable one by doing
people's shopping for them in return for a tip. He himself
decides what his tip shall be.

The shopkeepers also act as dealers, buying local produce
(e.g. oil, grain, products of the pig), in bulk when the prices
are low and selling it later at a much higher price when the
scarcity has set in ; for the yearly fluctuations are very great,
and those who can afford to, buy their supplies for the year
in bulk when the price is lowest. This, as much as anything,
has enabled the shopkeepers to become as rich as they are.
Those who have done well have bought farms.

But there are others who have started a shop in order
to supplement other sources of income. The chemist is a

Cj8 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

professional man holding a state appointment, but he makes
more of his income from his shop than from his salary. The
former chemist was, in addition, a largish landowner. Other
small landowners of a social standing equivalent to that of the
professional classes have shops, In El Jaral the Justice of the
Peace is a large landowner,, brother of the doctor and mem
ber of the most distinguished family of the town, yet his
wife keeps a shop.

In addition to the general store-keepers there are those
who have a small shop or keep a stall in the market; the
bakers, who in three out of four cases are the close relatives
of millers ; the two vintners, who make wine, sell it and also
trade in an odd article or two ; the barbers and the keepers of
bars. While on a smaller scale still, yet also aiding in the
distributive system, are persons mainly widows with children,
or women who for other reasons find themselves obliged to
seek a living, who buy the farmers* produce in bulk when they
arrive in the town with it and then resell it, either officially
in the market, paying the small charge (5 reales) or privately
in their houses. Then there are women poorer still who go
round the farms buying or begging produce which they sell
in the pueblo, The Civil War has left many such people,
widows of men who died on the wrong side and who conse
quently have no pension, who have a few children or an aged
parent to keep* They circulate over all Andalusia, specialis
ing, though not uniquely, in black-market items and contra
band from Gibraltar, carrying things in baskets beneath their
black shawls from places where they cost less to places where
they can be sold for more, "buscando la vida n ("seeking a
living 5 '). Their poverty is, in a way, the strength of their
position : for if they are caught they cannot pay a fine, all
that can be done to them is to confiscate their goods. There
are others who gain their living in a more legal but not
dissimilar way ; the men and women who buy eggs for the
shops ; and the agents for the shops of the big towns who buy
game as soon as the season opens. l

There are a number of brokers in the town, ten altogether.

i This causes the price to rise sharply. Game is caught and sold before the
season opens, but the rmltmcia is too conspicuous an organisation to be per
mitted to function then. It must await the official date*

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 59

They buy and sell, contract for one thing and another, but
their chief function is to act as agents to arrange sales. They
deal in anything from a farm to a goat. Since theirs is a
recognised profession they are liable to pay the matricula.
The Town Hall of Alcala, unlike that of wealthier Jacinas,
has not insisted upon this, and in fact none of them pay.
These are the picturesque figures, with their long, forked
walking-stick and wide hat, who are seen at all the fairs of
Andalusia. Those of Alcald do not all live up to the tradi
tional image, yet they have the same reputation for good
humour and sharp practice as all the world over. There will
be more to say about them in the discussion of the technique
of bargaining.

The distribution of wealth, as has been seen, is far from
equal in this society. Both in terms of spending-power and
also of the means of acquiring spending-power there is much
variation. The large landowners receive considerable rents in
Alcald without spending more than a few months there in
the year, while poor labourers scrape along working seven
days a week when there is work in order to feed a large
family, dreading the long weeks of rain when no wages are
paid and bread must be begged from the baker on credit.
They are tough people and they raise healthy children
on meagre incomes, but they are proud and perhaps the
humiliation of their circumstances pains them more than
their material wants. It is a curious fact that the rich towns
of the plain with their beggars and their dirty children give
the casual observer an impression of far greater misery than
the pueblos of the sierra whose economic situation is worse.
Yet the economic structure of a society is one thing and the
social meaning of the rights which it engenders is another.
We are concerned to know, therefore, not only who possesses
or acquires or spends (and how and where) but what social
values attach to possession, acquisition or disbursement.

There is no doubt that the ideal behaviour is very much
opposed to close-fistedness, but lavishness in one direction
usually imposes restrictions in another. Here people like
to make gestures of generosity towards the friend, the
acquaintance and the stranger, and they like to make a show
of their generosity. We shall see that generosity is more

60 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

than a matter of the individual disposition but a require
ment of the system of friendship. The accusation of meanness
is very damaging to a person's reputation, for such prestige
as derives from money derives not from its possession but
from generosity with it. Wealth in itself is not, as in much
of European society, an intrinsic merit* Conversely, poverty
implies no inferiority in other spheres than the economic,
and only the inability to respond to generosity places a person
in a position of humiliation, for it exposes him to the accusa
tion of being grasping. That is to say, it is only where
economic inferiority is translatable into moral inferiority
that it involves loss of prestige* It is precisely where all men
are conceptually equal that this translation is able to be
made because no subordination is recognised which might
exonerate one man from returning the favour of another.

These values are clearly illustrated by the behaviour of
beggars, in which two distinct approaches to the problem are
distinguishable. There is, to begin with, what might be
described as the gypsy technique in begging. This consists in
flattering, fawning, inspiring pity and using any conceivable
line of moral blackmail to extract alms. The implication of
meanness is the chief weapon in blackmail, and it is used not
only directly in the form of a reproach but also behind the
person's back. Thus, when Lola, the old gypsy, comes round
the farms begging she takes from her basket all the things
which she has been given elsewhere and shows them off.
"... This bread was given me by so-and-so* These tomatoes
they gave me at the mill And here is the orange which
Fulano gave me a rich man like him and all he can find to
give a poor woman in need is an orange. Shame upon his
stinginess!" This method is used by habitual beggars,
gypsies and persons who have lost their shame. The approach
of the "honourable 9 * beggar is very different. 1 He is a man
who would be ashamed to beg in his own village, but begs
because he is travelling in search of his living and has run out
of money* He asks for food or alms or work, and he asks for it
quietly and proudly, basing his claim to help upon a duty
which is thought to exist everywhere that he who has must

i An excellent portrait of such a beggar is given by Washington Irving, The
Alhambra (London, 1833), Introduction.

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 6 1

give to him who has not. Such a beggar tends to be very
shy and to stand at a distance waiting to be asked what he
wants. He does not sacrifice his pride willingly and he feels
troubled by it in such a situation. At times such people cover
up their shyness by a brusque and insolent manner as if to
deny that they are asking a favour which they cannot repay,
and leave giving no thanks, for shame to utter the conven
tional "May God repay you" of the beggars.

The idea that he who has must give to him who has not is
not only a precept of religion, but a moral imperative of the
pueblo. It is visible in the manners of the people of Spain who
will not eat in the presence of friend or stranger without first
offering their food, a gesture in which this sentiment of the
community of humankind is kept alive. Inevitably this
"egalitarian" sentiment comes into conflict with the freedom
to dispose of his property which every individual possesses.
The idea of individual ownership is clear and strong, 1 and
the total right of an owner to do what he likes with his
property is never questioned. On the other hand, there are a
very limited number of things he can do with money inside
the pueblo, other than buy property to divide among his
children. There are no expensive sports, no regular entertain
ing in the home, no competition in conspicuous waste. All
the houses are whitewashed inside and out. Floors are all
tiled. Furniture is more plentiful in the houses of the rich, but
there is no great difference in quality. All families, even the
senoritos, eat the puchero (vegetable stew). With his money, a
man can put his house in order, buy good clothes for himself
and his family, good contraband coffee and tobacco, send
his children away to be educated for a career, but beyond
that point there is virtually no way of spending money other

l This is well illustrated by the tenacity with which the rural Anarchists
hung on to the idea of the reparto, the division of the land into individual hold
ings in the face of the communistic doctrine of the movement. Gf. Diaz del
Moral, op. cit., p. 61 ; " Y, disfrazado o no con sus falsos motes, el reparto ha
seguido siendo en todas las exaltaciones campesinas la magica palabra que ha
electrizado a las muchedumbres. No ya solo en las revueltas de la Internacional
y en las de 1882 y 1892, sino en las agitaciones anarquistas de principios del
sigloXX y en las sindicalistasde los ultimos anos, el estado llano de las sociedades
obreras, a despecho de los elementos directores y, a veces con el asentimiento de
&tos, ha aspirado siempre a distribute la tierra en lotes individuals, es decir,
a ingresar en las filas de la burguesia agricultora."

62 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

than on charity or on excursions to the big towns in search of
el mcio. It is felt that rich people who go away to spend money
are betraying the pueblo, and the reason often given for
the economic decline of Alcald is the departure of a few rich
families to the big towns of the plain. Most ways of spending
money other than in satisfying the needs of simple living
involve going away from the pueblo and are regarded as
wicked.

Los ricos, the rich, are always wicked when treated gener-
ically. They are responsible for the hardships of the poor.
They have perverted the social order through their ambitions.
They are the source of corruption. Who the particular ricos
are is obscure, but they are generally thought of as being
distant personalities far richer than anyone in the pueblo,
These opinions, although encouraged by the political creeds
of the Left are by no means inspired by them, nor are they
necessarily found in company with them. They are, rather,
part of the value system of the pueblo.

The moneyed people of the place are thought of by many,
in many social contexts, as evil. Their fatness is pointed out
as a proof of their over-indulgence and idleness. The shop
keepers in particular come in for adverse comment, and the
advantages which wealthier people have, particularly with
regard to what they are able to do for their children, are
bitterly resented. Yet here, already, the sentiment of moral
indignation has made way for personal jealousy* It is felt
that such advantages are wrong, and yet few will not admit
that they would take them if they had the chance.

The values relating to money may be summed up as
follows. They are not those of protestant capitalism. 1 The
possession of money here is in no way a sign of grace, or a
basis for moral distinctions. It is morally neutral. But the ways
in which it is acquired or spent are subject to moral judge
ment. If it is gained at the expense of others, it is ill-gotten. If
it is guarded avariciously, if it is spent in self-indulgence, it is
evil. If it is gained by intelligence or hard work, if it is spent
in meeting moral obligations, then it is good* Money is
something which enables a man to be what he wants. It gives

i Of. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of G<xpitdim> trans.
Talcott Parsons (London, 1930).

INDUSTRY AND TRADE 63

him power, power to be either good or evil. It bestows
prestige only if it is employed in a morally approved manner.
This clearly leaves the door open to a certain ambiguity. For
the moment I will go no further into the question than to add
that persons who become involved in the system of patronage
tend to regard this as the proper manner of using wealth-
The successful patron, thanks to his wealth, acquires great
prestige within the orbit of his influence and escapes, thereby,
the condemnation which is reserved for los ricos.

Nor are the values relating to money those of nineteenth-
century liberalism. Transactions with money are not opera
tions of an impersonal economic law but a form of personal
relationship in which people establish or express mutual
regard through an exchange of goods. We have already seen
in agriculture co-operative ventures which resemble arrange*
ments to take in one another's washing. Articles are not
thought of as having an intrinsic money value, but are
subject to the relationship of the persons who exchange them,
An item is not "worth such-and-such a price" in itself, but
only in relation to a specific vendor and a specific buyer, The
idea that the vendor is bound to sell at a certain price be
cause it is the price that others are asking is not generally
accepted ; on the contrary, it is thought right that a wealthy
person should pay more for things than a poor person unless
the vendor wishes to honour him. A shopkeeper favours an
influential client by making him a special price. Since he likes
to favour all his clients, no one, in the end, is charged the
price advertised in the window. Money payments for services
are particularly liable to fluctuation in this way in a com
munity where many men are employed singly for a short
period or for a specific task. A service performed for money
remains none the less a service and commits the recipient to
moral obligations even though he may have paid through the
nose.

The subjection of economic values to moral and social
values is illustrated rp. the technique of bargaining. For while
marketing and purchasing fit into the framework of estab
lished social relationships, or serve to establish them, the
negotiations with capital values do not. The vendor of an
animal or a property wants to sell it to the person who will

64 OCCUPATION AND WEALTH

give him the most for it, and he wants as much as he can
possibly get, for it is an event which will not recur. On the
other hand, to do this involves him in a violation of the moral
code. To admit that one has asked an exorbitant figure or
offered an inadequate one is to confess oneself grasping or
mean and to lose face. Yet not to get as much as one can is
to lose money, and be made a fool of. The essential hostility
between the two bargainers is not only itself potentially anti
social, it leads to a commitment of pride which makes it
impossible for the two to reach an agreement. Hence, the
role of the professional corredor, or broker, who steers the
bargain to a clinch, saving the face of the bargainers through
his intermediary position. He, or there may be two of them
each representing his client, acts as a friend, pleading, argu
ing, flattering, lying, using all his guile to induce the buyer
to raise his price, the seller to lower his, enabling each to
maintain the fiction that he is not really keen upon the deal,
that he enters it only to oblige the other. To drop this fiction
means to lose the bargain.

There are also, of course, sales between friends, but these
are conducted in private and there is no need for a corredor,
They fit into the scheme of friendship, as a favour which
creates or fulfils an obligation. Men are sometimes heard to
complain that they have been obliged by friendship to sell
something which they had no wish to part with* Sometimes,
moreover, this is quite true.

CHAPTER V

Status and Age

ALREADY in examining the values which attach to money
we have raised the question of the significance of possessions
in differentiating one man from another. This was discussed
in terms of prestige. The question of status was deliberately
left on one side, though it may have occurred to the reader
that the prestige derived from wealth might nevertheless play
an important part in determining status and in defining
social class. 1 This question is the subject of the present
chapter.

We have discerned in the pueblo a strong reluctance to
accord superior status to its members Who are economically
superior, and in the pages which follow the different bases of
differentiation will be examined and some attempt made to
detect where they give rise to a superiority of status. We must
be on our guard against assuming that status will necessarily
be recognised by the same attitudes and sentiments as in our
own society. Already in the seventeenth century foreign
visitors were astonished by the familiarity with which the
grandees were treated by their retainers, and the traveller of
today is frequently struck by the distinction which the Anda-
lusians., and indeed all Spaniards, seem to make between the
personality and the social position of others, a distinction
which gives to their manners a particular warmth and deli
cacy. Nor is it to be detected only in their behaviour towards

i I use the word "status" in the sense current in modern sociology, as, for
example, Professors Maclver and Page when they write : cc Status may be based
upon differences of birth, wealth, occupation, political power, race, or, as in
the case of traditional China, intellectual attainment. Frequently status is
determined by a combination of two or more of these factors." (Society, p. 353.)

It is well to bear in mind that status is not necessarily a matter of hierarchy,
but simply of differentiated social position. Hence the status of a guest. However,
for Maclver and Page, it is the criterion of social class where "a hierarchy of
status groups" exists (Society, p. 348), and the essence of class-distinction is the
"social distance" which this hierarchy imposes between its different levels.

P.S. 5

STATUS AND AGE

foreigners, whose strangeness and whose special status might
be expected to provoke a form of conduct which is excep
tional. It is a distinction which is fundamental to the system
of values of this society and which underlies all social be
haviour. It might be expressed in various ways, as a respect
for human personality rather than for human rights, or as
the belief in all men's equality in the sight of God, or in the
ultimate futility of the mortal condition, or, at any rate, as
a lack of faith in man's ability to control his own destiny.
This regard for personality is present in the adult's behaviour
towards the child and in the Justice's behaviour to the crimi
nal and in the criminal's behaviour to his victim. It cannot
be expressed in sociological terms, and yet it is recognisable
in Andalusia in every social context.

It will be apparent that a certain status is accorded to
those who occupy official positions in the pueblo. These
people, the administrators and professional men, are first of
all considered, not in relation to the structure of government,
but as members of the community. The high proportion of
outsiders among them has already been noted. With the
exception of some of the schoolmasters, all the professional
men appointed by the state come from another area, and if
they own any property it is not here, nor do they have a
motive to acquire any here since they aspire to be moved in
due course to a more important post. Recent times appear to
have increased the number of outsiders in this class. The
Mayor of Alcald (and of certain other towns as well) is today
an outsider, a state of affairs which could never, it is thought,
have occurred a generation ago. The doctor and the chemist
are also outsiders today, while formerly both posts were filled
by sons of Alcall The yearly salaries of professional and
administrative people, if they have no other source of in
come, give them a standard of living far below that of the
large landowners, yet they "keep up appearances" with the
rest of the resident wealthy. Members of the smaller property-
owning families also fill certain administrative posts, such as
director of the Monte de Piedad, of the Property Registry,
etc., while other of their members have been taken away
by their careers to distant parts of the country. They are

STATUS AND AGE 67

distinguished from the richer farmers, in several cases con
siderably wealthier than they are, by education and by the
refinement of manners which accompanies it. They do not
keep apart from them socially, however, but may be seen
together in the casino talking at the same table or playing
cards.

Who, exactly, comprises what I have called the ruling
group, and in what ways are they differentiated from the rest
of the community? Other than landowners and the pro
fessional people, there are the owners of the larger business
enterprises and also the occupiers of municipal office, legal
office or those who have influence in syndical or Church
affairs the people in whose hands effective power resides.

Power, however, means much more than the occupation of
a post endowed with authority. It means : "the capacity in
any relationship to command the service or the compliance
of others" l the control of social sanctions. Thus economic
power means the ability to apply economic sanctions, to offer
rewards in the form of material advantage, or to refuse them,
power to employ or sack, to buy, sell, allow credit, quash a
fine or to favour materially in any other way. For this reason
the owners of large properties are all to be included in the
ruling group, though their importance within it, the use they
make of their economic power, depends very much upon the
individual personality and the circumstances of their lives.
Those who do not live in the town cannot play much part
in local politics.

Political power means the ability to enforce sanctions
which derive, ultimately, from the laws of the state, that is,
through the institutions recognised in those laws. These are
various and relate to such matters as municipal government,
the organisation of Justice, the constitution of the Civil
Guard, the syndicates, and so forth.

Power also derives from medicine. The doctor, the vet
and the chemist possess power, since, quite apart from the
official documents which may require their signature, they
have the monopoly of services which people need. In the same
way the priest is an important member of the ruling group.
He can appeal to the religious conscience of those who are

i Maclver, The Web of Government (1947), p. 82.

68 STATUS AND AGE

sensitive to such an appeal. He alone has power to perform
the rites of the Church.

The members of the ruling group share certain common
standards of conduct, the most important of which is their
adherence to the Church. These standards are necessary to
the cohesion of the group and are never questioned by its
members. For power, while it enables those who possess it to
influence the conduct of others, makes them at the same time
more sensitive to the sanctions of others. An anti-clerical
schoolmaster or doctor would not hold his job down for long.
A landowner who aroused the antagonism of the other mem
bers of the group, particularly the municipality, would find
himself at a disadvantage in a number of situations, which
will become evident later. Equally, the landowner who
antagonises the pueblo can get no good labour. (There have
been instances of this in Alcald.) But the old man who lives
in a cave, begs and eats berries, can say what he likes,
provided he does not forfeit the charity of all.

The ruling group owes its integration, then, to its structural
situation, not to the possession of overt characteristics. It is
significant that no word exists in current usage in Alcald to
designate this group of people genetically precisely because
they are not a class but a group. When they are referred to it
is by the nebulous title "los que mandan en el pueblo"
("those who command in the pueblo"). There is no uni
formity among them either of dress, education, birth, wealth
or way of life. This is made plain by a consideration of the
ways in which the different elements of the community are
differentiated.

First, dress. There is a clear distinction to be made between
working-clothes and smart clothes. The aspect of the pueblo
on a festive day is quite different from its usual appearance.
There are few men, then, who do not dress in "urban"
clothes : cloth suit, leather shoes, collar and tie. Those who
live in the valley keep their festive clothes in their house in
the pueblo. They never wear them in the country, but they
wear them in Alcald for special occasions and for courting,
and they would not go shopping to Ronda if they could not
wear therh, for the Andalusian is extremely sensitive in
matters of appearance.

STATUS AND AGE 69

The sombrero de ala ancha, or wide-brimmed hat, is an
article both of festive and also working-dress. It bears a
particular association with ganado (livestock) and is always
worn with the short jacket and tight trousers of cattle herds
men. But bullfighters wear it in this way for charity fights
out of season. It is worn as working-dress by shepherds whom
its brim protects both from sun and rain. In wet weather a
mackintosh cover is put on. It is worn by many farmers also,
though agricultural labourers tend to wear berets or soft hats
instead. The landowner also wears it if he goes into the
country, particularly if he goes on horseback. Yet it is worn
without a tie for it must never be worn with a tie on
festive occasions by poor people as part of their smart dress,
and it is also worn by the sophisticated at fairs and bullfights.
(To wear it at the bullfight is the mark of the enthusiast.)
The professional and administrative classes do not wear it,
for it implies an association with ganado which in them would
appear pretentious. It is because of the associations of the
feria (the festival, fair and cattle-market) with the spirit of
merry-making that it is the theatrical dress of flamenco
singers and dancers.

Apart from the occupational nature of working-dress which
distinguishes the manual workers, distinction of the degree of
importance of a man is not easily made. Few of the members
of the ruling group wear ties every day ; the majority do not
shave every morning. Some of them wear berets. In general,
the distinction which in summer strikes the eye in matters of
dress is not between persons of different social category of the
pueblo, so much as that between persons of the pueblo and
summer visitors. In dress the professional men vary between
the fashions of the summer visitors and those of the leading
families of the pueblo.

Nor does the female dress reveal any clearer distinctions.
As with the men, those who work are clearly distinguished on
working-days. But on festive days the young all struggle to
array themselves more splendidly than the rest, and some
idea can be gained of the economic position of the family
from the quality of their clothes. Hair-styles are hardly
significant, unless the tightly waved permanente be taken to
mark a lack of sophistication. No women ever wear hats. For

70 STATUS AND AGE

church all wear the small black lace vdo in which a certain
variation can be detected as to size and quality. Elderly
women all dress in black. Just as for fairs men don the wide-
brimmed hat of the ganadero 3 so girls put on the spotted and
flounced cotton dress of the gypsies. But, today, at the fair of
Alcald almost all the girls who do this are summer visitors
with the exception of a few small children whose adoring
parents wish to show them off.

There is certainly no lack of display, and the general
standard of dress reached is indeed quite remarkable, con
sidering the material possibilities of the people of Alcald. The
idea of display is formulated in the verb lucir, meaning
literally, to shine, thence to distinguish oneself or to show
something off. There is often a Cinderella who will not go to
the fair because she has nothing to show off, and will be put
to shame and made pitiful in front of her friends, But the
motives for showing off are not those which might be deduced
from the " theory of a leisure class". 1 The display is not
directed towards the object of differentiating oneself from
others considered of inferior social standing, and economic
differences do not give rise to differences of style. In the
small society where everyone is known personally there is
neither advantage nor need for visual differentiation as in the
anonymous society of the city. Here display aims at a differ
ent target, that of personal aesthetic triumph, the conquest
of admiration and the humiliation of one's equals.

The variation of speech and accent from one pueblo to
another has been mentioned already in Chapter I. There is
no variation in accent between persons of different social
position other than such as may be ascribed to education. All
the upper classes of Andalusia speak with a strong regional
accent. Education means the elimination of a number of
"rusticisms", 2 but the word "education" means a great
deal more in this community than book-learning, and refine
ment of manner and speech are things which may be found

1 See T. Veblen, The Th&ory of the Ldsun Class (New York, 1922).

2 Among the wealthy of the large towns are to be found those who affect a
vulgar mode of speech in order to stress their affiliation with the country,
landed property, bullfarms and old-established riches.

STATUS AND AGE 71

quite independently of schooling. This, however, is a matter
which cannot be objectively assessed, nor is illiteracy some
thing which can be measured statistically, though such
statistics are to be found in the municipal register and
statistics of illiteracy of the country are published. Over and
above the completely and self-confessed illiterates are those
who read and write with more or less fluency. The total
figure, though it represents only those of the adult population
of Alcald who have no pretensions to literacy, is worth
examining. Illiterates are found above all in the higher age
categories. The percentage among the over-sixties is very
high. Looked at from another angle the element which shows
the highest figure is that of old-fashioned farmers, for the
reason, perhaps, that they were more frequently raised upon
farms too distant for them to attend school. 1 Contemptuous
reference is often made to the lack of education of the farmers
of the lower valley, the richest area of the territory, and of
the wealthier flock-owners. Illiteracy is not therefore confined
to the economically weakest element of the community, and
does not appear to handicap the man who farms a single
farm.

These country-dwellers were not entirely denied the possi
bility of education, for the profession of ambulant teacher,
maestro rural, is an old-established one in the sierra. Men
whose qualifications extend little beyond a cursory know
ledge of the three R's visit the distant farms to give the
children lessons, and gain thereby a wage barely greater than
that of a labourer. Today in Alcala there are five men who
make their living in this way. If there are reasons to suspect
that their pains do not always lead to success, the existence
of such an institution does, at any rate, testify to the desire
and respect which the people of Alcala have for the accom
plishments of the mind.

The consideration to which a career entitles a person is far
greater than that which mere wealth can evoke. Within the
framework of the egalitarian values of the pueblo it supplies

* I am by no means convinced that the assumption made here is justified,
i.e. that illiterate people are those who were not taught as children to read and
write. It is quite possible that some who had acquired these arts at twenty had
lost them again through lack of practice by the age of sixty.

72 STATUS AND AGE

a reason for respecting a person in himself and not merely on
account of what are regarded as fortuitous circumstances,
that is to say., his possessions.

People assert that the courtesy title of Don is the privilege
of those who hold a university degree, who have a "career".
In practice the use is heavily influenced by other criteria,
such as age, wealth, appearance and occupation. Thus, very
few unmarried men are addressed as Don, until they reach
full middle-age, the exceptions being a young doctor, and
a young lawyer who is the Secretary of Justice. All four
schoolmasters are addressed as Don, but not the young man of
twenty who is schoolmaster in the school in the valley. The
priest is Don, but his brother who lives with him is not Don.
By no means all the ruling group are Don. Of the two Justices
of the Peace, one is rarely, the other never, Don. But the
corporal of the Civil Guard is sometimes Don, a gesture of
deference to his authority.

The circumstances in which the title may or may not be
used are of great significance. There is all the difference
between addressing a person directly and referring to him to
a third party. Who this third party is, is also important.
Official occasions again demand a distinct mode of speech.
In daily life all other categories are heavily influenced by the
respect which is felt for a person on account of his character.
A reluctance to refer to some of the resident landowners as
Don behind their backs is noticeable, even though they may
be persons of age holding important administrative posts.
The largest resident landowner called " el Senorito " is usually
called Don if referred to by his name, but his son, a young
man of twenty-six, never, either directly or indirectly. He is
called by his Christian name like any other member of the
pueblo.

While the title is freely accorded to those who are con
sidered to merit it (and the professional men are so con
sidered regardless of their popularity), a great deal of
resentment is directed against those who like to be called it
without the full conformity of the pueblo. The family of a
young and able business-man furnishes a case in point. His
father is commonly called Don Rodrigo, and the family first
came to live in the pueblo eight years ago. On one occasion

STATUS AND AGE 73

a craftsman and his friend, a small farmer, were overheard
discussing him : "He's no more Don than I am." " What is his
career I'd like to know?" "He's nothing but a silly old fool
who gives himself airs." "If he is Don Rodrigo then we're all
Don, I am Don Andres and you are Don Manuel." When
questioned about the son they firmly asserted that he would
never be called Don. Some of his employees refer to him as " el
Senorito Pepe", but otherwise no one calls him anything but
Pepe. He is married to a member of one of the leading
families of the pueblo and has considerable social ambition.
It remains to be seen whether the craftsman's assertion will
be disproved. When asked whether Fernando Pinas was
called Don when he was Mayor of Alcala they replied
that some addressed him like that, but only with their
tongue in their cheek to curry favour, for in those days
there were many in need of his favour. Today nobody
calls him Don. This, though he is one of the leading
personalities of the ruling group, and one of the largest
landowners.

The reason why such people can never be accorded the
title is because they are felt to be no different from others.
They are part of the pueblo. This is the point at which the
identity of the two distinct meanings of the word is demon
strated. As has already been stated, the pueblo is at the same
time the members of the community and also the people in
the sense ofplebs. If a person is raised to the status of a career
he no longer belongs entirely to Alcald but to the wider
community of the educated. * People no longer feel equal with
such a person. He is no longer judged by the same standards.
He is different. The title of Don is used, we may say, to
express recognition of this difference. But this difference has
nothing to do with blood, it is a question of a degree of refine
ment acquired through up-bringing and education, which
involves him in a different world and makes him a different
kind of person.

The title is also used in all official contexts, in legal docu
ments and on envelopes or on the town hall notice-board,
for any adult person. The state denies its competence to

i Cf. Blasco Ibanez, op. cit. The Anarchist preacher is addressed as "Don
Fernando" by the workers.

74 STATUS AND AGE

determine who is or is not to be called Don by calling every
one so. Or, expressed from the point of view of the pueblo,
when a person enters into relations with the world of "official
dom" he becomes a temporary member of the community
of the educated.

A word of prime importance to the question of social
distinction is Setter* Like the title Don, it is a term which
denotes respect or "social distance". In general, it is used as
a term of address to a stranger, or by children to adults, or
when receiving an order, or pompously for emphasis: "Si,
Senor ! " (" Yes, Sir ! ") . It is also used to address and to refer
to God. Its original meaning is seigneur. In everyday use it
indicates a person unknown or unnamed, or, as a specifically
descriptive term, a person-worthy-of-respect. Within the
pueblo it is used as a title for elderly persons-worthy-of-
respect It is prefixed to the Christian name in the same
manner as Don. Whereas the title Don is given to a person of
full social maturity, but differentiated from the pueblo by
status, the title Setter is given to members of the pueblo whose
maturity is past, and who have retired from active work.
There is no strict property qualification, but it is accorded
more freely to the successful old farmers than to people who
live in the pueblo. One must be a "fine old boy" to be given
it. Indigence, drunkenness or any serious moral shortcoming
disqualify one completely. The feminine form Senora (Sena)
appears to be bestowed a little more freely. In such contexts
it is used by persons of superior social status with a nuance of
condescension.

The diminutive of this word has different connotations.
There is, to begin with, Senorita meaning " Miss", but senorita
is at the same time the feminine ofsettorito and as such it may
be used to refer to a young married woman, Senorito is used as
a term of affectionate respect with reference to or in address
ing the young adult of superior status. Servants use it.
Employees sometimes use it. Gypsy beggars use it to any
person dressed in urban dress, for the attribution of youth
flatters, Using it carries an implication of subservience. It
can mean the most important person in a place, the boss,
provided he has the necessary status. As such it comes to be

STATUS AND AGE 75

the nickname of "el Senorito", the largest resident land
owner, the son of a former cacique.

It is a term which easily becomes sarcastic, so that it may
mean not only a "person worthy of respect" but also a
person with social pretensions. Used to denote a social
category it means the well-to-do without necessarily implying
any respect. "The senoritos of this place ", I was once told in
a town of another province, "are a rotten lot. They are
always putting their servant-girls in the family way, and
won't pay a decent wage to anybody." In this sense, as the
propertied people, it was used as a political weapon by
the Left, which coined the word senoritismo, the oppression of
the have-nots by the haves. The communist underground
propaganda discourses insistently on this theme.

In the widest sense it means a person who is not obliged
to work for his living, who wears a collar and tie all the time
and keeps his shoes clean. But it has not for that reason lost
its use as a term of respect. Maria la Castana, the widow of
a small tenant farmer, can tell a real senorito when she sees
one from one of those fellows who are just trying to look like
one "and there's a lot of them about these days!" you
can tell by the way they behave to people, she maintains. Do
they have to be born senoritos in order to be real senoritos?
She is not sure, but they have to be brought up as real senoritos
otherwise no amount of money can make them what they
are not.

How the behaviour of real senoritos varies from that of
those who do not deserve the appellation is not easily said.
The criteria are necessarily subjective, but an inclusive view
approximates to the following :

(1) The senorito has education and manners. He is not
rough.

(2) He is generous with money, even care-free. Mean
ness is the hall-mark of the nouveau-riche, it is thought, and
this view is expressed in the saying :

"Ni pidas a el que pidio
Ni sirvas a el que sirvi6."

" Neither beg of him who begged
Nor serve him who once served."

76 STATUS AND AGE

(3) He looks after his dependents and uses his influence
to protect them. He willingly accepts to be patron to them.

(4) He does not tolerate humiliation nor accept to be
put under specified obligations to people who are not also
senoritos. He will not permit such people to buy him a
drink. He knows how to be friendly, simpatico, and to talk
with people on an equal footing, yet without relinquishing
his status. He uses the second person singular towards his
dependents "with whom he has confidence 53 and provided
they are of his generation or younger, but he does not
allow them to use anything but the third person to him.

(5) His family does not observe all the customs of the
pueblo (e.g. in the naming of children and their upbring
ing, etc.),

It can be seen that ideally the distinction between the
senoritos and the pueblo is very clear. In practice, of course,
it is not in the least so. There are many marginal cases on
which judgements vary. The smorito who is thought not to
be a real senorito is nevertheless treated as such on the surface.
Even "el Senorito" comes in sometimes for a piece of adverse
comment behind his back and is compared unfavourably
with the summer visitors. It is hard to find the personification
of an ideal in someone who is always there.

Brenan has observed that the anti-clericalism of the
Anarchists was in part inspired by the feeling that the Church
had betrayed the ideals of Christianity. l Analogously, anti-
senorito talk often rings with a nostalgia for the betrayed ideal
of aristocracy.

How far do these facts assist in answering the questions put
forward on page 34 ?

The distinction between pueblo (plebs) and the sefioritos has
been made. Otherwise the pueblo has been treated as a
culturally homogeneous whole. Is such treatment justified ?
To begin with, it has been shown that there is no "hierarchy
of status groups". There is a differentiation of status relating
to upbringing and education and this is, by and large, what
is called a distinction of social class, but this is not clearly
defined nor does it correspond to similar differentiations in

i 0/. tit. 9 p 191.

STATUS AND AGE 77

political power or wealth. There are certain cultural varia
tions whereby la gentefina (fine folk) are differentiated from
the pueblo, but these relate to territorial horizon as well as
to standard of education. The pueblo recognises that the
indigenous senoritos are lessjinos than the fine folk of the big
towns. In their cultural standards the intermediate position
of the senoritos of Alcald, devolving from their dual association
with the pueblo and with the upper class of the province, is
manifest. Within the pueblo they tend to conform to the
cultural standards of the pueblo, which are limited in
material matters such as housing and food and which in
matters of dress, or recreations, offer them no incentive to
differentiate themselves. When they go away, on the other
hand, they tend to conform to the standards of those whom
they regard as their equals.

When the word pueblo is used it means all those who be
long to the pueblo except where it is used in juxtaposition to
the senoritos. When there is an assembly all the pueblo
including the senoritos are there by right. There are no recrea
tional societies, no associations 1 which have membership,
no formalised groups. The cafes and bars tend to have their
clientele but they are by no means exclusive, and if a customer
is habitual it is because of convenience of location, taste for
the company or for the particular wine sold there. During
the festivals the mayor and his friends make a point of holding
their reunions in a different establishment each time in order
that the profits of the occasion shall not go all into one
pocket. The need to form exclusive groups is not felt, and
indeed such a segmentation would run contrary to their
feeling of what the pueblo is. Co-membership of the pueblo
provides an adequate basis for social relations with any other
member. Other than that accorded to the "authorities"
there is no precedence, overt or tacit, of the nature of status.
In the processions the children go first, followed by the
women, rich and poor intermingled without distinction. The
authorities follow the priest, though without any determined

i There were political parties before the Civil War, but they cannot be said
within the pueblo to have corresponded to status groups. An exception is the
casino, whose relationship to the ruling group differentiates it from the pueblo
(plebs). The religious societies are in no sense corporate groups. They never
meet.

jQ STATUS AND AGE

order. The men follow. There are no fixed places in church.
Where the pueblo divides up, it divides along the lines of
sex and age-differentiation only.

There is one exception to this. Upon a certain day in the
year the pueblo differentiates itself geographically into
the upper half of the town and the lower half. This day is the
Monday of Our Lady of Carmen which is celebrated by a
bull-festival 1 A bull is let out into the streets with a long rope
tied to its horns, and the young men of the pueblo run in
front of it showing off their bravery. A group of youths clings
to the far end of the rope, making it fast to the iron bars of
the windows, so that when the bull turns and charges them
they can escape by fleeing into the house or by climbing
clear of his horns. A traditional rivalry exists in this connec
tion between the young men of the two halves of the town,
which is demonstrated in the endeavours of each faction to
take the bull to its quarter and keep it there as long as possible.
The two factions are called "Jopones" and "Jopiches", the
exaggerative and the diminutive of the wozdjopo meaning a
tail. The Jopones are those of the upper town and pride them
selves on being tougher than the Jopiches, perhaps because
of the greater number of shepherds among them who are
supposed to be rougher than the rest, perhaps because the
majority of the senoritos live in the lower town. The distinc
tion does not correspond to any clear division. For though
th^re is an implication that it was once based upon the
rivalry between the rich quarter and the poor quarter and
in the centre of the poor quarter was the Asamblea, the tradi
tional meeting-place of the workers rivalry itself implies a
relationship of equality, and an account of the festival
written at the end of the last century indicates that difference
in wealth between the two quarters was not significant. The
antagonism between the two quarters once extended into
everyday life, and the struggle for possession of the bull may
be supposed to have grown up during the period when feeling
was most violent. The terms are still used today to describe a
person of one quarter or the other, but, save among the

i "Un toro a la cuerda." A similar festival took place until recently and in a
number of other Spanish pueblos. Louis Dumont, La Tarasque (Paris, 1951),
p. 195, describes a similar festival in Tarascon, France.

STATUS AND AGE 79

children, the rivalry is gone. The pueblo is much smaller
than it was formerly, and the antagonism never possessed
anything like the seriousness of inter-pueblo feeling.

Geographical proximity, neighbourhood, is the principle
according to which fission takes place because it is the prin
ciple on which integration is based. There is no ec corporate
consciousness" attaching today to any unit smaller than the
pueblo. Many facts are related to this truth. Here one only
will be mentioned. Apart from the economic instability
which is endemic, the inheritance law makes it impossible
for the family's standard of wealth to be maintained with any
regularity by the children. The economic unit breaks up on
the death of the father if there are more than a few children,
so that the family cannot be said to possess much permanency
as a property-owning institution. (The senoritos^ in that
standards of class are here involved, face the greatest difficulty
with regards this problem. Their families are noticeably
smaller than the farmers 3 .) A certain amount of marriage
takes place between farmers 3 families with the motive of
maintaining property, but they show little sign of developing
a corporate consciousness. They feel superior, but only on
account of their wealth personally superior to those who
are less wealthy, but the comment of one person on another
is never related to class, because the conception of superiority
derived from membership of a class does not exist in the
pueblo.

At the same time there are possibilities that children of
the pueblo will acquire superior status. The two daughters of
one not very large farmer go to school at a convent in Ronda
where the children ofsenoritos go. They are his only children.
The son of one very small farmer is being educated for the
priesthood. Attempts were made to find a patron for the clever
young boy of a miller so that he could have further education.
There is a very intelligent young man who owns a herd of
goats with his brother but hopes to make a career for himself
in the police. A change of status, as opposed to making
money, whatever the means, involves leaving the pueblo and
seeking a place in the wider society of Spain. Many have
succeeded in this as the pages of Spanish history will testify,
but many fail. And among the failures must be counted those,

80 STATUS AND AGE

not to be found in pueblos such as Alcala, whose fidelity to
their ambitions is maintained even after its economic founda
tions have collapsed. The gentleman, too proud for manual
work and too poor to eat, dates from at least as far back as
Cervantes. l

This description has been written so far from the point of
view of the pueblo (plebs) . Seen from that of the senoritos of
the pueblo it is a different picture. It has been shown that on
one side they are part of the pueblo and on the other they are
not. The world to which this second side belongs is far more
attractive to them, and that is why many have gone to live
in the big towns where social life has more to offer a person
who has money to spend. Where the forces of the pueblo do
not operate, attitudes of "competitive class feeling" emerge.
Display begins to take on the function of social differentia
tion. The summer visitors are mostly aware of their superior
social status or of a status which they themselves feel to be
superior to the leading families of Alcald. They are richer,
they live in more important places, they take a holiday for
the summer. c< There are only", one of them said, "three
families of this pueblo whom you could call 'society'."

At this level a word makes its appearance whose meaning
is not understood by the majority of the pueblo cum it
means socially pretentious, affecting a refinement (and there
by claiming a social status) which one cannot justify. This
word is the weapon with which the upper-class families of
Spain have, during the last century, defended themselves
against the claim to equal status of those whom they re
garded as their inferiors. The social setting where this word
appears exhibits resemblances to the " open-class structures"
described by modern American sociologists; appearance
kept up at great cost in order to qualify for a social status
which can barely be afforded. Pio Baroja, in Las noches del
buen retirO) describes a Madrid family who shut up their house
in the summer in order that people should think they had
gone on holiday. Yet even though resemblances exist it

l This "social mobility" is expressed in an Andalusian saying:
"el, tendero "He a shop-keeper

el hijo caballero His son a gentleman

el nicto pordiosero." His grandson a beggar."

STATUS AND AGE 8 1

would be a mistake to assume that the systems are identical
and that the feelings and motives of the middle classes of
Andalusia are the same as those of any other part of the
world. We are not concerned here to fit the data provided by
Alcala into the definitions derived from the study of other
societies, but rather to formulate our own principles of social
structure which shall have validity here, and these can only
be discovered by considering matters such as status within
the totality of human relations. Without an examination of
the reciprocal interaction of the members of the different
status levels and how they combine within the same society,
the nature of the system necessarily remains obscure, and so
far only the outward characteristics of status and social class
have been discussed. 1 In order to define the relationship of
pueblo to senoritos in structural terms, it will be necessary
first to examine the categories of sex and age which cross-cut
the distinctions of status, and then to describe the political
structure of the community.

The title Don is not given to young men, I have said, and
the title Senor is given only to the elderly. Middle-class
society tends to use the title Don towards its elderly and
respectable members in the same way as the pueblo uses
Senor , but the two forms of address are not otherwise similar.
Yet both are expressions of respect. Respect, however, is
shown in a diversity of situations and must first of all, if all
the uses of these titles are to be explained, be distinguished
as "respect for undefined standing" and "respect for
superior standing". Undefined standing demands respect
since it is potentially superior standing. Hence the official use
of Don. The unknown person is called Senor and is referred to
as "Senor So-and-so" because his standing is not recognised

1 Cf. T. H. Marshall, op. cit., examines the cuirent definitions of social class
and concludes (p. 106) : "I prefer to stress the institutional character of classes
and to think in terms of a force rather than of groups."

It is perhaps a mistake, in any case, to attempt to formulate a definition of
social class which shall have validity in any society, since only in relation to the
total social system does a social class come to possess its particular characteristics.
Put more precisely, the institutions of a society are functions of the total social
structure. A biology which sought to furnish a definition of the foreleg which
would be equally valid for the horse and for the lobster is obviously absurd. In
sociology such methodological errors ar less apparent.

P.S. 6

82 STATUS AND AGE

by both speaker and listener. The title might be said to
express the "social distance" dependent on the status of
stranger. Since each is stranger to the other the title is used
reciprocally. " Formal language " is everywhere respectful be
cause it aims at maintaining, or establishing, this kind of
social distance. One can see, then, that social distance in
dicated by the form of address Senor may be related to:

(a] Non-membership of the category formed by acquain
tanceship, by means of which status is recognised.

(V) Superior social status, as to employer or senorito.

(c) Superior standing in the hierarchy of age, the child-
adult relationship or the adult-elder relationship.

It is a commonplace of social anthropology that full adult
standing is only attained with marriage and parenthood.
Here, the married and unmarried are not separated formally
on any occasion. Certain activities are thought to be proper
to unmarried people, but it is common to discover a married
person among the group, or vice versa. "Standing derived
from age" is not formalised, and, though marriage certainly
affects a person's standing, the variation of age at which
people marry and the existence of bachelors of advanced age
make any such formalisation impossible. l

The standing of full adult of the pueblo is no t t superior to
anyone but the children and youths. Full membership of
the pueblo entitles to nothing more than equality. Therefore,
the idiom of manners is generally very informal. Persons of
both sexes use the second person singular to one another, and
the respectful third person is reserved only for the parents and
persons of greater age.

Respect for the parents is strong, and children always
address their parents in the third person, save among the
modern-minded senoritos. Boys do not smoke or drink in the
presence of their fathers. The respect for the elderly derives
partly from their similarity with the parents, but also from
the respect which the younger person paid to the elder when
he was still a child. If they work together, which necessarily

i Boys do, in fact, sometimes marry before going to do their military service
though this is not well regarded. Among the sefioritos they must wait until they
have finished their * ' career ' ' , i.e. the s tudies for it, before they think of marriage.

STATUS AND AGE 8<*

entails a relationship of equality, then the respect paid to the
elder tends to disappear. But by the time a man has reached
full adulthood (around the age of thirty) the parents and
their contemporaries are verging on retirement. Retirement
in this community of, traditionally, poor tenant farmers and
day-labourers means becoming an economic drag on the
family and an idler who no longer fits directly into the net
work of reciprocal services, but also a person who is privileged
not to work. It means on the one hand a fall in practical
importance, and on the other, the attainment of the state of
fulfilment for which his life has been lived. These old men
and women who have successfully reached elderhood and
have retained the respect of the pueblo, become the guardians
of tradition and the old-fashioned ways, and are called
"Sefior Juan" or <c Sen ? Andr<". Their loss of material
importance is compensated by a gain in moral importance.
They incarnate the goal which everyone would reach.

Status differences are defined, then, by various criteria and
are appreciated in different ways by different people in
different situations. Many factors enter into the establishment
of the degree of prestige necessary in order to be called Don,
but what is particularly significant for our understanding of
the nature of status in this society is the importance in
relation to it of age. This cross-cutting of the status category
by the age category reveals that social status differentiates a
persoh from the pueblo, not from birth, not even when he
reaches manhood, but when he reaches the age to play an
effective part in the affairs of the pueblo. The difference be
tween the quality of respect derived from status in Alcala
and in the conservative peasantry of northern Europe, in
western France for example or in western England, is already
clear to anyone acquainted with the latter. I suggest that
the quality of respect attached to status deriving from a
monocratic social structure, such as the feudal system, differs
from that of Alcala on account of the uniqueness of the
patrician in the locality. The lord of the manor is a symbol of
the whole community, the senorito is not. He is not a being
differentiated by nature and by his unique relationship to the
community, but only by accomplishments and circumstances.

CHAPTER VI

The Sexes
(i) Courting : the values of the Male

THE CATEGORIES discussed so far have not taken into con
sideration the dichotomy of the sexes. The analysis of this
facet of the social structure comprises in the first place the
institutions and behaviour in which they are differentiated,
and in the second the institutions and behaviour in which
they are united.

As soon as they can talk children become conscious of the
sex to which they belong. Their membership of one category
or the other is continually stressed in speech. Their behaviour
is applauded or condemned by reference to rules expressed in
generalisations upon the correct conduct for little boys or
little girls. " Little girls don't do that", "What a pretty little
boy ! " etc. The identification of the individual child with one
sex or the other is reinforced at every point by adults who
see the child not only as he is but also as he will become, a
man or woman. Children are encouraged from an early age
to imitate adults of the same sex. The small girl follows the
mother or elder sister about the house with a small broom in
her hand while she is still too young to be of any effective
assistance. At four years old, the little boy may already be
seen pasturing a piglet which he controls by m'eans of a string
attached to its hind leg. By the time he is nine he goes out
with his whip and zdea (sheep-skin) to spend the day pastur
ing animals. When the child plays in the street it is with a
group of his own sex. When at six he goes to school it is to a
boys' or girls' school taught by an adult of his own sex. The
school in the valley is an exception to this since there is only
one teacher, but it is a rare exception, for elsewhere the
schools are all situated in the pueblos. Education, whether in
school or at home, separates the sexes, for the tasks which the

COURTING : THE VALUES OF THE MALE 85

child will perform, the norms of behaviour to which it will
submit, and the values which it will adopt, differ according
to sex. Most tasks are the prerogative either of man or of
woman, and there are few examples of persons who undertake
those considered to be proper to the other sex. The only
occupation which is pursued equally by both sexes is that of
shop-keeping.

The role of women, as in all societies, centres upon the
home. All work to do with the home, the care of children
and clothes is theirs. Of the animals, only chickens and
rabbits fall within their province. Girls may sometimes be
seen pasturing goats, but this is only because the family is
poor and there is no male child of the appropriate age. The
matanza, the killing of the household pigs, shows a clear
differentiation of the roles of the two sexes. It is something of
a celebration and relatives who no longer form part of the
household are often present. Some skill and experience is
required in killing, and, if no member of the family possesses
it, a son-in-law or uncle, known for his ability in this respect,
may be invited. This would avoid having to employ a pro
fessional ec matador" (meaning in this instance, "pig-killer",
not bullfighter) . The men prepare the patio, light fires to
heat the water, rig up the sling, catch the pig, hold it down
upon the table, and the matador cuts its throat. The blood is
collected in a basin which it is the task or privilege of the lady
of the house to hold and stir. When the pig is dead, the men
clean the hair and dirt off with scrapers, while the women
serve them, pouring the boiling water on to the carcass. The
men then sling the animal up by its hind legs, and the
matador butchers it. The role of the men ends when they
have borne the meat into the house. There the women clean
it and make sausages and prepare the meat in other ways.
The men perform one other task, the preparation of the
hams. Though this is not clearly defined as men's work, it
requires a certain amount of knowledge, and the matador
supervises the pressing of the veins in order to extract the
blood. If this is not done properly, the hams will go bad. The
hams are the most valuable part of the pig and are sold for
money, though one may be kept for the use of the household.
The money recovered in this way serves to finance the next

86 THE SEXES

year's pigs. This division of labour is not governed by any
recognised rules ; indeed, any attempt to discover a formu
lated role of conduct meets here with the response, all too
frequent in this society: "Each one does as he thinks fit", or
"Each family has its way of doing it" "Gada pais su ley y
cada casa sus costumbres", the saying goes ("Each country
has its law and each house its customs 55 ). Men's and
women's tasks devolve "naturally" from the conception
which people have of what men or women do best. No taboo
steps in to prevent women from scraping or men from making
sausages, and they may well be asked to assist in the role
normally filled by the opposite sex, if another pair of hands is
needed. They would not thereby be thought to be u effem
inate" or "unfeminine", it would simply not be expected
that they do it very well, and, since they have not been
brought up to do it, the expectation would be justified.

In Alcald women do not normally work in the fields for
hire, though it is common in the plains of Andalusia for girls
and even elderly women to go out in parties to weed upon
the large farms. They are most commonly seen there working
separately from the men. It is said that once the women
worked in the fields in Alcald because there was more work
than there is today. There are today only four women in
the pueblo who go out for hired work. On the other hand, it
is quite frequent for wives or daughters of poor families to
help in work upon the family plot of land, weeding or
harvesting, or sowing the seed. Women are most commonly
seen working in this way in the tenajos, and the spraying and
harvesting of grapes is mainly women's work. There is one
form of work, however, in which a great number of women
take part, and for gain : the olive-harvest. This takes place in
the autumn when the men are busy ploughing. It is paid as
piece-work. Teams are formed among families and friends,
four or five people in each, including children of almost any
age. One at least must be a man or growing lad, for his role
is to climb into the trees and beat the branches with a slender
pole. The women and children collect the olives from, the
ground.

When women desire to make money, either to supplement
their husband's income or because they have no husband,

COURTING : THE VALUES OF THE MALE 87

they do so by performing other women's work for them:
domestic work, sewing, fetching water, looking after chil
dren ; or by petty trading.

These generalisations, even were they one hundred per
cent accurate, would describe a differentiation which is
purely ideal. The realism of these people quickly admits
exceptions. Necessity forces people into activities which they
do not undertake from free choice. There is a girl who works
with her father and brothers at the heavy work of picking
esparto grass "as if she were a man". And yet she remains
in all other ways entirely feminine. "What a shame!"
people say, "for she is a pretty girl and look at her hands
now. They are like a man's."

It is not only occupation which differentiates the sexes. In
recreation the same dichotomy is maintained. Women do not
go into cafes but stay in their houses where they visit one
another. Women do not smoke. The rich people of the big
towns differ from them in these ways, and the families of the
senoritos once again demonstrate their intermediate position.
Though they are never seen smoking, they will on feast-days
make up parties of both sexes at a table outside the casino.
For the women of the pueblo the shops, the fountains and
above all the wash-house or the stream-bank, where washing
is also done, are meeting-places, so that being in the pueblo
all day they do not have the same incentives for social
reunion in the evening, quite apart from the household duties
which attend them on the return of their menfolk from work.
The extreme cleanliness in regard to clothing, which is
characteristic of Andalusia, is not unrelated to the need for
someone from each household to go daily to the wash-house,
if the family is to keep well informed upon the issues of the
day.

In relation to religion the sexes are again separated. In
festive processions they walk apart. The funeral is followed
normally only by the menfolk once it leaves the church The
seating in the church reflects the same division. Men, un
accompanied by their wives, stand at the back, while the
women and those who stay beside their family, sit on the
seats in front. Some men prefer to remain apart from their
womenfolk and to stand with their own sex at the back.

88 THE SEXES

A spirit of solidarity exists between persons of the same
sex in the face of the other, which is illustrated in the sympa
thetic attitude of women towards a woman whose husband
causes her distress or among men whose employer, a lady, is
difficult. Generalisations of a critical nature concerning the
opposite sex are often made when persons of one sex are
gathered together, or in mixed gatherings when someone
wishes to adopt a tone of humorous raillery towards the other
sex.

The behaviour of the unmarried people during the evening
paseo (stroll) accentuates the solidarity of the sexes, though
not in such a way that can easily be reduced to generalisation.
Groups of up to five or six girls walk together with arms
linked. The boys eye them as they pass or walk in twos and
threes behind them. Sometimes a boy is attached to the end
of the line of girls by virtue of a specific relationship to one
of the girls, brother or fianoi But in general, fiances walk by
themselves in pairs on the road at the entrance to the town.

Yet this solidarity does not exclude either quarrelling or
fighting among themselves. Occasional fights among women
break out, usually at the fountains where, particularly in the
summer when the water supply is less plentiful, it may be
necessary to wait for some time in order to fill a pitcher. 1
Fights cannot take place between the sexes, except of course
within the institution of marriage, though quarrelling occurs
over money and business. When Diego Perez' aparcera, a
woman who owned two hectares of cultivable land, de
faulted on her obligations, he took her to law. Had it been a
man he would, he asserted, have beaten him up instead.

There are few situations in which persons of different sexes
collaborate outside the family. A good deal of chaff passes
where groups of young people of opposite sex confront one
another, but there is no camaraderie. Friendship is essentially
a relationship between persons of the same sex. So, a man
visiting a friend on a farm may often be seen to shake hands
with the male members of the family and not with the

i The fights arise over the order or precedence which is "first come, first
served" unless a person renounces her right, yet it is typical that people in this
society seldom form queues ; they are far too much alive to the presence of
others to need such a demonstrative method of maintaining the order.

COURTING : THE VALUES OF THE MALE 89

female. For to do so might be to demand an intimacy with
the family which he did not possess.

The only person whose position in relation to the sexual
dichotomy is somewhat mitigated is the elderly woman.
When past the age of sexual attraction her behaviour tends
to become freer with regards the other sex. Widowhood
brings, for the first time, full legal and economic responsibility
as well as the greater influence which she enjoys within the
family. Her role in business is more active, though she is not
in general reckoned by men to be any good at it. The word
viuda (widow) is common in the titles of business enterprises
in Andalusia. At this age a dominance formerly dormant is
apt to appear. There was even one old woman who used once
to play cards and drink wine with the men in the caf<6. She
was considered eccentric and disgraceful, but nothing was
done to prevent her.

To attempt to define the standards of behaviour between
the sexes in terms of prohibitions and obligations would be
difficult. Conversation is free and no subject is taboo, pro
vided it is not discussed indelicately in the presence of the
opposite sex. The restraints in behaviour proceed from
the conceptions which the situation bring into play. In the
organisation of conduct, not only in situations where a
member of the opposite sex is present, a primordial impor
tance attaches to the ideal types of either sex. It would be
tedious to attempt to enumerate the moral qualities attach
ing to manliness or womanliness for in general they are the
same as in our own traditional culture: "Knights are bold
and ladies are fair. 5 ' Courage and strength are emphasised
as male attributes. Beauty and frailty are for women. The
saying: "El hombre como el oso, mientras mas feo mas
hermoso" ("Man like the bear, the uglier the handsomer")
expresses this aspect of manliness, while the grace of the
women in carriage and gesture reveals the value which is
given to delicacy and beauty in the feminine ideal. The fact
that moral judgements are expressed in terms of beauty and
ugliness, the idiom of the feminine ideal, is a point whose
significance will be brought out later.

The quintessence of manliness is fearlessness, readiness to
defend one's own pride and that of one's family. It is ascribed

THE SEXES

directly to a physical origin and the idiom in which it is
expressed is frankly physiological. To be manly is to have
co jones (testicles), and the farmyard furnishes its testimony
in support of the theory. Castrated animals are manso (tame),
a castrated ox is not dangerous like a bull. A castrated dog,
it is thought, will always run away from an uncastrated one.
A man who fails to show fearlessness is lacking in manliness
and, by analogy, castrated or manso. While it is not supposed
that he is literally devoid of the male physiological attributes,
he is, figuratively, so. That part of his person does not possess
the moral qualities properly associated with it.

The bullfight is an occasion when the full figurative force
of this conception is displayed. The bull which is manso is
booed from the ring. The dead bull which has shown courage
is applauded as his carcass is dragged out. The bullfighter,
even though he may be lacking in skill and grace, is not
despised as long as he is still able to show that he has valour.
Yet if he fails or fears to kill the bull he is utterly disgraced.
For the essence of the bullfight is the ritual revindication of
manliness and if this value is debased then the whole human
species is defiled. The virility of the bull has not passed into
its slayer. The champion who took the ring to redeem
through his bravery the sacred quality of male pride has
failed and the crowd greets him with contemptuous fury.

The terms relating to this conception are heard not only
in the bullring but continually in everyday life. Thus, for
example, in a quarrel concerning water-rights, one hortelano
(garden-cultivator) said to the other, who had given him
offence by repeatedly failing to relinquish the water at the
appointed hour :

"Estare en el ca'o a la hora de cortar y si tienes cojones
ven." (" When the hour comes to cut off your water and send
it down to my kuerta I shall cut it off myself [the place where
the water is changed lies inside the other hortelano" s huertd\ and
try to stop me if you dare!" Literally: "If thou hast cojones,
come! 35 It is a challenge to fight The implication is that
if the other does not come, it is either that his antagonist
is right and he admits that he must cut off his water at that
hour, or alternatively that he has no cojones , that is to say that
he is lacking in the full social personality of an adult male,

COURTING: THE VALUES OF THE MALE 91

and is a person who can be overridden with impunity. In
fact, by the time the challenge is issued there is already a
dispute of some standing. The challenge is intended to settle
the question of water-rights neither by law, nor by an appeal
to force, for it settles nothing if the other hortelano comes and
they fight. To be beaten in a fight does not prove lack of
courage (any more than the bullfighter is disgraced if he is
carried wounded from the ring. He is only disgraced if he is
physically able, but lacks the courage, to kill the bull). The
challenge is intended to settle the matter, because the
hortelano stakes his social personality on the issue. The other
man knows that he is in the wrong in fact and under those
conditions he will not come, for if there is a fight the matter
is likely to be brought before the law and his fault will be
displayed; but having failed to come, he cannot then con
tinue to steal his neighbour's water without admitting that
he lacks manliness and was too frightened to uphold his
rights openly, that he is a sneak-thief. The challenge served
therefore to force a renunciation from the other hortelano of
his claim. The social significance of the conception in relation
to the political structure and a later chapter will discuss
this resides in this: that a man who loses his manliness,
forfeits his standing as a full adult male and through this
loss of prestige he loses his value in the system of co-operation.

The word which serves literally to translate manliness
(hombria) also contributes to the same conception :

"The modern race is degenerate/' said a friend once, "in
the days of our grandfathers there was more manliness than
today." To be "muy hombre" is to have an abundance of
that moral quality which we have been discussing, and,
through it, to command the respect of one's fellows.

Other words which might be discussed if the length of this
chapter permitted are : soberbia and orgullo which express the
idea of excessive self-regard, and amorpropio and honor which
are intimately connected with manliness. Pundonoroso (meticu
lous as regards honour) is a popular epithet for bullfighters.

Clearly, such a conceptual evaluation of sexual virility
leads to a certain proclivity to justify manliness literally, and
the moral precepts taught in education tend to be out
weighed by the desire for such justification. Success with

g 2 THE SEXES

women is a powerful gratification to the self-esteem of the
Andalusian. The appreciation of feminine beauty and the
attitude of ready courtship which it inspires are expressed
in the piropo, a word which means literally a ruby and also
means a compliment paid to a lady. It is a tribute paid
disinterestedly to one whose presence is a source of joy and,
theoretically at any rate, without any ulterior motive. It may
be paid publicly to an unknown lady as she passes down the
street, for it requires no response from her, and the freedom
and charm of such a custom has done much to recommend
the cities of Andalusia to the pretty tourist. Opportunities
for this kind ofpiropo barely exist in the pueblo where every
one is known, but an appreciation of feminine attractiveness
is nevertheless not scant in Alcala. The restraints upon the
sexually aggressive behaviour of men derive, it appears, from
sanctions of a social nature rather than from the prohibitions
of the individual conscience. However, before considering
them we do well to turn to the institutions and behaviour in
which the sexes are united.

There are situations in everyday life in which the category
of sex is overruled by the categories of age or social status.
The respect due to age or official position may go far, to
obliterate the significance of the criterion of sex in a specific
situation. The employees must obey the employer. The
patients must visit the doctor. Persons of different sex are
grouped together in juxtaposition to a person distinguished
from them by another category. But we are concerned here
to examine the relations between the sexes in situations
where the difference of sex is prerequisite to the relationship
of the participants.

The only institution which binds the sexes together is the
family. Primarily through marriage, but also through all the
relationships established by it. The form of the individual
family is continually changing in time, but we may take as
its starting-point the moment when the young person
abandons the companionship of his own sex and family, and
seeks to establish an individual relationship with a person of
the opposite sex and another family.

As the children grow up through adolescence the segrega-

COURTING '. THE VALUES OF THE MALE 93

tion of the sexes takes a new turn. The interest in the opposite
sex, unrelated hitherto to structural issues, begins to offer the
possibility of a lasting attachment which will alter the
standing of the couple radically. The boy deserts the "dirty-
story-telling" group of his fellows to go courting his girl.
Typically, the farming families of the valley, in contrast to
wealthier families of the pueblo, tend to form attachments of
a serious nature as early as fifteen to eighteen years, and to
regard each other thenceforward as novios (sweethearts), in
all the structural implications of the term. Novios are boy and
girl who will eventually be man and wife. The noviazgo
(courtship) is the prelude to the foundation of the family. It
is characteristically long in this society, always of a few years'
duration, though the length depends on the age of the parti
cipants and also on their economic position. Yet it should not
be regarded as a time of delay necessary for the establishment
of the economic foundations of the family, though it fulfils
that function. It is, rather, a steadily developing relationship
which ends in marriage. The degrees of seriousness which
attach to the term and give it at times a certain ambiguity
derive from the fact that it covers all the stages of courtship
from acquaintance to marriage. The dog which deserts the
farm at night in search of a bitch is said to go "buscando la
novia" ("searching for a novia") and the word may even be
used as a euphemism for a married person's lover. But the
term does not imply sexual intimacy when referring to
an established relationship between boy and girl. It is
thought proper to "respect" the woman who will be your
wife.

The first step in the formation of this relationship is made
when two young people leave the group in order to talk to
one another alone. They sit together or go for a walk apart
at some reunion, and this establishes a tentative beginning.
If this behaviour recurs then people say that they are "talking
to one another". The expression is important for it sums up
an aspect of the noviazgo. It covers all the period of informal
relations, extending from the first stage up till the "demand
for the hand". During this time the relationship deepens but
it is not yet irrevocable. Andr6s V., speaking of his former
novia said : "I spoke with her for twelve years and at the end

g4 THE SEXES

she turned out a whore." This period of twelve years was
exceptionally long owing to the fecklessness of the speaker
and his inability to follow with one job for any length of time.
When finally it became evident that he would not marry her,
he laid the blame on her.

The idea of this talking together is that the novios get to
know each other really well. The swiftness of the men to enter
a sexual relationship of no structural importance contrasts
with the care and delay with which they enter into matri
mony. But the nature of this talk, though it inevitably varies,
has a particular quality associated with courtship and which
serves to forward the purpose of that institution. Its purpose
is to bind the emotions of each to the other so securely that
the attachment will last a lifetime. The word camelar expresses
this kind of talk. It means and it is above all the man who
does the talking " to compliment", "to show gallantry to",
"to cause to fall in love". It is subsumed that adulation is
what causes people to fall in love, and this theory is found in
the secondary meaning of the word: "to deceive with
adulation". In this way the nominal form camelo comes in
the end to mean: "nonsense", "line-shooting", "a tall
story", "a tale which no one but a fool would be taken in
by". It is generally asserted that the essential attribute for
success with women is knowledge of how to talk to them. The
Don Juan must know how to deceive women with words.
However, in the case of courtship, this knowledge is put to
the service of matrimony. Love is an essential to a happy
marriage. And this is not only the opinion of romantic
senoritas. Andres el Bano, a hardheaded and intelligent small
farmer says: "You can see clearly which marriages were
made for money. They spend their whole lives quarrelling.
Sensible people marry for love." "How is a man to spend all
his life working for a woman if he has no c illusion' about
her?" For it is admitted that love is an illusion to fall out
of love is "quitarse la ilusi6n" ("to lose one's illusion").
But in marriage it is a necessary illusion. Each person knows
that he or she is not in fact the most wonderful person in the
world, but through camelos one can be made to feel it and to
feel the same about the other. The attachment formed by
this mutually inspired self-esteem bridges the gulf of sex-

COURTING I THE VALUES OF THE MALE 95

differentiation and forms the bond on which the family is
built, i

Courting takes place traditionally, in Andalusia, at the
reja (the grill which covers every window), and sentimental
numbers in the music-halls and the romantic postcards sold
on news-stalls portray a novio so ardent that only iron bars
can safeguard the purity of his love. The reality is less
theatrical, of course. In summer the novios can go for walks
together in the immediate vicinity of the town. To stray too
far, to be out after dark, excites suspicious comment in the
pueblo. Men who work and are away until dusk must do
their courting after nightfall, and upon Thursdays and Sun
days, the days for courting, boys will walk five or six miles,
even after the day's work, in order to keep a rendezvous with
a girl. Courting takes place at the girl's home. In Alcala the
doorway is used rather than the window. The visiting novio
stands on the threshold to talk to his girl while she stands
within. The girl's family pay no attention to the couple. If
the father comes out he pretends not to notice the novio.
Formerly it was considered an affront to the father to be seen
by him courting his daughter, the suitor would retire while
the father was in sight, but today he separates slightly from
the girl and lets go her hand. To hold hands is considered
proper behaviour for novios, save in the presence of a member
of her family.

When the couple decide to get married, the novio makes a
formal call upon the father of his novia in order to ask for her
hand. His mother calls upon her mother. The girl's father is
supposed not to answer but finally to allow himself to be
persuaded by her mother. When the request is granted the
young man hands over a sum of money 2 to the girl with
which she is to buy the requirements and furniture of the
house, and the wedding day is fixed usually for a date three
or four months ahead. The noviazgo then enters upon its final
stage and although it remains theoretically repudiable, it
would by now be extremely difficult for the novio to escape.

1 The word "ilusidn" is also used with conscious cynicism as a euphemism
for "lust".

2 In the case of farming families working as a centralised economic unit the
money is provided by the parents. This fact certainly contributes to the length
of courtships in the valley.

g6 THE SEXES

The parents have been brought in who will become linked in
the relationship of consuegro (co-parent-in-law). The money
has been paid. From that moment onwards the marriage is
assured. But until the demand for the hand the ties which
bind the two together are purely personal. The longer an
engagement lasts the stronger becomes the obligation to
marry, the worse a repudiation would appear if there were
no excuse for it but faithlessness. The danger is above all one
for the girl, because once a long engagement is broken off it
may not be easy for her to find a second suitor. The girl who
has had other novios is not sought after in the same way, for
the pride of the second novio must, to a greater or lesser
extent, be sacrificed if he is to follow in the footsteps of
another. If his novia were not a virgin it would make him a
retrospective cuckold, but even if this is not believed, she
would nevertheless be a less attractive proposition than
previously. Girls whose first engagement is broken off tend
to marry less easily subsequently.

It can be seen, then, that a girl of, say, twenty-five, whose
engagement falls through after a long courtship is in a
difficult position. If she has beauty or the prospect of in
heritance, she will have no difficulty in finding a new novio.
But if not, then she may have missed her opportunity. Andres
V/s novia remained a spinster. The moral feelings of the
pueblo supply a powerful sanction against such faithlessness,
for it involves the other members of both families. But
noviazgos are in danger above all when boys go to work
elsewhere for a time, and thereby escape the sanctions of the
pueblo. They sometimes do not return but break with the
novia of their home town and marry in the place where they
are working, where they may never admit having had a
previous novia, and where in any case the matter will have
little importance.

Faced with this danger for which, should it materialise, the
society offers no redress, it is not surprising to find the super
natural coming into play. There is a wealth of folklore which
relates to finding and holding novios 9 and much of the practice
of ihtsabia (wise woman) is devoted to resolving this problem.
The girl whose novio begins to look at other girls with interest,
visits her less regularly or writes to her less frequently, in

COURTING I THE VALUES OF THE MALE 97

short, gives her reason to believe that her hold over him is
weakening, may go to the sabia. For the sabia has power to
discover whether he still loves her or not, and is also able to
perform love-magic in order to secure his constancy. She
uses her love-magic, in this context, in support of the social
order. The love-magic which she is able to do for men is
thought to be employed for a more sinister purpose, which
will be discussed in Chapter XII.

p.s. 7

CHAPTER VII

The Sexes
(ii) Marriage and the Family

THE NATURE of the relationship established in courtship
changes fundamentally with marriage. Here ends the free,
personal, purely emotional bond. Marriage is part of the
overt structure of the community. Ties are created not only
between the novios but between persons who were previously
linked by no more than common membership of the pueblo,
if by that. Other ties are weakened by the formation of these
new ones. A new pattern of social relations emerges. The
system of naming serves well as an introduction to the
structure of the family.

The young woman adds her husband's patronym to her
own names. Let us say that he is : Manuel Castro Barea,' and
she: Ana Ruiz Menacho. Then she becomes: Senora de
Castro, or (her official form of address) Senora Dona Ana
Ruiz Menacho de Castro. The pueblo will continue to call
her Ana Ruiz without her husband's patronym.

The dual surnames are composed of the patronym of the
paternal and maternal grandfathers. In the same way, the
children of this marriage will bear the surnames Castro Ruiz.

Within the pueblo, but not among the families of the
senoritos, the children will be given Christian names in accord
ance with those of the grandparents ; so that if Manuel Castro
Barea is the son of Andres Castro and Maria Barea, then the
first child of each sex will be named (after the paternal
grandparents) Andres and Maria. The second child of each
sex will be named after its mother's parents. The grand
children are regarded as the descendants of one pair of
grandparents as much as of the other, and this accords
logically with the fact that they will have an equal claim
upon the inheritance of both.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

The law regards the family formed by this marriage as a
single unit with, in many aspects, a single legal personality. 1
The wife becomes subject to her husband's tutelage, for in
the eyes of the law he is the representative of this single
personality. The wife, if she is over twenty-one years of age,
will have become vecina (neighbour) of the pueblo. On her
marriage she ceases to be so but becomes instead casada, the
wife of a vecino. She also loses the right to control her worldly
property, though she can prevent her husband, who ad
ministers it as he wishes, from disposing of it. Yet she cannot
buy or sell property without his consent. The property of
both is regarded as a single unit which the husband controls.

Neither are likely to have any property from the parents
while the latter are still active, though the new couple may
be given charge of a farm or mill belonging to one of the
parents. If any dowry is given, which is rare, it represents
either an advance of the share of inheritance of the girl's
parents, or a free gift on their part which they can only make
from the property which they have acquired otherwise than
through inheritance. As a general rule property does not
pass until death.

The people of Alcald feel very strongly that every family
should possess its own house, and to marry without setting
up a separate home is regarded as a make-shift arrangement.
The poorer people are the more insistent upon this need for
independence, and the economic advantages which might
accrue from forming a larger family unit are offset by the
desire to be free of the tensions which make family life im
possible where there is more than one family in a house.
"Cada uno en su casa" ("Each one in his own house") that
is the only way to live peacefully. "Casada casa quiere"
("housewife wants house"), the saying rubs in the point.
For while a joint family might collaborate in spending
money, they cannot collaborate in making it, where each
man's income derives from a daily wage. The husband must
rent a house for his bride, and with the housing situation as
at present it is not an impossibility even for the landless day-
labourer. On the farms of the valley where family relation
ships are made clearer by geographical distance and

i Viz. Civil Code, Title IV, Chapters I and II.

100 THE SEXES

conservative tendencies, it can be seen that the marriage of a
child of either sex involves, or should involve, his withdrawal
from the family unit. The modern custom, followed only by
some is for parents to pay the sons who work upon their farm
a daily wage once they are fully grown up, in order that they
may start to prepare to found a family. But on some of the
farms they keep the family finances integrated until a son
marries, when he must have his daily wage to keep his wife.
He may keep her in the pueblo in a house of his own (rarely
in the parents 3 house even though they seldom go there) while
he goes down to the valley every day to work. He may set up
house in the valley or even build a house there, or he may
also bring her to live with his parents or, more frequently, go
himself to live with and work for hers. He may work for her
parents and keep her in a house in the pueblo.

An old tradition of the farmers, followed by few nowadays,
ordains that the elderly parents keep the daughter,, or
daughter-in-law to live with them for the first year of her
marriage. In one family where this is followed, the son works
elsewhere and visits his parents 5 farm on Sundays to see his
wife. At the same time the farm is worked by a son-in-law,
the husband of an elder daughter who has a large family andi
lives in the pueblo. So that the elderly parents live on the
farm with one son-in-law and one daughter-in-law while
their seven children all live elsewhere. Living with the old
people there is also one grandson, the son of the son-in-law,
and a boy-employee of fourteen years. The object of keeping
the daughter or daughter-in-law with the parents is to assist
the newly married couple to set up a home, for in this way
all the husband's pay can be saved. The wife lives for nothing
with the old people and in return she does the housework and
looks after them. This arrangement is clearly only possible
while she has no children of her own, and this may explain
why it is an arrangement for the first year of marriage only.

In general, sons-in-law get on well with their wife's
parents, and there are several farms where they live and are
employed in preference to a son. The virtual avoidance be
tween father- and son-in-law while the girl is courted ends
with marriage, and gives way to an easier relationship than
that of the father with his own sons, who must preserve

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 1 01

a stricter respect for him than must his sons-in-law. The
daughter-in-law, on the other hand, very seldom gets on well
with her husband's parents once she has a family of her own ;
and even before that her relationship is always formal and
somewhat frigid. She is a virtual stranger to his parents when
the son marries her, for she has remained with her parents
while her novio came to court her at their house. Little by
little, he has adapted himself to the ways of her parents'
house. He has made friends with her brothers. 1 After the
demand for her hand the avoidance of the father has lapsed
and he has been invited into her house. She has had no such
opportunity to become acquainted with his parents, and
when she comes to them it is not to ask a favour, but as the
established wife. Parental love is warm, and it is through her
that the parental tie is loosened. In such a situation, rivalry
between a man's wife and his mother for his chief regard
seldom fails to produce sparks. Living in the same house they
must collaborate more closely than the men-folk in the fields,
and for this reason a mother always prefers to have her own
daughter to work for her who is used to her authority and
the ways of her house.

An Andalusian saying points out the tendency to matri-
locality.

"Tu hijo se casa "Your son gets married
Y pierdes a tu hijo And you lose your son

Tu hija se casa Your daughter marries

Y ganas otro." And you get another one."

In the determination of locality, the moral and legal
equality of children regardless of their sex, combined with
the unity of the married couple, create a situation where the
emotional tensions inherent in family life assert themselves,
and the identification of the woman with the home overrides
the principle of patriliny. 2

1 Not straight away. The father formally ignores him, and for some time he
is regarded with suspicion by the brothers. The family requires to know whether
his intentions are serious or not. Antonio, son of Andre's el Bano said of the boy
who had already courted his sister faithfully for four years : "Hasta ahora se ha
portado bien con nosotros" ("So far he has behaved well towards us"). But in
time this suspicion gives way to friendship.

2 The participation of the maternal grandparents through surname,
Christian names and property, in the lives of their daughter's children must not

102

THE SEXES

This pattern of relations is also illustrated in a subsequent
stage of the evolution of the family. Elderly parents, no
longer able to work and look after themselves, are dependent
upon their children to keep them. But it is noticeable that the
children with whom the parents choose to stay are, in a slight
majority, daughters rather than sons. It is only surprising
that the disproportion is not greater, for elderly widowed
mothers are seldom happy in their daughter-in-law's house.
This sacred duty which requires poor people who work hard
to devote part of their income and much of their time to the
care of aged parents is generally respected, though it is said
that before the initiation of the old-age pensions scheme old
people were more often abandoned than today. Dutiful
children are the insurance against a wretched old age or one
spent in an institution in another pueblo. Parents who do not
give their children proper moral "education" will be faced
in old age with shameless children who neglect them.
Respect for parents is not based upon authoritarian rule.
Children are punished very little and are never expected to
emulate their elders prematurely. They learn through
imitation and are encouraged much with kisses and applause,
for the love of children is great here. It is enormously senti
mental and demonstrative in comparison with that of
Northern Europeans, and neither mother nor father, brother
nor sister is ever either stiff or emotionally restrained towards
them. At the same time, the identity of the child with its
parents is continually stressed in its relations with other
youngsters in the pueblo, so that the child's social personality
is defined in relation to its parents. Children are always
known as the children of so-and-so. In the advance of age the
material tie between children and parents grows weaker, but

be confused with matriliny. It is the mother's patronym which she gives to her
children, not her matronym. In so far as this society is lineal at all it is patri-
lineal. The lineal principle, however, is incompatible with the social structure
of the pueblo and has little importance there. In the tradition of the aristocracy,
patrilineal descent was, of course, important, and was found together with a
whole number of structural elements which contrasted with th6se of the pueblo ;
a monocratic relationship to community through the senorio (lordship) and a
system of inheritance through the mayorazgo (entailment), which maintained
the unity of property preferentially in the male line. It is noteworthy, however,
that the majority of Spanish titles pass through the female line in default of a
male line in the same degree of kinship.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 103

the moral tie remains full of vigour. Within a community
which knows no other principle of grouping, and where other
relationships tend to be unstable and kinship ties are weak,
the strength of the family stands out in solitary relief.

The statement that kinship ties are weak requires to be
justified. Where kinship is associated with political structure,
locality or economic production., one is accustomed to find
that the extensions of the elementary family are endowed
with structural importance. Enough has already been said
to make it clear that this is not the case in Alcala. People
are seldom able to give a comprehensive account of their
families further than their first cousins. Property alone pro
vides an incentive to strengthen the ties with persons
outside the elementary family.

The law of inheritance greatly influences the structure of
the family, and the diversity of the traditional laws of inherit
ance of the different regions of Spain points to an equal
diversity in their family structure. There is no regional tradi
tion in Andalusia in the matter of inheritance. Its law is the
law of Castile. When the property-owner dies his property is
divided in half. One half is subdivided equally among all his
children, the other goes to his widow for the duration of her
life after which it also is divided among the children. During
the widow's lifetime the division does not often take place,
but when neither of the parents remain and the grandchildren
are already fully grown it becomes necessary, in the interests
of family independence, to make the partition. In fact, the
way in which the property will be split up is usually fore
shadowed in the arrangements which are made for its exploita
tion when the owner becomes too old to control it himself.
Where the property is composed of several distinct holdings
they are divided amongst the children, possibly with certain
monetary adjustments, or with adjustments to the extent of
the properties. In other instances, however, either it is im
practical to divide the property or the heirs are unable to
reach an agreement upon its division. The property then
remains intact. If the joint owners fail to agree regarding its
exploitation it is very often sold, so that the price may be di
vided among them. However, where they agree well enough,

104 THE

it is often regarded as preferable to retain the property intact
in joint ownership and hope that time provides a solution.
This, it frequently does. The property is run by one or more
brothers and brothers-in-law on behalf of all. Little by little
the other participants are bought out and the property re
mains in a single pair of hands, to face the same problem once
more in the next generation. Where, for example, a brother
is tenant in another farm or follows a different occupation
such as artisan, he is well content to allow this to happen : but
rivalry is common between brothers and sisters for ultimate
possession of the inheritance. The joint ownership works well
enough on occasions, though quarrels regarding its adminis
tration and profits tend to arise. In the third generation,
that is to say when members of the second generation start to
die, the difficulties become too great if they all leave children.
Before anything can be done, it is necessary to reach agree
ment in a varied group of uncles and cousins and this is
neither easy nor is it efficient. At this point people are glad
to sell their interest and put their money into something else.
Finally, a solution to the problem of inheritance is provided
by the marriage of first cousins. Where families are not too
large, the property is sometimes held together, or rather
reunited by a marriage in the third generation. There is,
however, nothing resembling a customary obligation to do
so, and Andres el Bano, for example, considers that such
marriages ought not to be allowed. It is rather an arrange
ment which ambitious parents make in order to avoid having
to split an inheritance. The number of descendants and the
nature of the property determine the advantages of such a
marriage, and where the farm is small and there are many
grandchildren the advantages of cousin marriage are not
great.

The relationship of first cousin is an equivocal one.
Cousins are conscious of belonging to the same family for
they have common grandparents whose inheritance they
share, and yet at the same time they are not in any way
interdependent. There is no specific code of behaviour for
them. If they are brought up in close contact with one an
other, then their family association provides the basis for
firm friendship. But cousinship in itself does not involve any

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY ,105

rights or obligations. Nevertheless, upon this uncertain
ground, relations of genuine affection spring up, not only
between cousins of the same sex but often, stressing member
ship of a common family, between primo and prima. This
relationship is what might be called fraternal, but at the
same time there is no absolute prohibition upon sexual
relations between persons so related. Such a relationship is
not incestuous, though marriage between persons so related
requires a special dispensation. When Jose- Maria Perez took
his cousin la Castana to Jacinas on the back of his mule he
claimed to be acting in a spirit of fraternal co-operation, but
that did not prevent the evil tongues of the valley from
attributing quite another motive for their journey. The label
of cousinship is used sometimes to conceal the true nature of a
relationship. Thus in the parish register a number of entries
of primo or pariente (kinsman) denote a relationship which is
nothing of the kind.

The ambiguity relating to the word primo explains its
curious slang use. " Foolish or incautious", says the diction
ary. The sense might best be rendered by the colloquialism
"mug". The cousin is the prototype of the mug, for he puts
faith in the strength of kinship ties and is soon deceived.
"We are all brothers ", quipped a witty fellow to his drinking-
companions, "but notprimos"

We can now see cousin-marriage in its true light. It is a
way to reinforce the disintegrating family unit, and where
property is involved there is a strong motive to do this. But
it can also be explained in terms of sentimental affinity. The
country families are considered slightly odd and unsociable
by the pueblo a fact which is seen in the exaggerated
accounts of their lack of education and uncouthness. This
reason is frequently given as an explanation of cousin-
marriage. Shy children raised on the farms frequently form
attachments to their cousins in a way that those raised in the
hurly-burly of the pueblo do not. Cousin-marriage, though
not specifically a characteristic of the tenant and owner
farmers of the valley, is more frequent among them than in
the pueblo.

A second type of marriage which possess a certain similar
ity with cousin-marriage is marriage between pairs of brothers

IO6 THE SEXES

and sisters -similarity, that is, in the circumstances which
favour it. For this type of marriage should be regarded as
marriage between affines, and just as cousin-marriage can be
viewed as the desire to strengthen the link between blood-kin,
so this appears as the desire to strengthen affinal ties. Two
families united hitherto by a single marriage are thenceforth
united by two. There are three instances of this in the valley
and but one in the pueblo itself.

In summing up, we can see that the lack of mutual rights
and obligations outside the elementary family, the lack even
of occasions on which the unity of the extended family is
expressed, for cousins are not bound to be asked and are
not always asked to weddings, makes of kinship a facultative
rather than a firm bond. It is an excellent basis for friend
ship, but it is not in itself an important element in the struc
ture of this society. Among the country-dwellers, marriages
are favoured which reinforce this basis, for they need to co
operate on a more permanent footing than those of the
pueblo. One might say that the nature of the exploitation
of the land in small-holdings produces a tendency to extend
family ties. Yet in the absence of the institutions and values
which might support such an extension, ties between kin
cannot be regarded as important.

Two relationships remain to be discussed. First of all
affinal ties. The identity of the matrimonial couple and the
husband's responsibilities in formal matters bring him into
very close contact with his brothers-in-law, and one very
often finds strong friendship between men so related. This is
not the case with their parents though these are united in a
relationship which bears a special name, consuegros (co-
parents-in-law). Parents have, in fact, little influence over
their children's choice of a spouse. (One might well marry
to please one's parents, but one could hardly pursue a court
ship such as I have described in order to please them.) United
at the ceremonies of marrriage and baptism, and by their
common relationship to their grandchildren, consuegros are
equally divided by jealousies in relation to the latter. They
tend to be formal and mutually critical rather than warm
with one another.

Contrasting with the wary and distant relations of the co-

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IQJ

parents-in-law is the relationship between compadres (co-
parents literally., meaning co-godparents). Godparents are
chosen friends of the parents who enter into a formalised
friendship with them through their marriage or the baptism
of their children. On the occasion of a marriage, a pair of
godparents are chosen (padrinos de boda), usually a married
couple from the close kin of the groom. A married elder
brother and his wife is the conventional choice. These,
according to one tradition, are also the godparents of the
first child (padrinos de bautizo). Those of the second child will
be chosen from among the relatives of the wife. There are
many divergent ideas on the choice of padrinos, which need
not here concern us. The relationship of godparent is a kind
of spurious kinship involving obligations towards the child
or in the marriage festivities. The padrinos are responsible for
the costs. Far more important however, is the relationship
which it creates between the parents and the godparents.
This is called the compadrazgo. In order to become compadres.,
either the would-be compadre offers himself or the father
invites him to be a godparent to his child. It is a bond of
formal friendship more sacred than any personal tie outside
the immediate family. Its seriousness is stressed by the fact
that, in the popular conception but not in the Civil Code, it
creates an incest taboo you cannot marry your compadre or
padrino 1 and also by the mode of speech which compadres
are obliged to adopt in talking to one another. Save when
they belong to the same elementary family they must use the
third person, even though they have spoken to one another
in the second person all their lives. The explanation given
for this is that "compadres respect one another". This respect
does not involve a stiff or formal attitude, on the contrary,
they speak to each other with great ease, but each is under
the obligation to do for the other whatever he asks of him. 2
The compadre is an honorary member of the elementary

1 There are also frivolous derived forms of compadrazgo such as the compadres
de carnaval, madrina de guerra, between whom marriage is permissible and
frequent.

2 Technically, co-parents-in-law (consuegros) are also compadres and address
each other in the third person, but their relationship is usually very different in
feeling. People do not refer to their consuegro as my compadre unless the latter
relationship exists in its own right.

108 THE SEXES

family, but he is at the same time free of the trammels which
bring dissension among kin. In the changing kaleidoscope of
friendship the compadrazgo is an irrevocable tie of mutual
trust, stronger than that of kinship because it owes its
existence to the free consent of both parties. A young senorito,
explaining his quarrel with his married sister, said: "It is
ridiculous that a man should be bound to people through
kinship. To your mother and father, yes, you have obliga
tions, for they have brought you into the world, but what is a
brother, sister or cousin? I recognise ties with no one save
the friends of my choice."

The compadres may or may not be relatives. It is usual for
the first few children to be baptised by members of the family.
Very frequently the parents of both husband and wife wish
to baptise one of their grandchildren, and in this way the
relationship of father-in-law to son-in-law is overlaid by that
of the compadrazgo. In the same way it serves to reinforce ties
with members of the family. However, it is also entered into
with persons who are not relatives. These may be neighbours
or they may equally be friends who live in another pueblo.
There are certain advantages in having a compadre in another
pueblo, though the danger of losing touch with him if one
ceases to be able to go there is also to be considered. Finally,
there is the powerful senorito who is padrino to the child of a
poor family. In this case, the relationship of compadre is not
stressed so much as that of the munificent padrino. "Don
Fulano is padrino to that family for he has baptised one of
their children." This establishes him formally as their pro
tector, but, without any such ritual tie, the word is also used
to mean any powerful person who is prepared to patronise
(empadrinar) a poor man or to use his power to protect him.
"El que no tiene padrino no sirve pa 5 na' " ("He who has no
padrino is no use for anything"), said a dejected poor man,
whose application for a plot of ground in a new colonisation
scheme had failed. A popular saying expresses the same idea :
"El que tiene padrinos se bautiza" ("He who has padrinos
gets baptised"). There are &\$b padrinos who offer themselves
at the suggestion of the religious associations in order to
encourage poor people to celebrate their relationship with
the rites of the Church. Certain of them cannot afford to

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IOQ

get married though they live together as man and wife. The
padrino pays for the religious ceremony and gives them a
present as well.

The significance of this institution will only be seen clearly
in conjunction with the institution of friendship which is
discussed in Chapter IX and from which it differs in that it is
a permanent relationship which cannot be renounced.

A certain diversion from the theme of this chapter has
been necessary in order to treat of kinship coherently, and to
show the limits of its influence as a principle of grouping and
how it creates ties between the sexes. It is not intended to
convey that where there are ties of kinship or affinity people
do not give weight to the difference of sex. Marriage, the
nodal point of the system, is founded precisely on this
difference. A man reaches his full manliness in fatherhood ; a
woman in motherhood attains her full social standing. The
change which marriage brings in the relationship of novios is
reflected by changed attitudes. Marriage marks the end of
romantic love, the beginning of the preparation for parent
hood. This transition is reflected in the nostalgia of married
people for the days when they were novios. "That is when
everyone is happiest."

The change of attitude is not always complete. Few are the
men who do not retain something of the boy, and there are
opportunities for many members of the pueblo for justifying
their manliness while away from home. But the fleeting
infidelity need not detain us. We are concerned with pre
marital and extra-marital relations within the community.

It is generally conceded that girls' morals are not what they
used to be. Babies are not infrequently born to the unmarried
novia. Provided that her novio will marry her there is no harm
done and no great shame attaches to her plight, at any rate
among the people with no "social pretensions ". The
sanctions of public opinion are strongly exerted to force the
boy to honour his obligation to marry her. Salvador D. was
father to his novia's child while he was still writing to another
novia whom, he maintained, he preferred but who lived
elsewhere (he had met her in Jerez during his military
service). His widowed mother, a very forceful character,
went to the family of the girl and demanded that the baby

THE SEXES

should be named after her, as was her right if the marriage
were to take place, As both grandmothers were called Maria
a happy ambiguity prevailed, but soon afterwards the mother
made a demand for the girl's hand on her son's behalf and
paid some money for the setting up of the house. When the
child was nearly eighteen months old they were finally
married. The delay was partly due to the fact that his elder
brother had to get married first. In most cases the parents of
children born prematurely marry. However, in another case
the novio rebelled, said the father of the child was not he but
his uncle, and there was a very ugly row which would have
ended in the courts had not the papers been mysteriously
mislaid. The child had no father, took the same surnames as
its mother, and its uncle was padrino.

In neither of these instances was the courtship really well
established. In other cases, as we have seen, poor couples set
up house together without the formality of a marriage
ceremony and raise a family. During the years before the
Civil War many families abandoned the rites of the Church,
but in the eyes of the pueblo this is not important. If they live
together faithfully and raise a family then they are married.
"I don't know whether they are married by the Church, but
they are a married couple' 5 , is how the matter is explained.
Today many pressures are brought to bear in order to get
them married. Both the Church societies and also the Town
Hall use their influence. In certain cases, the need to register
the child in order to get it a ration-card at the time of
weaning is seen to be the conclusive moment. It is then said
that: "Les echan las bendiciones" ("The marriage is
sanctified").

No doubt on account of a pregnancy, there are a number
of couples who marry very young, some even before the boy
has done his military service. While, in addition to these
cases, it sometimes happens that young novios wish to force
the issue, and run away together, establishing themselves in
a house in the pueblo very often in a house belonging to
parents who are farmers in the valley. Sometimes the parents
react by recovering their daughter and, if she is still under
their tutelage, bringing the forces of Justice into action against
the young man; but in other instances they accept ihzfait

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY III

accompli and attempt to enable the young couple to set up a
home and get married.

In short, the situation presents no grave problem as long
as the parties are unmarried. If, on the other hand, they are
either of them married and are not content to observe discre
tion but set up house together, then the pueblo finds itself
threatened in one of its vital structural principles. Its reaction
will be described in a later chapter.

The lack of recognised obligations between kin within the
pueblo can be contrasted with those which exist between
fellow-townsmen, whether they be kin or not, outside the
pueblo. The term natwraleza> meaning literally birthplace, but
hence the pueblo to which a person belongs by origin, ex
presses this in formal contexts, and the significance of this
has already been mentioned. A person who goes away
requires an acquaintance in the place to which he goes who
will accept responsibility for him, and a close relative is
obviously the ideal host in this situation brothers, brothers-
in-law, uncles, primos; but failing a relative then a fellow-
townsman is the person who assumes this responsibility. When
women go abroad they usually put up at the house of an
Alcalarena even though they may not claim friendship with
her previously. The lack of structural obligations within the
pueblo can be related to its completeness as a community, in
the sense that the relationship of fellow- townsmen to fellow-
townsman requires no amplification and admits no exclusion
in the context of daily life. Away from the pueblo, in another
place, this same sense of community between fellow-towns
men is what the obligation rests on.

CHAPTER VIII

The Sexes
(iii) The Values of the Female

IT is now possible to discuss the values attaching to woman
hood. We have seen how the tasks of the community are
distributed between the sexes and have observed the
importance of the role of the male sex in relation to the legal
structure of the state ; man's pre-eminence, that is to say, in
formally conducted social relations. On the other hand, we
have observed that women play a predominant part in the
home and, on that account, in the structure of neighbourly
relations. And this may be allied to the fact that the women
are in the pueblo all the time while the majority of men must
leave it in order to work. The male social personality has
been related to the conception of manliness. The feminine
counterpart of the conception, which expresses the essence
of womanhood, is vergiienza, or shame. In certain of its aspects
only, for the word has first of all a general sense not directly
related to the feminine sex and it is this which must first be
explained.

It means shame, the possibility of being made to blush. It
is a moral quality, like manliness, and it is persistent, though
like manliness or like innocence, which it more closely
resembles, it may be lost. Once lost it is not, generally
speaking, recoverable, though a feeling persists that it is only
lost by those whose shame was not true shame but a deceptive
appearance of it. It is the essence of the personality and for
this reason is regarded as something permanent.

It is closely connected with right and wrong, since its
presence or absence is detected through an ethical evaluation
of the person's behaviour which is thought, in fact, to be
determined by it, but it is not synonymous with conscience.
It is, rather, its overt or sociological counterpart. The social

5- The Day of the Bull

6. Corpus Christi procession

THE VALUES OF THE FEMALE j 13

anthropologist possesses no technique for examining the
motivations of the individual conscience ; but, fortunately for
him, people are disinclined to let pass without comment
behaviour on the part of their fellows which they would feel
guilty to indulge in themselves, and are even willing some
times to decry publicly that which they would do themselves
if they had the chance, and believed they could do without it
being known. The code of ethics to which vergiienza is related
is that which incurs the moral stricture of the community.
To use Marett's distinction, it relates to "external moral
sanctions" not to "internal moral sanctions" or conscience. 1
Thus, to do a thing blatantly makes a person a sin vergiienza
(shameless one) ; but to have done it discreetly, would only
have been wrong. This, then, is the difference. Shamelessness
faces the world, faces people in particular situations. Wrong
faces one's conscience. Let me now try a definition :

" Vergiienza is the regard for the moral values of society, for
the rules whereby social intercourse takes place, for the
opinion which others have of one. But this, not purely out
of calculation. True vergiienza is a mode of feeling which
makes one sensitive to one's reputation and thereby causes
one to accept the sanctions of public opinion."

Thus a sin vergiienza is a person who either does not accept
or who abuses those rules. And this may be either through a
lack of understanding or through a lack of sensitivity. One
can perceive these two aspects of it.

First as the result of understanding, upbringing, education.
"Lack of education" is a polite way of saying "lack of
verguenza". It is admitted that if the child is not taught how
to behave it cannot have vergiienza. It is sometimes necessary to
beat a child "to give him vergiienza") and it is the only justifi
able excuse for doing so. Failure to inculcate vergiienza into
one's children brings doubt to bear upon one's own vergiienza.

But, in its second aspect as sensitivity, it is truly hereditary.
A person of bad heredity cannot have it since he has not been
endowed with it. He can only behave out of calculation as
though he had it, simulating what to others comes naturally.
A normal child has it in the form of shyness, before education

i R. R. Marett: "The beginnings of morals and culture", in An Outline of
Modern Knowledge (London, 1931).
p.s. 8

114 THE

has developed it. When a two-year-old hides its face from a
visitor it is because of its verguenza. Girls who refuse to dance
in front of an assembled company do so because of their
verguen^. Verguenza takes into consideration the personalities
present. It is verguenza which forbids a boy to smoke in the
presence of his father. In olden times people had much more
verguenza than today, it is said. Another polite form illustrates
this aspect of shame. To be shameless in this sense is to be
descarado or car a dura (hard-faced) , and this is a far more
serious matter than to be "thick-skinned", the nearest
expression in English to it.

It is in this second sense., as a moral quality innate and
hereditary, that the term sin verguenza reaches its full force
as an insult, that the epithet used to a man's face is tanta
mount to insulting the purity of his mother.

The value attaching to a word depends upon the situation
in which it is used. The humorous use of sin verguenza is
common, particularly in reference to infants and pets. The
affectionate father pinches the little boy's cheek and tells him
adoringly that he is one. This is not only a form of humorous
inversion but also a statement of a truth : the child is not old
enough to understand the values of society and therefore a
sense of shame in relation to conduct is not demanded of it.
It amounts to telling it that it can do no wrong. As it grows
older the term will acquire more seriousness. The first situa
tion in which it will hear the serious use of the expression is in
relation to its excretory habits. This is the first situation in
which a sense of shame is required. Other forms of conduct
will become reprehensible in those terms as the child grows
up. But the humorous use recurs whenever the indulgence
associated with childhood is evoked : whenever, for example,
middle-aged men feel boyish.

It will hardly surprise the reader to learn that verguenza is
closely associated with sex. While to cheat, lie, betray or
otherwise behave in an immoral manner shows a lack of
shame, sexual conduct is particularly liable to exhibit shame-
lessness, and particularly in the female sex. Lack of shame
exhibited in other behaviour is, as it were, derived from a
fundamental shamelessness which could be verifiable if one
were able to know about such matters in the person's sexual

THE VALUES OF THE FEMALE

feelings. It is highly significant that the more serious
insults which can be directed at a man refer not to him at all
but to a female member of his elementary family and in
particular to his mother. Personal reproach, while it refers
to a man's character or actions, is answerable, but when it
concerns a man's mother then his social personality is
desecrated. At that point, if he has manliness, he fights. Up
till that point matters can be argued. A man must make a
living for his family, and this will lead him into conflict with
other men. To fail to meet his family responsibilities would
be far more shameless than to take advantage of people for
whom he was not responsible. A certain licence is conceded
to the male sex, so that a man is not judged so severely either
in matters relating to business or in his sexual conduct, where
the need to justify his manliness provides an understandable
explanation of his shortcomings. "Men are all shameless",
women say. The essence of his shame will be seen in
his heredity, however. And therefore a reflection upon his
mother's shame is far more vital than a reflection upon his
own conduct. By extension, any reflection upon his sister's
shame is important to him since it derives from his mother's.
The whole family is attained by the shamelessness of one of
its female members.

Just as the official and economic relations of the family are
conducted in the name of its head, the husband, who has
legal responsibility for and authority over its members, so the
moral standing of the family within the community derives
from the verguenza of the wife. The husband's manliness and
the wife's verguenza are complementary. Upon the conjunc
tion of these two values the family, as a moral unity, is
founded. From it the children receive their names, their
social identity and their own shame. Shameless behaviour on
the part of their mother marital unfaithfulness is the most
serious example of this, though one form of shamelessness
implies the others and is implied by them, since verguenza is
something which either one possesses or one lacks brings
doubt to bear upon their paternity. They are no longer the
children of their father. He is no longer father of his children.
The importance of a woman's vergiienza in relation to the
social personality of her children and of her husband rests

THE SEXES

upon this fact. Adultery on the husband's part does not affect
the structure of the family. This is recognised in the law of
the land in the distinction which it makes between adultery
on the part of the husband or wife. A husband's infidelity
is only legally adultery if it takes place in the home or
scandalously outside it. 1

A wife's vergiienza involves a man, then, in quite a different
way to his mother's. Her unfaithfulness is proof only of her,
not of his, shamelessness, but it defiles his manliness. In a
sense it testifies to his lack of manliness, since had he proved
an adequate husband and kept proper authority over her
she would not have deceived him. This much is implied, at
any rate, in the language which appears to throw the blame
for his misfortune on the deceived husband himself. In
English, the word "cuckold 55 is thought to derive from
cuckoo, the bird which lays its egg in the nest of another. Yet
the word refers not to him who plays the part of the cuckoo,
that is, the cuckolder, but to the victim whose role he usurps.
The same curious inversion is found in Spanish. The word
cabrdn (a he-goat), the symbol of male sexuality in many
contexts, refers not to him whose manifestation of that
quality is the cause of the trouble but to him whose implied
lack of manliness has allowed the other to replace him. To
make a man a cuckold is in the current Spanish idiom, "to
put horns on him". I suggest that the horns are figuratively
placed upon the head of the wronged husband in significa
tion of his failure to defend a value vital to the social order.
He has fallen under the domination of its enemy and must
wear his symbol.

The word cabrdn is considered so ugly that it is never
mentioned in its literal sense in Alcald. Even shepherds refer
to the billy-goat of the herd by the euphemism d cabrito (the
kid) . Yet, figuratively, the pueblo uses the word in a wider
sense than is general. It applies there to both the cuckold
and the cuckolder, to any male, in fact, who behaves in a
sexually shameless manner. It will be noted in the rhymes
quoted on page 1 72 that the horns are attributed to someone
who was neither cuckolder nor cuckold but had left his wife
and children in order to set up house with another woman.

i Viz. Criminal Code, art. 452, also Civil Code, art. 105, I.

THE VALUES OF THE FEMALE 1 1 7

The best translation of cabrdn as the pueblo uses it is "one
who is on the side of anti-social sex".

While the greatest importance is attached to female con
tinence and the Andalusion accent upon virginity illus
trates this incontinence in the male has been shown to
carry quite different implications. Sexual activity enhances
the male prestige, it endangers the female, since through it a
woman may lose her verguenza and thereby taint that of her
male relatives and the manliness of her husband. Yet
verguenza in a woman is not synonymous with indifference or
frigidity towards the opposite sex. Quite the contrary, it is
the epitome of womanhood and as such finds itself allied in
the ideal of woman with the beauty and delicacy which are
most admired. The sacred imagery of Seville or the Saints of
Murillo illustrate this point abundantly.

The avoidance previously noted between the girl's father
and her novio can now be explained. Until the young man
marries her and thereby becomes a member of her family
and therefore a person concerned in her verguenza, he repre
sents a threat to it and through it to that of her family. The
avoidance may be seen to relate to the ambiguity of his
position as, at the same time, both the potential future son-
in-law and also as a threat to the family's verguenza*

In the juxtaposition of these two conceptions, manliness
and verguenza, there are two possible bases of interrelation :
one social, the other anti-social. In marriage, the wife's
verguenza ratifies the husband's manliness and combined with
her fertility proves it. Through his manliness he gives her
children, thereby raising her to the standing of mother and
enabling her to pass her vergiienza on. The instincts implanted
by nature are subordinated to a social end. But if these
instincts seek satisfaction outside marriage then they
threaten the institution of the family. Extra-marital mani
festations of female sexuality threaten the verguenza of her
own kin. On the other hand, the male attempt to satisfy his
self-esteem in a sexually aggressive way is also anti-social but
for a different reason. If he approaches a woman who has
verguenza, he involves her in its loss and through that loss in
that of another man's manliness, a husband's or a future
husband's. Within the community of the pueblo this cannot

Il8 THE SEXES

but be a serious matter, and Chapter XI will show how the
pueblo reacts to such a threat. Expressed in moral terms,
vergiienza is the predominant value of the home. It involves
restraint of individual desires, the fulfilment of social obliga
tions, altruism within the family, personal virtue and social
good. Manliness, on the other hand, unharnessed to female
virtue and the values of the home which it upholds and
economically supports, means the conquest of prestige and
individual glory, the pursuit of pleasure, a predatory attitude
towards the female sex and a challenging one towards the
male ; hence social evil and personal vice. According to the
values of the pueblo it is only a force of good as long as it
remains within, or potentially within, the institution of
marriage.

The value system expressed in these conceptions has been
treated so far as if it were common to the whole of the society
of Alcald and uniform throughout even a far more extended
area. Yet this is hardly to be expected. Anyone acquainted
with the social history of Europe will have observed the
variation in the customs relating to sex, both from one country
and also from one period to another, but above all from one
social class to another within the same country and historical
period, while on the contrary certain values are characteristic
of a particular class throughout European history. The
"immorality" of aristocracies is traditional, while, to take an
example from a different class, the attitudes in relation to sex
defined by Freud have been declared to be valid only within
the middle-classes of Protestant or Jewish cultures. In fact,
generally speaking, there is a difference in attitude not only
between the sexes but also between the Andalusian senorito
and the pueblo (plebs). It cannot be said to amount to a
serious difference in values so much as a difference in the
opportunities to implement or defy them. Men with more
money and greater freedom of movement have more oppor
tunity to indulge their manliness in what would, within a
community, be an anti-social way. If the behaviour of the
senoritos conforms less strictly to the morality of the pueblo, it
is because they escape the full force of the moral sanctions of
the community. They demand, at the same time, a stricter

THE VALUES OF THE FEMALE Iig

mode of conduct from their womenfolk. On account of the
social prestige which they enjoy, they feel themselves entitled
to justify their manliness in relation to the opposite sex, even
though this involves them in conduct which they regard as
morally wrong. It does not involve them in loss of shame as
long as their womenfolk are not involved in any way. The
sanctions which hold the anti-social manifestations of sex in
check cannot depend upon the public opinion of the pueblo
in cases where the pueblo would never know anything about
it, but only (apart from conscience) upon a particular con
cern for other social personalities which is expressed in the
word "respect". A young man who came to the pueblo as
a summer visitor explained once that while friendship with
an attractive girl was virtually impossible on account of the
desire which the young man would have of making a con
quest, there were, nevertheless, certain relationships of trust
which obliged him to avoid placing himself in a situation
where he might be the prey to temptation. These relation
ships of trust were created by the respect which he had in the
first place for the girl's husband or novio, secondly for her
father, and thirdly for her brother. If one were not acquain
ted with the persons in question then there was no obligation
to refrain from gallantries. There was, however, one final
exception and this was when one felt respect for her of the
kind which one might have towards one's wife, or such that
one might wish to make her one's wife. 1 In effect, these
restrictions virtually exclude any young woman who is
regarded as a social equal, and in this way the manifestations
of anti-social sex are projected outside the circle of local
upper class society.

It is possible to see now that the conceptual basis of sexual
behaviour is the same in the society of the senoritos of the
large towns as in the pueblo, only the background of sanc
tions against which it is brought into play differs. The com
munity not the system of values is different. When a wealthy
summer visitor attempted to persuade a young girl of the

i The respect is of course for her verguenza. To achieve her conquest -would
entail the loss of her vergiienza, which would involve one in a relationship with
her male relatives incompatible with that between affinal kin. In a slightly
different way a man is said to lack "respect " for his wife if he indulges in extra
marital adventure's.

120 THE SEXES

pueblo to allow him to set her up as his mistress in a flat in
Seville, he was frustrated. The religious associations under
the leadership of the wives of the senoritos of the village packed
her off to a convent.

If the essential values of manliness and verguenza are
similar throughout the social structure of the pueblo, there
are, nevertheless, certain points at which differences of status
and naturaleza cut across the values relating to the sexes. The
social relations of the family are conducted in different
spheres by the husband or the wife and these are relatively of
greater or lesser importance according to the position of the
family in society, its relationship to the community or to the
state. The position of the administrators' wives furnishes an
example. Their husbands have a function to fulfil which gives
them a basis for their relationship with the pueblo. But the
wives, on the contrary, coming mostly from the big towns,
find themselves restricted by their conception of social class
and their naturaleza and by the fact that they participate in
few of the activities which unite the women of the pueblo.
They tend not to establish deep friendships except with one
another, to stick much to their houses, and to bemoan their
fate in having to live in such an outlandish place as Alcala.
Several who come from Malaga, Jerez or Cddiz spend much
of their time there with their parents. The position of the
senoritos' wives is not the same. They play a leading part in
Church affairs and are attached to the pueblo, apart from
their membership of the community by birth, through their
work in organising the Church brotherhoods, and the various
other functions in which, officially or unofficially, women
intervene.

In brief the significance of sex in a society comprises
much more than what is termed the division of labour. The
sex of a person determines his position not only in regard to
the organisation of productive or useful labour but to all
activities, and not only in regard to activities but in regard to
the values which influence conduct.

In this society it can be seen that men are entrusted with
authority, with the earning of money, the acquisition of
prestige (a woman taking her status by and large from her

THE VALUES OF THE FEMALE 121

husband), with relations of an official character, that is to
say, with institutions recognised by the law of the land in
consequence of which the sanctions which the law exerts
apply more effectively to them, that they spend a greater
amount of time outside the pueblo and the home, that they
are permitted a more aggressive attitude in sexual behaviour,
and that they gain prestige through qualities of strength and
above all courage.

Conversely, women are entrusted with the maintenance of
the home and all that it means, are more continually in the
pueblo, and are more susceptible to the sanctions of personal
criticism or gossip in the dissemination of which they play a
more important part, as they also do in religious observances.
A greater reserve is required of them in matters touching
sex, and they are thought to be the repository for the whole
family of the quality of shame upon which the sanctions of
morality operate. They gain admiration through beauty and
delicacy, but physical courage is not required of them.

These differences, by no means comprehensive, are seen to
vary in relation to social status according to the relative
importance in their lives of forces exterior to the pueblo, or
of forces deriving from the personal contacts within it. Thus,
illiterate people are more dependent upon personal contacts
than are those who can read for themselves the notices in the
Town Hall and the provincial newspaper while, to give
another example, people who employ a servant, in that the
womenfolk no longer go to the fountain or the wash-house, are
relatively less dependent upon it. The distinction will also
be seen to be significant in relation to the institutions which
are described subsequently.

CHAPTER IX

Political Structure

WHEN I first entered the casino I was asked to meet ec el amo
de Alcald 53 ("the master of Alcald") and it is common to
hear the expression ec el amo del pueblo" in reference to the
mayor. In the village his word is law. He is the "delegate of
the government 55 , 1 appointed, being a town of less than
10,000 inhabitants, by the provincial governor. He is not
paid, but his appointment is an order which may not be
refused. He must have the civil governor's permission if he is
to be absent from his post for more than fifteen days, and he
must inform the provincial capital if he is to be absent for
more than twenty-four hours. The post is of indefinite dura
tion. The symbol of his authority is the rod, and until the
establishment of a post of the Civil Guard (as little as eight
years ago in the case of Benalurin) the mayor of the pueblo
bore the sole and direct responsibility for public order.

The mayor is assisted in his duties by the town clerk, a
civil servant, member of a professional corps, appointed by
the Ministry of the Interior, and only in very rare instances
a son of the pueblo. He is the person who knows the law and
runs the Town Hall. There is a town council of six members,
elected, two by the "vecinos cabezas de familia" (neigh
bours, the heads of households), two by the syndicates, and a
further two by the four already elected from a list presented
by the civil governor. These elections excite little interest and
in fact the mayor has more or less whom he wants. From
among their number he appoints two to be his lieutenants.

In Chapter I we were concerned with the moral unity of
the pueblo and the ways in which it was differentiated,
culturally, from other pueblos. In the overt political structure
this unity is emphasised no less. The competence of the

1 The form of local government derives from the Ley de Regimen Local, 1950,
With reference to the opening paragraph of this chapter, cf. arts. 59-67.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 1 23

municipality extends over such matters as : urban planning,
the administration of its properties and the common lands,
measures relating to hygiene, rural and urban police, trans
ports, marketing, including the establishment of monopolies
in its favour, the levying of certain forms of taxation,
instruction, culture and social assistance. These responsi
bilities are met from a budget of about a third of a million
pesetas. About half this sum is derived from property owned
by the municipality. The other half is made up from octrois,
a tax upon the killing of beasts, a percentage of various taxes
formerly owned by the municipality but now the property of
the state these taxes are collected in the pueblo by a tax-
collector who is the employee of the state and an outsider,
but who lives in the pueblo compensation paid by the state
for other taxes which it has recently appropriated, and
subsidies for unemployment benefit. In addition, the mayor's
powers include a number of emergency measures such as
that which entitles him, in times of hunger, to levy a special
contribution for the support of the unemployed, or alterna
tively, in such circumstances, to allot men in need of support
to the different households of the community where they
must be fed and given a small wage for the support of their
family until the time of crisis is over. It is also customary for
him to decide upon a minimum for each householder's
contribution to certain charities. The municipality's out
goings consist of: wages to its servants, the up-keep of public
buildings, including the law-court; public works; the financ
ing of public functions such as the yearly fair ; taxes of the
state upon the properties of the municipality ; public debt ;
public assistance (apart from that of the health insurance
scheme) either direct or in the form of free medicine, treat
ment and burial for the indigent about four times as much
is spent upon this as is received for the purpose in the state
subsidy; down to 5,000 pesetas set aside to meet the expense
of receiving a state official should one happen to pay Alcala
the honour of a visit.

The hamlet of Penaloja is administered integrally with
Alcala. The mayor of Penaloja is appointed by the mayor of
Alcala and has no powers except as his representative. The
other pueblos of the partido are entirely independent of

12 A POLITICAL STRUCTURE

Alcala. In this instance the mayor of Alcala is also the deputy
to the provincial council, and as such he represents the
pueblos of the partido.

The law recognises four forms of co-operation between
municipalities, called mancomunidad or commonwealth. Only
two of these are illustrated in this partido : Agrupacion forzosa,
the obligatory sharing of the services and expenses of the
institutions of the law by all the municipalities ofthepartido :
and agrupacion facultativa which municipalities are free to
engage in by mutual agreement. Alcald possesses such an
alliance with Benalurin in regard to the services and ex
penses of the vet. The vet of Alcala is thus also the vet of
Benalurin.

The doctor and the chemist are directly dependent on the
municipality. They receive a salary paid by the municipality
in virtue of their role in the social services. In the doctor's
case the greater part of his income is derived from his private
practice, and in the chemist's case his shop. They cannot be
considered purely as servants of the municipality, but they
are obliged to co-operate with it in many matters; and
though their appointment does not depend on the mayor,
they are in no position to oppose his policy.

Mention has already been made of the rural schoolmasters
who give lessons on the farms. The "national schoolmasters",
members of the corps to whom public education is entrusted,
are very different. Theirs is a "career" and appointments are
made by the state, with the agreement of the municipality by
whom they are actually paid. Of the five schoolmasters of
Alcald only two are sons of the pueblo. One is from Benalurin,
and the remaining two are Andalusians. Of the four school
mistresses only one is of the pueblo. These schools, situated
all in the town save for the single mixed school in the valley,
educate the majority of the children of Alcala. Certain poor
families of shepherds need the services of their children with
the flocks and would prefer not to send them to school, but
pressure is brought to persuade them to do so. There is much
talk of the disgrace of illiteracy on the part of the political
leaders and the present regime has devoted great efforts to
education. The education is, although free of the organisation
of the Church, much concerned with religious teaching, for

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 125

the rulers feel that their failure to ensure the religious
education of the working-classes was responsible for the
Civil War. Most people recognise that education will be an
advantage to their children, 1 and one may sometimes en
counter a compromise between the demands of the present
and the hopes of the future in the shepherd boy who sits on
the hillside doing his sums. The families of the landowners
and professional men normally send their children to the
local school when they are small and to a convent-school in
Ronda for their later education.

A certain anomaly may be detected in the position of these
servants both of municipality and state : the schoolmasters,
town clerks, secretaries of the Town Hall or of Justice. They
are, on the one hand, members of a professional body to
which they owe their professional status, and, on the other,
members of a local body. These two sometimes divergent
ties are resolved in the system of appointments. A member of
the corps may be appointed to fill a vacancy, but he may
then prefer not to discharge the duties himself but to put in
a substitute approved by the municipality, also a member of
the corps, paying him a percentage of the salary (or even the
whole salary for the effect of devaluation has brought
hardship to these people, and they can barely live modestly
upon their earnings if they have a family). He may then
devote himself to other matters or he may equally take on the
job of substitute in a place more to his liking. Thus the mayor
was until recently a substitute schoolmaster who held an
official post as schoolmaster in another part of Andalusia.
His wife, a schoolmistress, held her post in Alcala "by right ".
The owner of the post may at any time oblige his substitute
to relinquish it to him in order that he may fill it in person.
When the owner of the mayor's post returned this happened,
but the latter, having become deputy of the partido to the
provincial council, already had plenty of work on his hands
and was very ready to abandon it. In the same way, the town
clerk of Alcala is substitute for a Catalan who prefers to live

1 The great emphasis which the Anarchist Movement laid upon education
may be recalled in this connection. There is a tendency among the poor families
to deride the state education saying that they teach the children nothing but a
lot of religious nonsense.

126 POLITICAL STRUCTURE

in Barcelona. He, himself, "owns" l the post of town clerk
in a nearby pueblo.

There are other servants of the state who exercise their
function in the pueblo but are less directly dependent upon
the municipality : the state tax-collector, the administrator of
posts and telegraph, and so on. They, nevertheless, require to
collaborate closely with the municipal authorities, and their
common dependence upon the provincial capital ensures
this.

The executives of the municipality include the clerical
staff, the rural guard, the municipal guards, the alguaciles (the
officers of Justice), the cemetery-keeper, etc. They are all
sons of the pueblo and are purely dependent upon the muni
cipality which even has freedom to dress its guards in the
uniform of its choosing. They execute the will of the muni
cipality in all the sphere of its competence. They are persons
endowed with authority. The rural guard must see that pigs
killed upon the farms, as well as those which are brought to
the slaughter-house of the pueblo, are declared and pay the
tax; he must verify matters which are brought before the
courts. The guards have powers of arrest and a responsibility
for public order within the pueblo. In the case of any serious
outbreak of violence, however, they send for the Civil Guard:
They collect the octrois and they enforce the Town Hall's
regulations regarding the markets. They are responsible for
seeing that people do not avoid paying their taxes and that
the census returns are filled in correctly. They perform these
duties with a zeal tempered by human understanding, for
they are not the anonymous representatives of the state, but
members of the pueblo known by everybody since their
childhood. The fact that they are called by their Christian
names and nicknames, in contrast to the Civil Guard who
are known by their surnames, illustrates the difference in the
relationship of the two organisations to the pueblo. They are
not moved by a desire to see that the law is carried out to the
letter but rather that the wishes of the mayor are obeyed. To
give an example, the tax upon business enterprises is only
paid by those of importance, for the municipal guards are
prepared to turn a blind eye to poor people who try to make

i A post is said to be held depropiedad by the official incumbent.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 127

their living by trading or baking. But from time to time the
mayor decides that things are getting out of hand and sends
them round to close down the unlicensed businesses.

The essence of the political doctrine which inspires the
present government of Spain is to be found in the syndical
organisation. The "party", founded in 1934, proclaimed
itself from the first "national-syndicalist", and, in contrast to
British trade-unionism, which grew from the need to unite
the workers in order to give them the power to protect their
own interests, it envisaged a system of syndicates which would
include both employers and employed and would fill the
role, in the desired state, both of labour organisation and
unique political party. It claimed to incarnate the destiny of
Spain. The party grew to power quickly during the Civil
War, and, although many compromises were imposed upon
it by the demands of the times, it succeeded in maintaining,
within the national movement, the supremacy of its ideas in
regard to labour. These ideas grew up, not like those of the
Andalusian Anarchists in the agricultural towns, but in the
capital and industrial cities. Their application in the social
structure of Alcala presents a strikingly different picture to
that which may be seen in some other parts of Spain, and
even of Andalusia. This is not the place for such comparisons.
We are concerned only with the office of the secretary of
syndicates in the pueblo of Alcala, and the central provincial
headquarters which issues regulations relating to wage-levels,
price-levels for controlled agricultural produce, and which
provides a court of appeal to which disputes regarding
employment may be taken. These disputes are first of
all heard in the office of the secretary of syndicates in
the pueblo before a court comprised of two members of the
Secci6n Economica (employers) and two members of the
Seccion Social (employees), where, as a general rule, they
are settled.

The grain-control, the Servicio Nacional de Trigo, is also
operated in the pueblo through the syndicate as are all the
controls of agricultural produce. The office of the syndicates,
in collaboration with the Town Hall, apportions among the
farmers the share of the grain which the pueblo is required to
produce. This grain is paid for at a controlled price. The

1 28 POLITICAL STRUCTURE

black-market price sometimes soars to as much as four times
this figure. The system originally demanded that an agreed
area should be sown with wheat on each farm, and the
farmer was then required to declare his crop. The prevalence
of the return which asserted that the crop had been " totally
lost" induced a more down-to-earth method of raising the
required amount. After the harvest a list is published on the
Town Hall notice-board stating what each farmer's contribu
tion to the grain service is, and, after that, how he provides
it is his own business. The syndical chiefs are responsible for
this list. A varying number of other kinds of produce is also
controlled in a similar way, though there is no obligation to
cultivate specific crops. Inspectors arrive in the pueblo from
time to time to supervise the collection of produce or to attempt
to discover irregularities in the observance of the orders
relating to these and other matters under the jurisdiction of
the Syndical organisation. 1 Their visits are feared and
resented by the whole pueblo, whose reaction to them has
already been mentioned in Chapter I. Yet they are treated
as guests should be treated. They for their part tend to be
reserved in their behaviour. (One refused, on one occasion,
to touch the glass of wine which had been placed before
him.) Upon their arrival or knowledge of their approach
word is sent to the valley where the millers prepare to receive
their visit. This involves stopping the mill, sweeping up the
flour and hiding it and the grain. Each mill is sealed with a
wire which runs round the stone from the centre to the outer
edge and is fixed with a metal seal. This is removed while the
mill is in use but must be replaced for the inspector's visit,
for it testifies that the mill has remained idle. These opera
tions require considerable time and cannot be carried out
in under an hour, so that from time to time a miller is caught
red-handed. The inspector in due course reports the matter,
and a fine is imposed by the provincial headquarters and in
due course published. Upon certain occasions, however, the
inspector can be persuaded to be lenient provided he is

1 An account of the activities of an inspector is to be found in G. Brenan,
The Face of Spain (London, 1950). In order to simplify, the distinction between
the "inspector" and the "fiscal" is overlooked and both are here referred to as
inspectors.

7. A sabia reciting an oration

8. An old gypsy

POLITICAL STRUCTURE I2Q

approached in good time. Once the fine is published there
is nothing to be done. It must be paid.

The law-court ofthepartido is situated in Alcala. A dispute
enters the realm of law when a denunciation is made to the
Town Hall. The disputants are then summoned before one
of the Justices of the Peace accompanied by their hombre
bueno (literally "good man"). There are two J.P.s. One is
the owner of the cloth-factory, the other the owner of the
cinema. The hombre bueno is any person of the litigant's
choice, a friend whom he can trust to present his case well.
The J.P. hears both parties and reasons with the hombres
buenos, who reason with those they represent. Slowly the truth
is thrashed out and the J.P., in the majority of cases, per
suades both parties to agree. He has no power to impose
decisions and if the parties do not agree he can only take a
summary of evidence and refer the matter to court. 1 "I am
a Justice of the Peace/ 5 says one, "my duty is to make peace.
Only if I fail, does the matter go before the judge." Court
proceedings involve a great deal of delay and a great deal of
expense. The J.P.s have, in criminal accusations, a slightly
greater competence. They are able to award punishment for
such minor offences as gambling or abuses of municipal
regulations. They can impose a fine up to the limit of 500
pesetas, or they can sentence a man to a day's work mending
the street under the supervision of the Civil Guard.

A strong distaste for formal justice, a distrust of it and a
preference for an equitable arrangement are to be found in
the sentiments of the whole pueblo including those of the
legal authorities. A good illustration of these was provided
by the following incident. A poor man gained a living for
himself and his family catching game by various methods
licit and illicit. One night returning to the pueblo his gun
exploded by accident and cost his neighbour her eye. It was
out of season, and he had no gun licence. He was arrested

i The role of the hombre bueno can be compared to that of the corredor in
bargaining. He defends the pride of the litigant and enables him to withdraw
from his position, not in answer to the threats of his adversary, but in answer to
the pleading of his friend. There is an element of bargaining in such a situation
which is offset by the J.P.'s exposition of the law and his warning of what is likely
to happen in court.

P.S. 9

POLITICAL STRUCTURE

and held by the Civil Guard. But after the case had been
examined by the J.P., people in authority began to ask them
selves what useful end would be served by sending him to
prison. He was a man of good character. The mayor, the
J.P. and the judge discussed the matter. The priest put in a
plea for lenience, and it was agreed that if the culprit paid
2,000 pesetas compensation to the woman who had lost her
eye no further action would be taken. The woman was a
widow who depended for her living upon sewing. If the man
went to prison he would not be able to earn anything to pay
compensation to her, and in addition his family would be
left without means of support. The man had no money, but
the director of the agricultural bank, the Monte de Piedad,
was persuaded to advance him the amount on the guarantee
of two guarantors whom the regulations of the Monte de
Piedad require, and who, not without a certain amount of
difficulty, were found. The case did not appear before the
court. This solution was regarded by all as far better than
any that the law was capable of providing.

A case in which litigation arose will be examined in more
detail in a later chapter, and it will be seen once more that
ethical considerations influence the course of formal justice.

The authority of the mayor is exerted through the munici
pal guards. The persecution of offenders against the law of
the state, the criminal code, is in the hands of the Civil Guard.
In fact, no clear distinction between municipal and national
authority can be made in everyday life. The Civil Guard
takes action at the request of the mayor, for, as I have pointed
out, a high degree of co-operation exists between the rulers
of the pueblo. The Civil Guard is commanded by a corporal
who has a section of eight men, They live in a house in the
pueblo with their wives and families* It is called, both offici
ally and by the pueblo, the barracks.

The Civil Guard was raised originally in 1844 in order to
combat the bandits, and was subsequently of great importance
in the repression of the Anarchist risings which became fre
quent in Andalusia during the latter half of the century. Semi-
military in character and organisation, they became no ted for
the roughness of their methods, and were not beyond em-

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 1 3 1

ploying on occasions the celebrated ley defugas, a pseudo-legal
method of disposing of unwanted prisoners. They were much
hated by the pueblo, and this fact was influential in the
course of the Civil War in Andalusia. The first thought of
the Anarchists when they came to power was to settle old
scores with them, so that in the towns of Andalusia they were
forced willy-nilly into common cause with the rebellion. In
the capitals they frequently remained loyal to the Republic.

The greater part of their time is spent in patrolling the
countryside, and while there were still bandits in the
mountains around Alcala their life was not only hard but
perilous. They go always in pairs and always armed.
Superficially their relations with the pueblo are amicable.
There are sons of the pueblo who have joined the force and
who return to visit their families while on leave ; for not all
their strength is recruited from the sons of former members,
but it is recognised that it is not possible to contract relations
of lasting friendship with them. For even though an under
standing is necessary with them if their good will is to be
maintained, at any moment their orders may require them
to violate the obligations of friendship. The farmers generally,
but particularly the millers who are open to denunciation for
milling at any moment, require to be on good terms with
them, and it is customary for them to receive clandestine
presents of flour or grain from time to time. Their position in
the pueblo can be seen to consist, like that of the municipal
guards, in a compromise between their personal relations
with members of the pueblo and their duty to co-operate in
implementing the will of the authorities. But whereas the
municipal guards are sons of the pueblo and are concerned
with the municipal authorities only, the Civil Guard are
outsiders, members of a state organisation, and while they
co-operate with the mayor they are under the orders of
their officer in Jacinas. Ultimately they need answer only
to him.

Finally there exists a kind of home guard, the somatenes
armados, raised originally in the time of General Primo de
Rivera and composed of persons in whom the present
regime has confidence. They do not meet as a body but are in
possession of arms in their homes, and may be called upon

132 POLITICAL STRUCTURE

to assist in the operations against the bandits, or to respond
to any other call for armed force which may be made.

The place of the Church within the social structure is a
matter which cannot be ignored, even though it is not my
intention to discuss religion. In Andalusia the Civil War
might be likened to a religious conflict, in that the most
important criterian of political action was allegiance or
opposition to the Church. The names upon the memorial
tablets and the roofless churches bear witness to this fact. In
the pueblos of the countryside, in contrast sometimes to the
big towns, the persons whom the Left put to death were
priests, persons who had been connected with the Church
such as sacristans, and pious persons particularly among the
professional classes. It must be remembered that in fact the
majority of the pueblo strongly disapproved of shooting any
body. As a rule people were put to death, not publicly in the
pueblo as in the account given in Hemingway's novel, For
Whom the Bell Tolls, but secretly at night, a mile or two from
the town. In many instances those responsible were not
members of the pueblo at all but political or militia chiefs
from other pueblos or the big towns.

This situation of pro-clerical rulers and an anti-clerical
pueblo is the reverse of that which saw the birth of anti-
clericalism in Spain a century and a half ago, and this
reversal is one of the conundrums of Spanish history. Brenan
suggests that the effect of disestablishing the Church and
sequestrating its lands was to throw the clergy into the arms
of the propertied class who made political use of it, and
thereby provoked opposition to it among the landless
labourers. 1 In so far as it is possible to abstract a sequence of
cause and effect from the multiple conditions of social history,
this explanation has not been bettered. Yet one must not
overlook the fact that a similar evolution has occurred in
other countries of very different political history. It must be
stressed, in any case, that anti-clericalism is not necessarily
the outcome of loss of religious faith, and to make such a
supposition here would be to misplace the problem. In Alcala
strong anti-clerical opinions and faith in the powers of the

i G. Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 133

saints, and particularly of the Blessed Virgin, are able to go
hand in hand. This ambivalence, whose significance must
be left to later pages, is not directed uniquely to the institu
tion of the Church though it is most marked in regard to it;
it has already been shown to exist in regard to the senoritos.

The question of faith is not relevant to an examination of
the political structure. What is relevant is the uniqueness
of the institution of the Church in relation to social life. The
Church alone can baptise, marry, 1 bury, celebrate the patron
saint of the pueblo and the seasonal festivals and punctuate the
calendar with the saints' days round which the folklore hangs.
There is one priest of Alcala and four churches of which
one was burned in the Anarchist rising of April 1936. There
are five religious brotherhoods devoted to the cult of different
saints, whose members are recruited from the pueblo.
Subscriptions are extremely low, from i to 2 pesetas per
annum in four brotherhoods, and n pesetas in the fifth
case. The wives of the senoritos play a leading part in these
organisations. Their functions are the organisation of
religious festivals and charity. Of greater influence is the
Catholic Action Committee which exerts itself in all matters
touching religion, particularly in using pressure to get the
rites of the Church observed by the poor, and to have
immoral diversions such as modern dancing prohibited or at
any rate discouraged. Missionary work is done by the ladies
of the Catholic Action who go round the houses of the poor
while the men are out at work and endeavour to persuade
the women to go to confession. This causes resentment
among anti-clerical husbands. "They go round in pairs like
the Civil Guard," a man once complained. They also do
good works, arranging for the care of the indigent and in
firm.

In all the organisations connected with the Church
women are much more active than men. The pueblo (plebs)
looks upon religion as women's business, and men play little
part in it save when encouraged or constrained to do so. They
require no more from it than the fulfilment of its rites, and
attendance, both in church and also in religious processions,

i Civil marriage outside the Church was introduced by the Republic and
abolished by the present government.

1 34 POLITICAL STRUCTURE

is predominantly feminine. Among educated people this is
not the case. On the other hand, men of the ruling group tend
to consider more the political implications of religion, and
to them anti-clerical is synonymous with "Red". In general,
the attitude of men towards the Church is determined by
political and social considerations; for these, as has been
shown, are men's not women's business.

The institutions which compose the political structure all
depend upon a small number of persons in the pueblo. These
are the core of what I have designated "the ruling group".
The central figure is the mayor and all except the Church
depend directly upon the co-operation of the municipality.
The mayor is, by virtue of his position, also the local jefe del
mommiento, the head of the " national movement", the
amalgamation of political parties of which the chief of state
is the supreme national head. As such he has authority over
the secretary of the syndicates, and also over the "Move
ment's" members, who comprise all of the ruling group.
However, manners mean much to the Andalusian and it is
not an authority which is constantly invoked. The mayor
gives himself no airs. He appears, not as a hierarchical head
separated by his authority from his subordinates, but simply
as the key figure of the group. The group, as an actual reality
rather than an abstract concept, is visible in the tertulia, the
group of friends sitting round a table, and it is generally
recognised that the realities of local politics are to be sought
not in formal declarations in official contexts but in the
informal talking among friends. The priest holds a tertulia
on summer evenings outside the church. The mayor holds
one sometimes in the town hall at the end of the morning,
but he is more frequently seen sitting with one group or
another in the casino.

The casino is the last, and perhaps the most important, of
the political institutions of the pueblo. It is a club possessing
some one hundred and twenty members, that is to say
roughly all those except day-labourers, small tenants and
artisans but including some habitual summer visitors. It is a
club in the sense that it has entrance fee and subscription,
but it opens its doors to strangers, and during the fair, for

POLITICAL STRUCTURE 135

example, is much like any other cafe. It is the meeting ground
for the men of the ruling group, their friends and all those
who are slightly well-to-do. Here cards and dominoes are
played ceaselessly, and occasionally chess. In summer there
are tables outside under the trees in the square, but there are
also rooms at the back and upstairs. When important private
business has to be discussed, a meeting takes place in one of
the rooms, but this is rarely. Where everything depends in
fact upon private understandings there is a prohibition upon
secrecy. To retire with someone for private conversation
arouses comment and the worst is always suspected. So the
affairs of the pueblo are discussed casually and in public,
but with infinite tact. When something important has to be
said men go for a walk together to the end of the street.

The casino is called the Circulo de la Union for it was
formed by the fusion of the old liberal and conservative clubs.
These clubs sprang up in Andalusia in the nineteenth
century and were a necessary part of the system ofcaciquismo.
Their union (and two have given way to one in all the smaller
pueblos) illustrates the change which overtook the pueblos
on the break-up of that system. After the general strike of
1917 the Conservative and Liberal parties combined in
coalition against the threat of revolution a revolution which
eventually materialised. The balances have shifted, and their
descendants remain bound together in the face of the pueblo
and in their dependence upon the power of the state. The
advances in the techniques of political control, of communi
cations and of transport, and the economic interdependence
resulting from them have lessened the distance between the
local community and the central government, but at the
same time have accentuated the difference between their
cultures. Today the senoritos are culturally less part of the
pueblo, more part of the regional middle-class. The regional
middle-class has moved further to the centre. Much of their
political power has passed into the hands of professional
administrators. The conflict, inherent in all authority, has
broken out and been resolved, in the case of present-day
Andalusia, in favour of the central state which has drawn
more directly under its political control the leadership of
the Ipcal community. That this development has not been

136 POLITICAL STRUCTURE

followed throughout the whole of Spain a glance at the
country's history suffices to reveal. Where the integration of
the local community has held fast, the conflict has developed
at a different structural level (notably in the agricultural
communities of the north). It was not fortuitous that the
growth of a revolutionary working-class movement and the
growth of the nationalist separatist movements went forward
hand in hand.

CHAPTER X

Friendship and Authority

THE INSTITUTIONS through which the pueblo is governed
were discussed in the last chapter. Yet in order to make plain
how government is carried out we must examine one further
institution, that of friendship, and the way it interlocks with
the structure of authority.

The egalitarian values of the pueblo are one of the themes
of this study. Where all men are equal conceptually, the
basis of their co-operation can only be reciprocal service ;
a voluntary reciprocity dictated by the mutual agreement
of the parties, as opposed to the prescribed reciprocity
of ranks. The spirit of contract, not the spirit of status,
determines their dealings. Such a spirit has already been
observed in the system of co-operation in agriculture. Only
one relationship outside kinship is ordained by the values of
the pueblo rather than by the free will of those concerned and
that is the neighbour. The supremacy of the geographical
principle of social integration has been mentioned already,
and this evaluation of proximity as a social bond provides the
moral basis of neighbourship. Neighbours are thought to have
particular rights and obligations towards one another.
Borrowing and lending, passing embers, 1 help in situations of
emergency, discretion regarding what they may have chanced
to discover, compose the obligations into which neighbours
are forced by their proximity, but it must be stressed that the
relationship of neighbour is never a formal one. 2 It is a

1 Cooking is all done with charcoal. A charcoal fire is easily lit by placing an
ember from another fire in the bottom of the grate. To light it otherwise
involves much more trouble.

2 As for example in the Spanish Basque village (cf. J. Garo Baroja, Los
Vascos), where in the funeral procession the coffin is borne by the heads of the
four nearest houses, each one having his appointed place. In Alcala neighbours
also bear the coffin, but there is no rule as to which neighbours. It is borne by
anyone who offers himself or by a relative. If no one steps forward for this labour
then it becomes a service which must be paid. To be borne to one's grave by
hired hands is indeed a sign that one has died unloved.

138 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

matter of mutual necessity, a relationship into which good
people enter willingly. The pueblo rings with accusations,
behind the victim's back of course, of being a bad neighbour.
"If only one could choose one's neighbours. . . ." To be
friendly is the duty of a properly brought-up person towards
anyone while he is present, but a neighbour is always present.
He might be described, then, as a friend whom circum
stances impose upon one.

Friendship, properly, is the free association with a person
of one's choice. It implies a mutual liking (simpatia), but, as
we shall see, this aspect of it is sometimes put at the beck and
call of its other aspect ; mutual service. To enter into friend
ship with someone means putting oneself in a state of obliga
tion. This obligation obliges one to meet his request, even
though it involves a sacrifice on one's own part. One must
not, if one can help it, say "no" to a friend. On the other
hand accepting a service involves him in an obligation,
which he must be ready to repay. Hence the necessity for
mutual confidence. One must have this as well as simpatia for
a friend. This much is true of friendship anywhere. What is
noticeable in Andalusia is the lack of formality which
surrounds it (save in the single instance of the compadre). No
formal declaration, no ritual initiates it ; one enters it through
offering or receiving a favour. The instance of the inspector,
who refused wine, "who wished friendship with no one"
illustrates this point. He would not risk entering into
reciprocal obligations which might interfere with his duty.
Whether in fact friendship exists or not is frequently in
doubt, hence the continual declarations of it, the reproaches
for "lack of confidence", the praise acclaiming "a good
friend". Hence also the subtle manoeuvres intended to test it.

For friendship to be real must be disinterested. The
language echoes the point continually. People assure one
another that the favour they do is done with no afterthought,
a pure favour which entails no obligation, an action which is
done for the pleasure of doing it, prompted only by the desire
to express esteem. 1 On the other hand, the suggestion that

1 This assurance is also used by all the traffickers in the idiom of friendship
who surround the tourist, so that "sin interes* ninguno" ("with no thought of
interest") comes to mean by inversion "I am not charging you anything, but I
expect a tip."

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 139

someone's friendship is "interested" is a grave one. Honour
able people fight shy of accepting a favour which they will
not be able or will not wish to return. The other may wish
for one's friendship in order to exploit it. Yet having once
accepted friendship one cannot refuse to fulfil the obligations
of friendship without appearing oneself the exploiter, for one
has entered falsely into a tacit contract. This implication
which forfeits a man his shame is used frequently by the
exploiters of the principle of friendship.

For the fundamental conception of friendship contains a
paradox. A friend is, according to the definition given above,
someone whom one likes and admires and wishes to be
associated with for that reason. The association is established
through a favour which expresses one's simpatia. If the favour
is accepted, then the bond of friendship is established.
Mutual confidence supposedly comes into existence. One is
then entitled to expect a return of favour. For favour is at
the same time both personal esteem and also service. The
word favor possesses, like the English word, the meanings of,
at the same time, an emotional attitude and also the material
gesture which might be thought to derive from this. The
former can only be proved by the latter, hence the double
meaning of the word. Friendship which is interested is not
true friendship since the bond of simpatia is missing in its
place is vile calculation. The paradox, then, is this : that while
a friend is entitled to expect a return of his feelings and
favour he is not entitled to bestow them in that expectation.
The criterion which distinguishes true from false friendship
flees from the anthropologist into the realms of motive. Yet
he may observe that this paradox gives to the institution of
friendship the instability which has been noted. The friend
who fails one ceases to be a friend. The boxid is broken. The
way is left clear for a re-alignment of personal relations, 1

Therefore the element of sympathy is all important. If the
friend is deeply attached then he will be true. He will
remain with one and sever his friendships with the rival
camp. Such a friend is the ideal. He has honour and manli
ness. But without actually forfeiting his honour he may
through skilful evasion manage to maintain his friendships
with both sides. These people are famed for the skill with

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

which they dissimulate their feelings. Outsiders who come
from other parts of Spain to Alcala complain of the "in
directness" of the Andalusians. "You never know where you
are with them. They will never tell you anything to your face.
They will always be charming to you and then behind your
back they will betray you." But this histrionic capacity does
not mean that they have not strong feelings which they take
pleasure in expressing. Hence the importance of gossip.
People spend their time discussing how X spoke of Y, how
he looked when Z's name was mentioned. Friends inform
each other who speaks well and who badly of them behind
their back: Every conversation is determined by the relation
ships of the members of the audience. In this way the process
of re-alignment is carried on. Yet there are also true friend
ships, founded upon affection and esteem, which approxi
mate to the ideal and endure a lifetime. Only they are few.
For the struggle for life too easily brings in what one might
call the reversed principle of friendship, where considera
tions of interest dictate the expression of esteem.

The practical utility of such a system is very great. It is a
commonplace that you can get nothing done in Andalusia
save through friendship. It follows then that the more
friends a man can claim the greater his sphere of influence;
the more influential his friends are the more influence he has.
Friendship is thereby connected with prestige, and boastful
characters like to assert how many friends they have, how ex
tensive is the range of their friendships. So while friendship
is in the first place a free association between equals, it
becomes in a relationship of economic inequality the founda
tion of the system of patronage. The rich man employs,
assists and protects the poor man, and in return the latter
works for him, gives him esteem and prestige, and also
protects his interests by seeing that he is not robbed, by
warning him of the machinations of others and by taking his
part in disputes. The relationship of padrino and hombre de
confianza is a kind of lop-sided friendship from which the
element ofsimpatia is by no means excluded, though it may
happen that, owing to the paradox already discussed, the
appearance of friendship be used to cloak a purely venal
arrangement, a rich man using his money to attain his ends.

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 141

There appears to have been a change in the evolution of
caciquismo of which the system of patronage was the core,
from the first type of patronage to the second. In the early
period cacique appears to have meant no more than a person
of local prestige, and one finds a young man in a novel of
Juan Valera 1 boasting that his father is the cacique of the
pueblo, yet by the end of its course it has become a term of
opprobrium meaning a briber and corrupter, the employer
of the matin (bully). 2

There are many situations in which the patrono or padrino
is of value. 3 He is not only able to favour his protege within
the pueblo. It is, above all, his relationship to the powers
outside the pueblo which gives him value. For example, a
patrono is required to sign the application for an old-age
pension, testifying that the applicant was once employed by
him. Many such applications are signed by persons who
never in fact employed the applicant. He who can find no
one to sign gets no pension. The padrino can give letters of
recommendation to people who will do favours for him, who
will protect his proteges.

The story of a dispute in the valley can be used to illustrate
the values of friendship and authority in action. Fernando
Pifias, who has been, mentioned already, is a wealthy miller
and farmer, a syndical chief, and, though in his way of life a
member of the pueblo (plebs), he is a close friend of the mayor
and a person of local consequence. Thanks to his friendships
outside the pueblo he is able to empadrinar the victims of the

1 J. Valera, Pepita Jimenez (Madrid, 1873).

2 Cf. Pio Baroja, Cesar o Nada, translated as Caesar or nothing (New York 1922).

3 The power of patronage in former times was certainly greater than it is
today. Zugasti (Julian Zugasti, El Bandolerismo (Madrid, 1876)) explains the
power which it had in relation to the law during his governorship of the
province of Cordoba.

The copla of Gurro Lopez, a bandit of the first half of the nineteenth
century, written while he awaited his execution, speaks of the influence which
a powerful patroness once had :

" Ya se muri6 mi madrina "Now my madrina has died
La Duquesita de Alba The dear Duchess of Alba

i Si ella no se me muriera Had she not died on me
a mi no me ajusticiaran ! " They would never condemn me to

death !"
(Quoted by G. Bernaldo de Quirosy L. Ardila, El Bandolerismo (Madrid, 1931.)

142 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

focdia. The miller who is caught milling tells his friend
Fernando. Fernando is friendly with one of the inspectors.
He choses an occasion to see him and plead the case of the
miller. The inspector, it must be remembered, is entitled to a
percentage of the fine. But friendship can arrange such matters.

His neighbour, Curro, is a craftsman who lives on a small
irrigated huerto which is his own property. He is the son of a
miller, and after his father's death his step-mother sold the
mill which lies within the huerto to Fernando Pifias. This
occasioned a quarrel, for Curro hoped to buy it from her and
claims that he had the money to do so at the time. In any
case, Fernando Pinas refused to let Curro buy it back once
it had been sold to him. Today it is run by Alonso, who
exploits it on a profit-sharing basis with the owner. Alonso
and Curro are next-door neighbours and friends. The water
course of the valley called El Rio and that called the
Arroyo del Chaparral unite in the garden of Curro. Fernando
Pinas' olive-mill called "Molino del Juncal" is placed upon
the Arroyo, but his grain-mill, occupied by Alonso, is
situated lower and is served by both waters. From that point
the channel descends, passing through a series of mills and
huertos. The first mill is owned by Curro' s first cousin and
compadre, Pepe. Curro is friendly with all the millers for he is
a fine workman and specialises in work on mills. Some way
farther down is the huerto of Manuel el Conde (the Count),
an independent very small farmer, a recognised authority on
agricultural matters and a close friend of Curro's.

Situated immediately above Curro's huerto is an improvised
acre of irrigation on the property belonging to the wife of
Juanito Sanchez who farms it. This is one of the huertos
which have been made during the past ten years "con agua
robada" ("with stolen water") and which have no title
either in the eyes of tradition or the law. It takes the spare
water from the main stream. Curro's huerto, on the other
hand, is an old one with as good a title to its water as any
in the valley, and he has resented the appearance of this new
one which threatens in a dry year to leave him short of water.

I can offer no assurance of the accuracy of the facts in
the story which follows, quite apart from the deliberate
changes made in the interest of discretion. The facts were

FRIENDSHIP ANP AUTHORITY

JUANITO'S
HUERTO

which loses
its woter

The part of

CURRO'S

, HUERTO

S which loses

its wafer

144 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

selected first of all by my own range of personal contacts and
friendships, secondly by my own judgement as to what was
true and what was significant. This was not easy for it is
characteristic that everyone tells a quite different story,

"Is it not possible to know the truth in such cases?" I
once asked in despair. "Very rarely/' I was told, "for where
money is concerned there is no such thing as the truth. He
who has the money is always right." This, as will be seen, is a
somewhat cynical exaggeration, but it typifies the view of
those who regard the actual state of society as evil. They are
by no means only those whose sympathies remain with the
"Reds 53 .

If there is little prohibition in this system of values
against taking liberties with the truth, there is a very strong
one against passing gossip whether it be truth or falsehood.
The word alcahueta, which in the dictionary means in its
primary sense a procureuse, is used in Alcala in the derived
sense of a correveidile, a "run-see-and-tell", a gossip. It is a
term of heavy moral reproach, for it means a defaulter in the
obligations of "neighbourliness", one of the most important
of which is discretion. Gossiping is shameless behaviour, and
the accusation of it even couched in euphemistic terms may
provoke a violent quarrel. Yet the strength of opprobrium
which attaches to it does not suffice to ensure people's silence
but only to make them careful about what they say and to
whom, for it is an offence only against the person betrayed.
In the eyes of the person to whom it is tpld it is a sign of
confidence ; to the teller it affords a pleasure which is hard to
resist. Hence the rhyme which says :

"No hay Sabado sin sol "There is no Saturday with
out sun

Ni rnocita sin amor Nor young girl without love

Ni viejo sin dolor Nor old man without pains

Ni forastero que no sea de Nor outsider who is not a

buena gente good fellow

Ni viejo que no haya Nor old boy who has not

sido valiente been a hero

Ni campana sin lengueta Nor bell without a clapper

Ni vieja que no sea alca- Nor old woman who is not a

hueta." gossip."

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 145

The issues involved in this story were ones which, for
obvious reasons, could not be spoken of save in confidence,
and the difficulties of the field- worker under such circum
stances may, to some extent, excuse the incompleteness of his
information. However, it must be remembered that this is
not the analysis of a point of law but of conflicting human
relations, and the emotional attitudes which are provoked
are therefore as relevent as the hard facts. (I make no attempt
either to condone or condemn the actions of the participants,
nor the moral values, nor the legal system involved.) This is
what happened :

A dispute arose between Fernando Pinas and Juanito
when the former sent men to put the stream bed of the Rio
in order at the point where the channel leads off to Juanito's
huerto. The land belongs on one side of the stream to Fernan
do and he asserted that water was being lost there. (Frequent
repairs are required if this is not to happen.) This water does
not affect his olive-mill which stands on the Arroyo, but it
must be remembered that he also owns the mill of Alonso
and has an interest in its exploitation. Each miller is re
sponsible for the stretch of channel immediately above his
mill. Fernando's men repaired the channel by cutting off the
corner and bringing the water down a slightly shorter course
on the near edge of the stream-bed which is some thirty
metres wide at that point. This left Juanito's huerto high and
dry, and he complained bitterly, but since he had no title
to water he had poor grounds for complaint. His wife and
daughter went down to the edge of their land on the stream-
bank and threw stones at the men working. Fernando asked
for protection for his ijien, and a pair of Civil Guards were
sent to restore order. Juanito's wife then refrained from
throwing stones, but kept up a flow of brightly coloured
abuse for- some time before retiring. No one supported
Juanito for it was in the interest of all that the channel should
be repaired and shortened. Curro, in spite of his enmity with
Fernando, admitted that his action was correct in this
instance. He was, in fact, delighted to see Juanito's huerto
eliminated, though he remained distrustful of Fernando.
Not without difficulty, Juanito made a new channel for his
huerto and continued to irrigate it.

p.s. 10

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

The following year Fernando's real objective is revealed :
he intends to divert the waters of the Rio from a point some
400 yards above Gurro's huerto and bring it down to join
forces with that of the Arroyo above the mill of the Juncal
The power of the mill would thus be doubled. But Juanito's
garden once more loses its water. However, in the meantime
Fernando has come to terms secretly with Juanito, and a
contract has been signed between the two, for part of the
ground over which Fernando will make the new watercourse
belongs to Juanito's wife. This contract was not made easily.
Fernando offered a good price for the field in question or
offered to exchange it for land elsewhere, but both offers
were refused. The final contract gives him no land in posses
sion but costs him as much as if he were buying Juanito's
huerto.

With his flank secured, as it were, Fernando sets his men
to work in the autumn to build the new channel. He does
not build it out of concrete straight away but^nakes it in an
improvised manner to try out not only the technical factors
in the scheme but also,, perhaps, the reaction of his neigh- '
bours.

The person whom, apart from Juanito, this change in the
flow of water affects, is Curro. The upper end of his huerto
is too high to be irrigated by the channel of the Arroyo,
which now carries both streams. About three-quarters of an
acre loses its water and it is thought that the fruit-trees
planted there will die. The millers down below are also
concerned, for it appears likely that for technical reasons
they will lose water (meaning power) for their mills.

There is an outcry, led by Curro, but Fernando reassures
the millers, explaining that they will not lose but gain water
since he is going to build the channel in concrete, and the "
water will come down quicker and with less loss in the channel
than in the stream-bed. (This is true.) It is also likely that
this latest development comes as no surprise to a number of
millers whose reactions have been secretly tested in advance.
Very soon only two millers continue to support Curro, one of
them Pepe, his first cousin and compadn. Curro makes a
denunciation to the Town Hall and is told that he must
serve notice on Fernando to the effect that his garden is

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 147

being damaged by this action. Curro sends Manuel the Count
and the brother of Alonso. The latter fails to appear at the
rendezvous and Manuel goes alone. Fernando makes an
offer of compensation which Curro proudly refuses. It appears
to have been a not ungenerous offer, but Curro asserts that
he is not asking for alms but wishes only to keep intact the
huerto which is his patrimony. After this Manuel no longer
supports him. His attitude towards Fernando has always
been somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand he proclaims
himself Fernando's disciple and is on terms of friendship
with him, while on the other he enjoys speaking evil of him
with Curro and sympathising with the latter in his ancient
grudge. Now that the test case comes he deserts Curro
and sides with Fernando. Curro complains bitterly of his
falseness adding certain assertions regarding his family
life which reflect gravely upon his moral character.
There appears to be no foundation for these assertions,
which concern his future intentions as well as his past,
but they effectively demonstrate his fundamental shame-
lessness.

Curro then goes to the pueblo with Pepe and asks the
corporal of the Civil Guard to have the work stopped. The
corporal says that he cannot take action in such a matter,
being a civil matter, without the instructions of the mayor.
Curro next goes to the mayor who says he is not competent
to take action without instructions from the Hydrographic
Commission in Seville. He considers rallying his supporters
and going by night to destroy the work which has been done,
and set the river back on its course. But in spite of all his
warnings of the growing power of Fernando and his assurances
that once he has both waters he will become all-powerful and
will crush them all, the millers make no response and even
his second supporter, a miller, begins to dissociate himself
from Curro. Cutro now has only his compadre, Pepe. Alonso
remains on friendly terms but says openly that Curro's
demands are exaggerated. Curro is bitterly disappointed and
talks of leaving the pueblo and going to work in Algeciras.
He proposes selling the huerto to a friend, saying that he
would sell it him for a moderate price but that Fernando
should not have it for a million pesetas, He insists at some

T ^8 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

length with his friend. Alonso overhears this conversation
and goes to tell Fernando. This satisfies Fernando that he is
winning the dispute. In due course the news that Alonso has
informed to Fernando reaches Gurro and gives him further
reason to complain of the falseness and cowardice of man
kind. After this Alonso no longer comes to sit in Curro's
patio.

Curro is at this time working upon some repairs in the
mill of the Pileta and he takes his problem to Don Antonio.
The previous year has seen bad relations between the Juncal
and the Pileta. Fernando Pinas has been charging a more
favourable rate for milling and has captured trade from the
Pileta. He has been raided by the chief inspector and caught
with contraband oil, and has incurred a heavy fine in conse
quence. Popular opinion attributes the action of the inspec
tors to the instigation of Don Antonio. Curro's personal ideas
and his family tradition are very much at variance with Don
Antonio's, yet he is confident of finding an ally here. He
contrasts the education and refinement of Don Antonio
with the brutishness of his enemy, and quotes a former
summer visitor of high social position as saying that Fernando
was "unworthy of the capital which he possessed", and had
been a turncoat in the war.

Don Antonio offers sympathy and gives advice to the
effect that he make no attempt to do anything more in the
pueblo but go straightaway to the Hydrographic Commission
in Seville, for in the pueblo "everyone listens to Fernando".
It becomes evident, however, that Don Antonio, while he
would be glad to see Curro successful, is not prepared to
become involved in any way himself. Curro therefore goes to a
lawyer in Ronda of whom he has heard to take advice and
prepare his case. The lawyer looks into the matter and says
there is a good case. There is no need to go to Seville, for it
is against the law to divert a watercourse without the proper
authorisation.

Fernando is meanwhile continuing the work and, confident
that he has the situation in hand, is spending money on it.
He has not found it possible to take the water by the route
originally planned and has had to take it from farther up
stream and blast a piece of rock. Juanito has noted this but

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 149

makes no move to support Curro in his protest. Fernando is
satisfied that he has the support of the valley and that he
will be able to square the Hydrographic Commission after
wards. This is the way things are done, he says. First you do
the work and then you get permission to do it. Otherwise
they would keep you waiting for ever. As for his antagonist,
Curro, he has nothing but scorn for him :

"I have no wish to humiliate the man, but he has an
envious nature. I have offered to pay compensation or to
buy the land, but he will not listen to me. He guards an
old grudge against me and will not live like a good
neighbour. Moreover his grudge was groundless in the
first place for the mill belonged not to his father but to his
step-mother by inheritance from her parents. She was
very good to him and treated him like her own child if not
better, but he was ungrateful. When she wished to sell her
mill why should she not sell it to me instead of keeping it
for her step-son? He envies me my wealth, but I have
worked hard to get it. If he wishes to get wealthy he should
do the same. I am up at seven every morning and busy
straightaway, but his workshop does not open till eleven
o'clock and some mornings not at all, for he is engaged in
plotting and in going to visit lawyers to see whether he
cannot take advantage of me. He is a fool. He should
spend his money on his wife and children and not on
lawyers or the poor little things will find themselves with
no bread to eat. But what can I do about that ? They are
not my children, they are his."

Curro, meanwhile, is encouraged by the lawyer's opinion
that he has a good case and exults in the humiliation which
he is going to inflict on Fernando. He is by no means fully
confident, however, and comes to see a friend in search of
encouragement. The friend gives his sincere advice : to distrust
lawyers and use the strength of his legal position in order to
exact generous compensation from Fernando. He warns him
that the result of going to court may well not be favourable
to him, and that a court-case based upon the extremely un
certain water-rights of the valley is liable to provoke trouble
for everyone and make him very unpopular. Even though he
might win the case he might stir up such a fuss that he could
not subsequently get legalisation for the water-wheel which

150 FRIENDSHIP ANP AUTHORITY

he is installing for the machinery of his shop. Curro does not
appreciate this line of argument for he has made up his mind
to fight. His point of view varies from: "Let us see whether
there is Justice in Spain ! " to " Now Fernando is going to have
to pay all the wrongs he has done me in the last ten years ! "
He is scornful at the idea of receiving alms at the hands of
Fernando. All he wants is his rights. If Fernando wants to
climb down he can pay 25,000 pesetas (about three times
what the land is worth to buy) that is only a small part of
the money he is going to make with the extra power in his
mill. He can well afford such a sum if he wishes to have the
water which belongs to another.

The case is tried in Alcala. Curro loses and must pay all
the costs including Fernando's. His plea is dismissed on the
grounds that he had given previous permission for the work to
be done and consequently had renounced his right to
damages. This permission was said to have been given at a
syndical meeting of the water-users in the town hall. Curro
denies that the subject was ever raised in his presence at that
meeting. Testimony was given by two leading figures in
syndical affairs. Curro maintains that one of them was not
even present at the meeting in question. The witnesses were
not cross-examined, and Curro believes that his lawyers
were bribed by the other side. He complains privately to the
judge afterwards who says : " What can I do ? I can only give
judgement according to the law and on the evidence which
is presented." Curro thereafter agrees that it is not the
judge's fault if Justice has gone astray.

Curro is now outraged^ humiliated and ruined. He says
he must sell the huerto to pay his debts and will not stay longer
in Alcala. In fact he sells a house he owns in the pueblo
which is let and borrows money from the Monte de Piedad,
a loan secured by the faithful Pepe. In spite of the quarrel
and the court's decision he still hopes that Fernando will pay
his own costs and is galled by the latter' s refusal. As regards
damages Fernando says, not to Curro but to others, that he
will wait and see how much Curro's huerto does in fact suffer,
and will give him compensation then. Curro's lawyer accepts
a slightly reduced fee in, view of the lack of success of the suit.

Fernando has defended his position. "Now that fellow

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 15!

does what he likes in the valley/' says Curro. "Now he has
the water he will extend his huerta. The one he has was built
up illicitly, and who is going to question his rights now they
have seen what has happened to me." Curro considers the
possibility of an appeal and of taking the matter up in Seville
but decides against it. He attributes his failure chiefly to
the dishonesty of his lawyers who dissuaded him from going
to Seville in the first place, and subsequently betrayed him in
failing to cross-examine the witnesses in the case in Alcala.
Six months later he feels better about it and jokes sourly
that he thought he had caught Fernando out but the latter
turned out to be too cunning for him. He may be as rough as a
donkey, but for cunning subterfuge there is no one like him,
Curro says.

Fernando's position is not as impregnable as all that.
During this time the wife of Juanito has returned to the
charge. Her contract with Fernando though generously paid
has not been observed strictly, and her husband, acting on
her behalf, has brought a case against Fernando for breach of
contract and damage to her property. Gurro and his compadre
"el Ranchero", ("the cottager") are hombres buenos, and it
may be a bitter satisfaction to Curro that this time Fernando
is defeated. The case is tried in Alcala, and Fernando must
pay damages and costs.

The pueblo is glad to see the powerful man defeated, but
the action of Juanito does not inspire any admiration nor is
there much sympathy for Curro. His old grudge is well
known, and it is generally recognised that he was out for
revenge more than for anything else. The corporal's analysis
of the situation reflects a generally recognised aspect. He says
that the wife of Juanito is a lady who thought that she had
found "a breast to suckle her", i.e. a situation out of which
she could get something for nothing. She did in fact find it
but Curro, who thought that he had found the same, missed
it. On the other hand Fernando, although his power is
resented by the pueblo on principle, is respected for his
ability and his general conformity to the moral standards of
the pueblo. The law and morality are not the same thing. Yet
no one is sorry for him on account of his exploitation by
Juanito, either. It is up to him to know how to manage these

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

things. As one of his admirers remarked: "That will teach
him to think that he can do everything in the pueblo. He will
be sorry that he didn't go to Seville and fix things properly
before he started, for he could have done so. He has friends
there. 55

Fernando's power depends upon his position in syndical
affairs and as a former mayor of Alcala, upon his being
able to get things done, upon his influence with people and
upon their allegiance to him. He is at the same time a
member of the ruling group and also of the pueblo (plebs),
(just as the mayor is at the same time part of the local com
munity and also a member of the provincial deputation). If
he were to lose the valley's allegiance to him he would among
other things be of no further use to the mayor, therefore he
cannot antagonise the valley. As has been pointed out
already, he is invaluable to the millers as their spokesman and
defender during the difficult times. He wants the water, but
it is not only contrary to law to divert it, but, far more
important, contrary to the tradition of the valley. On the
other hand it damages only two people, and he is willing
to compensate them generously. It may be significant also
that, by bringing the waters of the Rio to the mill of the
Juncal, it gives Fernando an official claim to them which
the millers of the upper valley do not have. This gives him
the right to complain of the abuses of the hortelanos. He has
clearly been thinking of this manoeuvre for years, as his
attempts to obtain possession of the land above the stream
have shown. He paid a very high price indeed for one piece
of land.

His first move successfully split Juanito and Curro. They
do not support each other in resisting him until the very end,
when Juanito may have found difficulty in finding anyone to
stand as hombre bueno for him. Morally, Juanito's position is
weak from the start on account of the nature of his huerto,
founded upon stolen water. On the other hand, the fact
that he has had it long enough to grow fruit-trees, even
though they are still small, gives him a certain moral right on
xde facto basis. In the first incident he gained no sympathy,
for it was up to him to get his water without prejudice to the
community. Subsequently, Fernando paid him generously

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 153

for his interest. No one would have been sorry if he had lost
his case.

Morally, Curro's case appears at first sight much stronger
than Juanito's. It is the case of a powerful man attempting to
override the rights of a neighbour. But Curro's action in
refusing to consider an arrangement is unneighbourly, and
his case is spoilt in the eyes of the pueblo by the vindictiveness
which inspires him. His friendships are much more restricted
for he is a poor man and commands little influence. His only
strength is the support of his neighbours. While they felt
themselves threatened, not knowing whether Fernando's
scheme would turn out favourably to them or not, and felt
that Curro was being victimised, they were prepared to
support him. When Fernando reassured them that they would
gain and not lose water, and when Curro refused to consider
compensation, they were glad to reaffirm their solidarity
with Fernando, even though they disapprove of the violation
of the tradition upon which they depend for the security of
their water. Not only is Fernando their spokesman, but they
are all tied to him by obligations of friendship. " Fernando is
a good friend, a good neighbour. He gives much. He has
everybody in his debt. 53 In view of his past kindness it would
be shameless of them to go against him, moreover it would
be impolitic. Curro's only allies are his cousin and compadre,
Pepe, and a miller who is inspired chiefly by jealousy of
Fernando and who soon withdraws when he sees the other
millers are with Fernando and "el Ranchero".

This man is compadre of Curro's uncle though Curro calls
him compadre. He lives high up on the hill-side where he works
at plaster burning. He is poor and without ambition, very
proud and dependent on the favour of no man. He is the
champion of equity, the enemy of corruption. He is quite
uneducated, but he is feared for his outspokeness. It is his
uncouthness and perhaps also his unwillingness to enter the
system of reciprocal favours which has earned him the
additional nickname of "the Bumpkin". He speaks much in
moral sayings and laments the state of his country, but he
is not a "Red". On the contrary, during the war he led a
party of refugees from the Anarchist terror up into the
mountains and hid them there, keeping them supplied with

154 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

food. The story is told of how an official attempted to extort an
illicit charge from him. He thumped the table and, in a
voice that the whole pueblo could hear, he bellowed: "In
this place there is neither mayor, nor manliness, nor shame ! "
The terrified official explained that he had made a mistake
in his demand. He, it was, who took Curro's part in his
first quarrel with Fernando over the sale of the mill. He
remains with Curro throughout this quarrel, the dis
interested friend.

It can be seen that " el Ranchero ", the enemy of the system
of patronage, retains his independence through remaining
outside the system. His position as an independent craftsman
with a virtual monopoly enables him to do this. He neither
employs people nor is employed, he does not use water, he
does not market his produce. People send a donkey for his
plaster when they need it, and the demand is fairly steady.
No doubt the independence of craftsmen generally accounts
for the fact that the majority of the Anarchist leaders in the
pueblos of the sierra came from that class.

The institution of friendship, based upon the moral notion
of equality and the free exchange of favour, builds up, in
situations of material inequality, a structure of patronage
which links up the authority of the state through the
economic power of certain individuals to the network of
neighbourly relations. To make the point plainer: taking the
incident described above, the powerful and wealthy Fernando
Pinas is able to effect an improvement, to his own advantage,
in the use of the waters of the valley at the expense of the
rights of two persons of small importance, of whom, one,
through a timely recourse to the law, manages to obtain ample
compensation for the loss of his stolen water and the violation
of his land, while the other, whose title to compensation for
the loss of water was good, was defeated by a chanchullo (a
dirty trick). In fact the corporal who placed the two in the
same category was wrong. Curro did not seek, like Juanito,
to exploit the violation of his rights, but to challenge the
system of patronage. For this reason he was crushed. Fernando
was able to defeat him owing to the support which he re
ceived from the authorities and also from the rest of the com-

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 155

munity, which remains loyal to him, thanks to the service
which he renders in their relations with the source of
authority and to his private generosity, a generosity which he
is well able to afford in view of the advantages which he
stands to gain.

In such a system the moralist may see a systematic abuse
of principles; the social anthropologist,, avoiding moral
judgements, sees only the delegation of certain functions of
representation through the medium of wealth and prestige.
For reasons which will not be discussed here, 1 the law
commands something which is highly prejudicial to the
economy of the local community. The resulting conflict is
resolved through a social personality who possesses an
effective relationship with the pueblo, with the ruling
group of the pueblo and with the representatives of the law
outside the pueblo. Put in another way, the tension between
the state and the community is balanced in the system of
patronage. The element of balance in the situation becomes
clearer when the relationship between the inspector and the
pueblo is looked at through the inspector's eyes. If he pursued
his duties with too much vigour he would, if he were
successful, do the millers out of business altogether, They
would stop milling, and he would get no more fines. He would
deprive himself of a source of income which he needs, for he
is poorly paid; he would ruin good men; and he would
make enmities for himself, for those men have friends and
padrinos. On the other hand, if he left the millers undisturbed
he would not be taking full advantage of his position and
he would not be thought by his superiors to be doing his
job. Through the system of patronage the will of the state
is adapted to the social structure of the pueblo. But patron
age is only one aspect of the relationship between the two,
and the incident which we have considered brought into
sight only that part of the organisation of the state which
is concerned with economic controls, the most recent and
least essential of its organs, and one which at the present
time is being greatly curtailed. In apposition to the structure
of friendship built up from personal relations in the pueblo,

1 The official reason given is that the primitive mills of the valley arc un
economical with the grain and cause additional waste in a time of shortage.

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

there can be seen to exist a structure of authority devolving
from the central state and defined explicitly by its laws.

To distinguish the two structures is to make an abstraction,
of course. The corporal has his friendships, however vulner
able they may be to the demands of duty, and connives at the
activities of the millers. The humblest member of the
community depends upon the law. The two systems inter
lock, not as juxtaposed groups of personalities but as juxta
posed systems of sanctions which operate with relative force
upon the individual in every situation, and define, through
the balance they strike, his social personality. We are dealing
not with rival groups but with rival, and not always rival
but often allied, systems of relationships.

Manners, friendship, the idiom of daily contact are based
upon a respect for others, a recognition of their right to
pride. This recognition is part of the egalitarianism of the
pueblo. But reciprocal service cannot assure concord in every
situation. Where two wills are in conflict one must overrule the
other. The other must be humiliated. They can be neigh
bours no longer. Fernando says, specifically, "I do not wish
to humiliate him" when envisaging his victory over Curro.
The lieutenant of the Civil Guard has not such concern in
his relations with members of the community. He speaks
another language. "It may be different in your country/ 3
he explains to the anthropologist, "the Spaniard requires
authority if he is to achieve anything." He illustrates what
he means with a gesture of the hand, that which is used in
threatening children with punishment. This opinion might
be taken to express nothing more than the contempt of a
person in authority for the people over whom he exercises
it. That he is feared and hated by the majority of the pueblo
there is no doubt, but the same belief is found among the
very people who resent his authority. Every family must have
a head who is obeyed, they say. A father who has no authority
over his family, a husband who has none over his wife, is
despised. Every property must have an owner. Every pueblo
must have an alcalde., a mayor, a person whose authority is
the guarantee of order, a person worthy of respect, whose
superiority makes it no humiliation to submit to him. Hence
"el Ranchero's" outcry that since there was corruption in

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 157

the pueblo, it had neither authority nor manliness nor shame.
Authority is the guardian of the social virtues just as, within
the family, it is the guardian ofverguenza ; and it is a necessity,
else the passionate egoism of men will carry the society into
chaos. Therefore the dictator, the embodiment of authority,
violates no value sacred to the social order l when he seizes
power, but, rather, he reasserts one whose failure has brought
society in danger of collapse. When General Primo de Rivera
came to power it was to save the country from this danger,
and the pueblo was well impressed by his first act which was
to put all the caciques in jail. The old inn-keeper of the inn
opposite the barracks of the Civil Guard smiles happily
when he remembers the day when " there were forty-five
guests across the road " . All the prominent political personages
otthepartido were imprisoned in Alcala for a few days. The
pueblo, unlike the urban middle-classes, never reproached
him with the destruction of constitutional government,
which to them meant only caciquismo.

The idiom of command contrasts with that of friendship. 2
There comes the point when the pretences are dropped and
the realities of power come into the open. An order is an
order and not the request for a favour, and there can be no
mistaking which is meant. The brusqueness of the former
emphasises that it is based not upon any idea of reciprocity or
sympathy but upon the unilateral force of coercion. Within
the authoritarian situation the inferior is not entitled to feel
pride. If he does, it is not legitimate self-esteem but soberbia.
The second person singular is used here, not as a sign of
confianza but, as in an army command, as a sign that no
respect is accorded to the person addressed. But, on the other
hand, he in whom authority is vested must possess the
necessary manliness in order that he may be submitted to
without humiliation. He who, for the sake of the principle
of authority, viewed as socially good, submits to the per
son of "prestige through manliness" participates in his

1 Cf. Guglielmo Ferrero, The Principles of Power (New York, 1942), for a
somewhat fanciful view of the different values which attach to the exercise of
political power in different European countries. Ferrero postulates "principles
of legitimacy".

2 This contrast is brought out in a dramatic passage in Zugasti's El Bando-
lerismo where the author describes his first interview with "el Nino".

158 FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY

commanders manliness and is not humiliated. Among the
many popular songs sung in the valley is a copla upon a
former dictator c el mas valiente de Espana" ("the most
valiant man of Spain"). But at the same time, within the
value system of the pueblo, the mystique of authority is
accompanied by exultation in the rebelliousness of the
Spanish pueblo. Another copla of an earlier century was
once quoted to me :

"Dice, cuando vino a "They said, when there came

Espafia to Spain

el rey invicto Amade The unconquered king

Amadeo,
A Espafia no le gobierna You are not able to govern

the Spaniards,
Ni tampoco el Hucife." Nor is Lucifer either."

It is this rebelliousness which makes authority necessary
it is thought and the converse is equally true.

There exists, then, in the political structure of the pueblo
two principles each attaching to a different aspect of social
life. The principles of equality and authority. The former is
associated with the relationship of neighbours, of people who
live together in the pueblo. Equality has already been shown
to be the essence of neighbourly relations and the sanctions of
personal contact, jealousies, gossip and so forth prescribe it.
A person's verguenza is what makes him sensitive to these
sanctions, and the matrilineal nature of vergtienza as well as
the fact that neighbourly relations are largely conducted by
women cause them to be particularly associated with the
female sex. The principle of authority, on the other hand, is
particularly associated with the male sex. And the quality of
manliness is that which justifies its subjection of neighbourly
values, for it is recognised as necessary to defend the social
order and enforce the rule of right.

This is the ideal picture of the moral values of the pueblo, 1

i It is interesting to observe that they are also those of Father Juan de
Mariana, De regis et rege institutione (1599) . Spanish translation^ Qbr&$ del Padre
Juan de Mariana (Madrid, 1864), both as regards the nature of authority and
its relationship to equality, and also as regards the rights and duties
associated with fichus. Typically also, Mariana applauded the rebels of
Fuenteovejuna in his Ihistory of Spain.

FRIENDSHIP AND AUTHORITY 159

and if political authority enforced them all would be well.
However, authority belongs to the state, and, so far from
enforcing the rule of right, it frequently appears to the pueblo
to enforce the opposite. Authority, in the eyes of many, does
not enjoy the legitimacy which would make it the defender
of vergiienza, and it is wielded for the most part by outsiders
who do not belong to the pueblo. For this reason matters of
government are regarded by many, in the tradition which
comes down from the days ofcaciquismo > as the business of the
state not of the pueblo, as something dangerous and im
moral which sensible people have nothing to do with, Those
who took part in anarchist politics under the republic are
recalled as "those who had ideas".

"When they ask me to vote/' an old farmer said, "I ask
who for, and when they tell me who for, I vote. And if they
doix't ask me to vote I stay at home and mind my own
business. 93

CHAPTER XI

Law and Morality
(i) Nicknames and the Vito

THE RELATIONSHIP between law and morality poses
problems which have preoccupied jurists and philosophers
for centuries, and which the anthropologist habitually side
steps by maintaining that in primitive society the distinction
between the two cannot profitably be made. Neither can be
said to have emerged from the mother-concept of custom.
The jural rules of simple autonomous peoples are carried by
the memories of the elders of the community, but the laws of
a civilised country are codified by a central power and must
be applicable to a great variety of communities, varied both
as regards their local culture and also their social status, and
it is hardly surprising if they do not suffice in themselves
to give a complete picture of what the anthropologist, in
contrast to the political philosopher, calls political structure.
The political philosopher sees only the framework of legisla
tion ; the anthropologist must search for a system of human
relations. The data- which he considers must include not only
the overt framework of law but also the discreet social
relations through which it is interpreted. For this reason it
has been necessary in dealing with political structure to
devote some space to the institution of friendship. (Whether or
not it is properly named an institution is a point which need
not delay us.) It is in no way formalised, and the very am
biguities which enclose it have been shown to relate to its
role within the structure. It belongs not to the legislative
framework, but to another set of relations having their
origin not in the state but in the values of inter-personal
behaviour, and prescribing conduct, not through the sanctions
or organised force, but through those of community. The two
sets of sanctions are quite distinct and so, to the people of
the Sierra, are morality and law.

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO l6l

The next three chapters will be devoted to the examination
of the role, within the total social structure, of the institutions
deriving from the community l of the pueblo (plebs] and,
standing in opposition to the powers external to the pueblo,
the educated and the state. This aspect of the structure of
the whole pueblo, I have been tempted to call the " infra
structure ", but that the word has other uses already, because
it lies behind the formal political structure and because its
institutions are interrelated with one another.

Its nature is visible to begin with, in the system of naming
people within the pueblo. How formal names are given has
already been said. Everybody knows both his own surnames
and usually, but not always, both those of his parents. Other
people frequently do not know any but his Christian name,
and they seldom know both his surnames unless they are
closely related to him. When asked the name of the man
who had been living opposite him, fifty yards away, for the
last ten years (his only neighbour), the keeper of the tavern
on the crossroads replied: "Francisco ... Francisco ...
well, not to waste time over it, Francisco the Fishseller."
His reluctance to use a nickname to someone as much an
outsider as myself (with whom he was not well acquainted)
came up against the obstacle of ignorance. He did not know
his neighbour's name. After a further five minutes, spent
largely thinking about the problem, he said: "His name is
Sanchez. I know because I happen to know his son's name
is Sanchez. " To the pueblo he was Francisco the Fishseller.

Personal relations are conducted through Christian names
as a general rule. The surname is not-normally used as a form
of address though there are instances of this. (There is no
doubt that this has been encouraged by the influence of
military service. Boys recently returned from it show a
tendency to use surnames.) When referring to a person behind

i Where the word "community" is used unspecifically, as in the contrast
between the sanctions of community and those of organised force, it is not
intended necessarily to have a strictly territorial basis. Sanctions of community
are those which derive from inter-personal contacts wherever they effectively
occur, and the " community of the middle class of the province " has been shown
to exert sanctions upon its members. The community of the pueblo (plebs) on
the other hand specifically excludes a number of people in so far as they do not
participate in the life of the people who live there.

P.S. II

1 62 LAW AND MORALITY

his back he is distinguished by a descriptive nickname. 1
This is never, or virtually never, used as a form of address.
To do so would be bad manners, though exactly how bad
would depend upon the nickname. Some are obscene and
many are uncomplimentary.

A person possesses, then, a Christian name by which he is
addressed ; his surnames which are used in all his contacts
with the legislative framework of society and the outside
world but which may largely be ignored by the pueblo ; and
his nickname, which the pueblo knows him by, but which he
is supposed not to know. In fact, of course, he always does
know it. Whenever his name is written down it must be his
surname. His nickname is never written, for there is no
reason to write it in the daily life of the pueblo. A single
exception to this occurred when the Town Hall sent round
to the millers and hortelanos the forms which required them to
state their water-rights. The properties were in some in
stances named, as in popular speech, by the nickname of the
occupant. It appeared that the Town Hall did not know the
official names of the mills and gardens in all cases and fell
back upon the customary name. The name of the occupier
entered on the form was always his proper name.

Writing is an activity which links a person with the world
of formality. People who have to do with written matters
tend to know many more surnames, and the staff of the Town
Hall know who is who in the whole pueblo. (No one else
knows the surnames of the whole pueblo.) But they also
know the nicknames and, though they tend to use surnames
more than other people, they will use nicknames when not in
an official position. On one occasion I was sitting in the
casino talking of Fernadito Piiias with the town clerk. We
moved to the town hall, and when I referred there once more
to Fernando Pinas the town clerk answered stiffly: "Don
Fernando Castro Menacho." He felt that it would not be
proper to mention a person by his nickname in such a place,
particularly a person of Fernando's standing.

There is a feeling, not only among the officials but in the

i A similar system of nicknames is described in Norman Douglas, Old
Calabria (London, 1915). Douglas describes the difficulty of identifying a person
knowing only his surname and without knowing his nickname (pp. 54-6) .

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 163

pueblo, that nicknames are degrading and their use is a sign
of barbarity. People feel slightly ashamed that a foreigner
should wish to inquire into such matters, and fear that the
pueblo will be made to sound backward and uncivilised by
this feature. (A schoolmaster of my acquaintance even goes
so far as to maintain that the cultural standard of the popula
tion can make no advance while the nickname persists.)

The majority of surnames are common ones. The average
extension of a name within the population of the pueblo is
i -i per cent. Some seven names claim more than 3-6 per
cent of the population each. That is to say that about one-
third of the population is called by one of those seven names.
The confusion is increased by the fact that a person's
matronym may be known but not his patronym. Yet, the
nickname, though it fulfils the function of identifying people
much better than does the surname, may also be hereditary,
and in a few instances nicknames build up genealogies which
rival surnames in their proliferation. Nearly a quarter of the
inhabitants of the valley are either "Conde" or "Gorrino".

First of all, the nicknames themselves. Perhaps the
commonest type refers to appearance in a purely descriptive
sense: "laCiega" (" The Blind Woman ")," el Bisco" ("The
Squinting One 55 ), "los Enanos" ("The Dwarfs"), "el
Tartamudo" ("The Stammerer") are nicknames which are
given on the same principle as those of medieval monarchs.
There are also those, equally descriptive, which define the
person through his occupation: "el Panadero" ("the
Baker 53 ), "fel Pescadero" ("the Fishseller"), "el Herrador"
("the Blacksmith"), "el Electricista" ("the Electrician 5 ').
Such nicknames might be taken to be little more than descrip
tions and barely to merit inclusion under this heading, but
that in many cases the description does not apply to them.
"The Baker" is not a baker but a farmer. "The Little Lame
One" walks sound. "The Toothless One" has all his teeth.
"The Bald One" all his hair. "The Ugly One" is consider
ably better looking than "the Pretty One". The nickname
was given not to the man but to his parent or grandparent or
great-grandparent. How far back they go cannot be said, for
men have no records of their families other than their own
memories provide and these people guard little from the past.

164 LA W AND MORALITY

Certain nicknames describe by analogy, using the names
of animals, "el Piojo" ("the Louse"), "el Gorrino" ("the
Piglet"), "el Rana" ("The Frog"), 1 or, by association, "el
Peo" ("the Fart"), "el Papera" ("the Goitre"),! "el Jeta"
("the Snout"). 1 These are already far from flattering, but a
plainly mocking note is to be found in some : " el Rey " ("the
King"), an illiterate small-farmer supposedly very unrefined,
"el Monarca", "el Conde", "la Marquesa" for people who
in all probability "gave themselves airs", "la Peseta
Peligrosa" ("the dangerous peseta"), "la Santa" ("the
saint"). "La Bonita de la Ribera" was given in irony to a
lady who had goitre. Words of gypsy, known as slang, such
as "el Choro" ("the Thief") or "el Pincho" ("The Hand
some") refer to men who are not gypsies. Favourite terms of
speech provide nicknames such as "Venga-venga" or
"Justamente", which are plainly satirical in origin. Others
inspired by some particular event are liable to be more
damaging still: "el Cuernodeoro" ("the Horn of Gold", an
idiomatic expression meaning a willing cuckold) was given to
a man whose wife was the mistress of a rich man. "La
Parrala" ("the Flirt") was the title of a song popular a few
years ago and was given to a domineering matron of some
fifty-five years. The more damaging and obscene names are
very often supplementary ones, used only by persons of an
unfriendly disposition, while friends continue to use some
more harmless one. The niece of "el Peo" maintained that
his nickname was "el Sacristan", though other people
seemed to know him better by the former name. There are
also those nicknames mentioned earlier which derive from an
outsider's origin: "el Turco" ("the Man from Benama-
homa"), "el Billongo" ("the Man of Villaluenga"), "el
Malagueno", etc. Farms are commonly known by the name
of the present or former occupier, but in certain instances the
name of the farm has stuck to the children who were reared
there. A man once explained at length that a certain farm
was called "el rancho de Niebla" ("the cottage of Mist")
because the mist hung there on winter mornings, and that
the farmer was called Niebla from the name of his farm. In

i The gender of the article indicates the sex of the person bearing the nick

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 165

fact, however, Nieblas was his patronym. For patronyms and
also matronyms are adapted to serve as nicknames. Names
which have meaning lend themselves particularly to this,
such as "Calle", "Valle", "Pozo" ("Street", "Valley",
"Well"). The fact that they are "adapted to serve as nick
names" and are not merely being used as what they are, i.e.
surnames, can be seen from the way that the feminine is
formed: "Dianez" becomes "Diana"; "Jarillo" becomes
"Jarilla". In other cases againnicknam.es are adapted from
Christian names: "los Merchores" from Melchor, "los
Cristos" from Cristobal, "los Estebistas" or "el Estebano"
from Esteban, "el Amparucho" from Amparo or "la
Currichila" from Curro. Others become recognised by a
diminutive form of their own Christian name and are known
by nothing else. "Currillo", for example, once a prosperous
tenant farmer who ruined himself through drink and gaming
and became a beggar. Another beggar is called "Juanill6n",
a name containing both the diminutive and also the aug
mentative termination which was once the nickname of a
famous bandit.

The circumstances which gave rise to many a nickname
have long been forgotten, though people will willingly
improvise a suitable story from their imagination. " Medio
Pan", "Peluquin" are names whose origin has been lost.
Others have been perverted by time; "Pataleon" from the
Saint's name "Pantaleon" ; "el Montaburra" ("Get-on-the-
donkey") was originally "el Mataburra" ("Kill-the-
donkey"), a nickname earned by a man who, going home
late one night, got his donkey stuck in a stream and, being
drunk, left it there and went on alone. The donkey drowned.
Others have not even any known meaning, such as "Briole"
or "el Chamongo".

The nicknames, being transmissible, may be applied to
persons of either sex and may be used in the plural. The
grammatical anomalies are endless and apparently largely
fortuitous. The feminine tends to be formed by changing the
terminal letter to "a" or adding an "a" as in "la Zarzala",
"la Peluquina". "La Conda", not "la Condesa" ("the
Countess") is the feminine form of "el Conde" ("the
Count"). But masculine variants formed from feminine

1 66 LAW AND MORALITY

nouns leave the terminal "a "unaltered. The article denotes
the sex. In some cases no variant is formed, but a person is
referred to as "she of So-and-so" or "those of So-and-so",

When we come to examine which nicknames are trans
missible and according to what rules they are transmitted,
we find them no more predictable than their grammar.
Obscenities and those of strong personal criticism tend not
to be transmitted though time takes the edge off them where
they remain. Those of more than one word tend not to be
transmitted for they are too cumbersome for general use.
Some are invented for a person on some score or other and
endure for a few years only, after which they give place to an
earlier dynastic nickname. Others are supplanted by a newer
and more libellous one. Any nickname is a potential heirloom.
The nickname always passes with the blood, or more
accurately perhaps (and more in keeping with the values of
this society) through the household, for there is one case of a
step-son receiving his step-father's nickname. In another it
appears likely that the nickname originated with an elder
brother. It is rare for a wife or husband to receive the nick
name of his spouse though it may happen. Far more fre
quently each retains his own family nickname. A nickname
may be inherited from either parent, and there are instances
where some children inherit from one, some from the other.
There is a tendency for the male children to inherit the
father's, the female children the mother's, but this is by no
means always the case. As a consequence of this, however,
the nickname and the patronym become separated, and
families bearing the same nickname have different patronyms.
Even in one instance they no longer recognised their relation
ship as kin, though I succeeded finally in establishing that
they were second cousins.

It might be expected that the nickname provided a
principle of social structure, that those who shared a nick
name were in some way bound together by it. This is not the
case. To possess a common nickname is no bond. "The
Condes" or "the Gorrinos" are never spoken of in the sense
of all those who have one or other nickname. The transmis
sion of the nickname is seen then to derive not from any

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 167

dynastic principle but from the family situation. A child can
never revert to a grandparent's nickname if his parent has
not borne it (unless, as in one instance, he was brought up by
the grandparent). He bears his grandfather's nickname only
because he got it from his father or mother. Any further
extension is only the work of time and nature. A nickname
may be said, then, to define a person in the community
either as himself or as the son of somebody else, as a member
of a household. A certain difference between the two types of
nickname exists, and there are people who have both personal
nickname and also family nickname. Jose- Maria el Conde is
also called "Tio Bigote" ("Uncle Whiskers' 5 ) because he
wears moustaches which is something rare among the farmers.
As el Conde he is defined as the son of el Conde and the
brother of Sen' Andres el Conde, and others. As Tio Bigote,
he is defined as himself. It is significant that those persons
who stand out by virtue of their unconventional behaviour
usually have a personal nickname. The more conventional
characters tend to bear the nickname of their parent.

There is a family called "los Gorrinos" in Zahara, related
to the Gorrinos of the valley. This is exceptional. As a rule
a nickname is given by the pueblo to one of its members, and
when he moves he will normally lose his nickname. To begin
with, he is almost certain to be named according to the place
of his origin, but later his new pueblo may find its own name
for him. It may well not see him in the same light as the
pueblo of his birth. It cannot, in any case, see him as the
child of a particular household if he is a newcomer.

The nickname defines a person in his relationship to the
community, defines him by his origin, his family, his place of
upbringing, his office or his outstanding characteristic in the
eyes of the pueblo. The professional people are not given nick
names, but are defined by their profession, "the vet", "the
doctor", "the chemist". It is only. in this way that they
enter the community. For the same reason the senoritos are
seldom given nicknames. Not only are they not expected to
take such things in good part, they do not belong to the
pueblo (plebs) and therefore to the community which the
nickname defines. Only one, "el Sefiorito", is called by a nick
name, and it might be possible to see in that the recognition

1 68 LAW AND MORALITY

of the fact that his relationship with the community is far
more complete than that of any of the other landowners. In
this as in other things he is old-fashioned. The relationship
of the senoritos to the pueblo today is far more distant and
impersonal than it was fifty years ago. In those times they
were part of the pueblo. Today they are not. In those days
they were given nicknames and the father-in-law of " el
Senorito" was referred to as "Orejon" ("Big-ear"), even
though he was the cacique of Alcala.

The nickname is one way in which the sanctions of the
community operate. An ugly nickname is very much
resented, even though it may never be used in the owner's
presence. It was only possible to discuss "la Rabona's" with
her after years of friendship. Then, full of self-pity, she told
the story of its origin, rounding it off with a grand tirade
against her neighbours and human nature in general. "All is
envy 55 , she complained, "in this pueblo, all is envy 5 '. On the
other hand, nicknames handed down from generations cause
little offence. To be called "the Bald One" while you have
your hair is no great hurt. The Condes and Corrinos are
prepared to speak of theirs in a situation of confidence with
a friend. On the other hand, when a nickname is used by the
young people in the street it is not usual to answer. However,
Isabel la Marinita says : ". . . when I hear mine said to me in
public I answer. That does not dishonour 55 . Hers, derived
from the patronym of a great-grandfather, can carry no
malicious meaning, but others might not be too sure how,
exactly, it was being said and prefer not to risk the humiliation
of answering only to be laughed at. To hear one's nickname
sung in the Carnaval by the anonymous mocking voices of the
pueblo must indeed have meant humiliation.

The compactness of the pueblo no doubt lends force to its
sanctions. They cannot be avoided save by going away.
Therefore the code of manners ordains that respect be main
tained for the pride of others. Aggressive or insulting
behaviour is very "ugly" for it is liable to lead to a quarrel.
And quarrels are ugly. People do not "tell so-and-so what
s I think of him" or give him "a piece of my mind"; It is true
that fights break out sometimes among the young men during
fiestas when much wine is drunk, but they are stopped at

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 1 69

once by those present who hold back the combatants. The
assurance that the fight will not be permitted to take place
enables the combatants to take up a very courageous stance.
So goes the comment of older and more cynical folk. People
do not go outside to fight, for all violence within the pueblo
is bad. If they resort to it at all they do so secretly, aiming
not to triumph over an opponent but to damage him for
their own satisfaction, ambushing him at night and throwing
rocks on him, without ever, if possible, revealing their identity.
Where the enmity between two individuals reaches the point
where they can no longer keep up the fiction of amicability
then it is explained that "Fulano y Mengano no se hablan"
( CC X and Y do not speak with one another"). Convention
allows them this mutual excommunication. Such people go
to great lengths to avoid meeting and everyone respects this
convention. A person cannot for any purpose join a group or
go into a shop where there is someone to whom he does not
speak. For the code of manners demands the participation in
any gathering of those present, since the assumption that
people are sensitive to the reaction of others is the corner
stone on which community is built. Where they wish to score
off one another they do so with care and subtlety, either
speaking evil of a person behind his back or putting him to
shame through some innuendo which can always be declared
unintentional, and therefore innocent, if offence is taken. Yet
this prohibition applies only between private persons, and,
cloaked by the anonymity of group action, the harshest insult
may be delivered. Just as the sanctions of certain primitive
societies are exerted not through a formally ordained institu
tion but through the violent action of the united community,
whose members escape the guilt which such an action, indi
vidually performed, would involve, so the pueblo, through
the imposition of a nickname, castigates the non-conformist in
a way which permits the individual neighbour to remain
guiltless of the offence of rudeness. It is not Fulano nor
Mengano who has given the nickname, but el pueblo.

The same spirit of social satire, the same envy, inspires
another institution which guards the moral standards of the
pueblo, the cencerrada (literally, "the ringing of cow-bells").

170 LAW AND MORALITY

This custom has been described at length by writers on
European folklore, for it is not only general throughout Spain
but it is also known in France and in other countries. It is
similar in some respects to the public mocking which was
formerly practised in English villages. 1

The Andalusian cencerrada is generally described as a
form of celebration of the remarriage of a widowed person,
male or female. Upon the night of the wedding, the boys of
the pueblo dance up and down the street outside the nuptial
dwelling with cow-bells attached to their waist. They also
blow upon cow-horns, drag strings of tins, and with the aid
of such devices keep up a noise which ensures that there is no
sleep all night for the newly wed couple. It was traditional in
Alcala to put on a cencerrada upon the eve of St. Peter, and
various occasions are celebrated in this way in other places.
The custom does not however find favour with the legislative
powers, and it has long been the duty of the Civil Guard to
suppress it. It is specifically mentioned in the Penal Code 2 as
"an offence against public order".

It has nevertheless succeeded in enduring the displeasure
of the forces of the law and is still practised in the pueblos of
the sierra in Alcald under the name of el vito. In Jacinas it
is known as la pandorga (the mobbing-up). The name el vito
derives from a traditional dance of the same name associated,
owing to the speed of its step, with St. Vitus. It is a popular
dance no longer but was apparently a variety of buleria, a
type of dance strongly infused with satire. Indeed, the words
of the vito are clearly intended to mock.

The custom which this appellation covers is discovered,
upon closer examination, to be somewhat different from that
generally described as the cencerrada. The famous vitos of
living memory did not take place in the pueblo of Alcala,
where the Civil Guard would presumably have suppressed
them, but in the country, and particularly in the valley
below the town. This was, no doubt, only due to the presence
of the Civil Guard, for when, in 1951, the section of Civil
Guard was withdrawn from Guadalmesi one took place

1 Gf. the description of the "skimity-ride" in Thomas Hardy's Mayor of
Caster bridge, or the "riding" in A. L. Rowse's Cornish Childhood.

2 Art. 570. Gf. also E. Calatayud Sanjuan, op. cit. 9 p. 614.

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO iyi

within the pueblo. In addition, they were not provoked by
the remarriage of widowed persons but in response to the
flagrant immorality of persons who, being married, deserted
their family and set up house with another. It would be
difficult to do such a thing, save quite shamelessly, within the
pueblo, on account of the presence of neighbours. It is also
to be noted that the Civil Guard could, theoretically, take
action in such a case since adultery is a criminal offence. (The
law against adultery was abrogated during the period in
which civil divorce was admitted, and this fact may have
bearing upon the case to be discussed later.) Finally, the vito
is a more enduring and violent ordeal than the common
conception of the cencenada supposes. An essential part of it is
the composition and continual repetition of songs of remark
able obscenity about the victims.

The most famous vito of Alcala took place about 1930. A
man called Jacinto el Conde deserted his wife and children
who remained in the pueblo, and set up house in an old mill
in the valley with Mariquilla, the unmarried daughter of
another farmer of the valley, "una que andaba con quien
queria" that is to say, she already had a bad reputation.
Such a vito was put on as has never been seen before or since.
Two hundred people came every night and not only boys but
married men also. Jacinto called upon the Civil Guard for
protection, which they sent, but, though they took prisoners,
there were just as many next night. The Civil Guard came
on a number of occasions and even confiscated the great
"bell of the snow", a bell, so heavy that it took two men to
carry it, which had formerly been used by the snow-packers
on the mountain and which the mockers had taken pains to
bring on the scene. The Civil Guard soon gave up coming to
protect Jacinto, and the pueblo, satisfied that it had gained
a victory, redoubled the vito. In order to escape it the guilty
couple moved house and took up their residence in a farm
overlooking the lower valley in order to be farther from the
pueblo, but people continued to come and those of Guadal-
mesi, which was now nearer, began to come as well.

Apart from the ringing of bells and the blowing of horns,
they baked little mud figures with horns on them and placed
them where he would find them the following day, and on

1 72 LAW AND MORALITY

more than one occasion they wired up the door of his farm
house so that he could not come out, and then eased the
barrel of a shot-gun down through the thatch and sang their
songs down it. It is said that the vito went on for three months
and that then something inside Jacinto, near his heart,
burst and it killed him. 1

Jacinto appears to have been the chief victim of the songs
but others were also sung to Mariquilla, nor were they any
less severe on that account. The reproach contained in them
does not refer to his deserted wife and children, though there
is no doubt that this circumstance was responsible for the
strength of feeling over the matter in the pueblo, they deride
him, rather, as a cuckold, and indeed the reason given on one
occasion of the vitcfs purpose was to warn him what manner of
woman he was dealing with. This is clearly something of a
rationalisation. A few of the more harmless rhymes may be
given.

"El pobrecito del Conde "Poor old Conde

No se puede poner el Can't put his hat on

sombrero For his horns go round and

Tiene los cuernos revuel- round

tos As if he were a ram."

Como si fuera un carnero."

" Si la cabeza del Conde "If the head of Conde
Tuviera bombilla 5 Had bulbs fitted on it

Brillara tanto como It would shine as bright

La exposition de Sevilla." As the Seville Exhibition."
(There was a world-famous exhibition in Seville in 1929)
A song was even sung to one of his brothers who came to
visit him :

"Ten cuidado con tu her- "Take care of your brother

mano
Que es un caballo Who is a stud stallion

sementa 5

Ten cuidado con la rubia Take care of the blonde
Que te le va a pesca 5 ." Who will fish him away from

you. 55

i Death is frequently attributed to an emotional cause, shock or despair,
being the commonest. Thunderstorms are much feared for this reason. That the
vito should have killed Jacinto is not therefore anything incredible but, on the
contrary, just what might be expected.

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 173

Before considering the theoretical implications of the vito
another example may be given. In 1946 (or thereabouts) el
Cortadillo became engaged to marry a widow, a girl some
eleven years his junior whose husband had died in the war.
In the autumn she went to join the olive-pickers on the farm
of el Cortadillo together with the other brothers- and sisters-
in-law. They put on a vito which lasted three or four nights.
The songs which they sang were personal and lewd, but they
do not appear to have contained the implications of those
addressed to Jacinto el Conde and Mariquilla. When it was
seen that they were not going to desist, the brothers of el
Cortadillo went out to reason with the jesters pointing out
that the couple were neither married, which would have
provided the conventional excuse for a vito, nor were they
juntos (literally: " joined", i.e. living together), since he slept
upstairs in the loft and she slept with her future sisters-in-law
downstairs. The jokers retired for a short while, then returned
to sing :

" El pobre del Cortadillo " Poor old Cortadillo

Ni esta junto ni esta Is neither joined nor married

casa'o For he sleeps upstairs

Porque el duerme arriba And she sleeps downstairs."
Y ella duerme abajo."

At the second attempt, however, the brothers were successful
and peace was concluded.

As a final example, the mock-vito of Sefior Jose Puente
("Tio Puente") may be considered. An old farmer, famous
for his jokes and good humour, he moved from his farm as he
approached his eightieth birthday into a small house nearby,
where a servant-girl of seventeen went to look after him. The
neighbours decided to give him a tito, pretending that they
believed he was the lover of his servant. The old man took
full advantage to show that his wit had not deteriorated and
he delighted everyone, answering in rhyme the rhymes they
had composed for him. The jesters were invited into his
house to drink wine. At no point was this vito in the least
serious.

There are several points to be noted. The vito, viewed as a
"jural sanction", applies, like certain articles in the Penal

174 LAW AND MORALITY

Code, only to the flagrant breach of the moral code. The
pueblo reacts not when its moral code is evaded but only
when it is directly challenged. It has, though rarely, been put
on in the case of an immoral relationship maintained through
habitual visits, but only when the jesters were able to be
certain of finding the habitual visitor in the expected place at
the expected hour. Practical contingencies prevent it from
operating otherwise.

A second point is that, clearly, it does not happen in every
case. Within the pueblo it is no longer possible to do it,
though there have been occasions on which it has been
performed in a mild form, thanks to the fact that the com
mander of the Civil Guard and the other authorities shut
their eyes to it. It must be remembered that it is not com
manded by a judicial order, but by the desire which a
sufficient number of young men feel to spend the night in
that way rather than in any other. Consequently, in order to
arouse these feelings a person must belong fully to the
community, must be one in whom such behaviour is regarded
as highly scandalous and the concern of the pueblo. There
are certain persons, gypsies and recognised shameless ones,
whose actions are not regarded as warranting the outburst of
popular indignation. Nothing they could do would surprise
the pueblo for they are regarded as already beyond the pale.

The vito is an outburst of aggressive ridicule on the part
of the anonymous pueblo against one who transgresses, an
outburst provoked, it might be said, by a manifestation of
anti-social sex. There is no violence attached to it, and it is
done under cover of the night. The mocking voices rise out
of the darkness, but when the infuriated man rushes from his
house to confront his assailants there is no one there ; only
the sound of scuffling, cow-bells, cat-calls and distant
laughter. What can he do? If he invites the jesters in to
wine or coffee, then there is an end of it, it is said. If not, then
it goes on and gets worse. If one is wise, one smiles and takes
it in good part, inviting one's insultors to be one's guests
even though one may be black within. But even then it is up
to them whether they decide to accept the offer of hospitality.
If not, then the victim has humiliated himself for nothing,
and his swallowed pride is rewarded with a blast on the cow-

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 175

horn and a peal of laughter. Once they do accept then the
anonymous pueblo disappears and those who advance into
the light are individuals ready to resume personal relations.
In the case of Jacinto el Conde there could be no solution.
He reinforced his defiance of the pueblo by calling for the
Civil Guard. Nor, after singing songs of such violence and
crudity, would any of the jesters have been prepared to
come forward and resume personal relations. In the case of
el Cortadillo they ended by making peace, thanks to the good
offices of his family, though not, as has been seen, at the first
attempt.

It is the social personality not the person of the victim
which is attained by this sanction. He is not harmed, but is
humiliated and disgraced, and is, as it were, cast out of the
moral community of the pueblo which has become anony
mous and hostile to him. He must make atonement through
the sacrifice of his pride before he is accepted back, or he
must remain a moral outcast, a shameless one.

It can be seen that the custom of the cencerrada upon the
remarriage of widowed persons is no more than a semi-
serious application of the sanction. It cannot be an entirely
serious manifestation of opprobrium since Church and State
allow such remarriage. But it is, nevertheless, a manifestation
of resentment in the face of that egoism which is the enemy of
the social order. "What did she want to marry again for?"
it is asked, "She had children already." Or "Now that we're
alone," said an elderly farmer after his wife had left the room,
"I'll tell you what women are they're the devil, if they're
not kept in subjection by a man." This was his conclusion to
a conversation regarding a widow who had remarried. The
value system of the pueblo is profoundly monogamous, and
any return, after a person has been married, to pre-marital
romanticism on the part of man or woman is regarded as a
challenge to these values. 1

There was formerly an occasion upon which the sanctions

i Where there are children of a previous marriage a second marriage cannot
create a satisfactory family, for children must all be treated equally and
parents cannot treat a child and a step-child as though they were equally
attached to both. From this comes the belief that step-parents are always
wicked, which is the usual reason given for disapproving of remarriage.

1 76 LAW AND MORALITY

of the pueblo were institutionalised in yet another way. It
is now fifteen years since it was practised and memories are
not reliable. This was the festival of Carnaval, the traditional
feast which heralds the opening of Lent. 1 As in other Euro
pean countries, it had the character of a time of special
licence and of the reversal of the social order. It took on an
anti-clerical and political character during the years which
preceded the Civil War, and the present government banned
it on the grounds that if people were allowed to wear
disguise they would take advantage of the occasion to pay off
old scores. For an essential feature was that it was a time
when people disguised themselves with masks. It also had
the character of a time of authorised shamelessness, hence
the saying "en carnaval todo vale" ("in carnival anything
goes 55 ). The reversal of values was illustrated in the relations
of the sexes. A name for it was the "Festival of the Women 55
and it was supposed to be a propitious time for finding a
nomo. During Carnaval it was the girls who invited the boys to
dance, who might ask them to marry and so forth.

"Ya viene el Carnavalito "Here comes Carnaval
El festival de mujere 5 The festival of the women

Ella que no le caiga novio She who doesn't find a nomo
Qu'espere el ano que Will have to wait till next
viene." year."

Games were played in which compadres de carnaval found
one another by a system of hazard and were then linked to
gether for the rest of the festival. In this way persons who
suffered from excessive shyness found their difficulty over
come. It is said that many compadres de carnaval became novios
once the festival wa^ over and consequently many happy
marriages were owed to the custom. Other people, on the
contrary, disapprove of Carnaval., for they say that it was a
time when "ugly things 59 were done by those who had all too
little shame in normal times and put the special licence which
Carnaval offered to exaggerated use.

In relation to the moral sanctions of the pueblo, the songs
of Carnaval, sung by the bands of masked people, possessed

i In many parts of Spain other festivals of the winter solstice are endowed
with similar characteristics. Their relationship has been studied by J. Caro
Baroja, Analisis de la cultura (Barcelona, 1949), pp. 183 et seg.

NICKNAMES AND THE VITO 177

particular importance. A certain shamelessness must needs
be authorised for them to be sung, for they represented the
public exposition of the year's harvest of gossip. For weeks
before the arrival of Carnaval those who had talents of that
order spent their evenings composing these songs, and into
them put all the scurrilous events of the year. Things which
had been kept dark for many months came out in a couplet in
Carnaval sung hilariously by the masked figures as they
danced down the street. Shopkeepers who had used false
scales, municipal employees who abused their position found
themselves lampooned, but most of all the couplets were
intended to reveal illicit relationships between the sexes.
Through the masked voice of the pueblo the novio whose novia
had deceived him while he was away was warned of his
plight and exhorted to put off his horns. The songs of
Carnaval are recognised by some to have been the guardian of
marital and pre-marital fidelity. The supposed increase in
infidelity is often attributed to its suppression. "These days
nobody knows where he is. For who is to tell him of a thing
like that?"

P.S. 12

CHAPTER XII

Law and Morality
(ii) Bandits and Gypsies

THE LEGAL and moral sanctions of this society each pre
scribe a code of behaviour, but the two codes are far from
being identical. An action is not wrong simply because it is
against the law, nor is a judgement necessarily just because
it follows the law. What has been referred to as " a distrust of
formal justice" is in fact no more than a reflection of this
distinction. Clearly, there is a large field of conduct which
both the law and moral values prohibit, delicts against
persons, property, and so on, but there is also a large part of
the Penal Code which to the pueblo is morally indifferent,
while inevitably much that is regarded as wrong is free of
legal injunction.

But there is a sphere, finally, where the two sets of sanctions,
instead of reinforcing one another, come into conflict. The
economic controls instituted by the government are regarded
as wrong, and those who attempt to enforce them are wicked.
To co-operate with the government by denouncing to the
inspector is an act of treason against the community. To go
to law against a neighbour over a minor matter is as un
ethical as, among schoolboys, to sneak to the master. The
periodical instances of small theft which occur in the valley
are not brought before the law while the thief is thought to
be a resident in the valley. Private action is taken, counter-
theft or, if the thief can be caught in the act, violence. For a
poor man, when in need, to pilfer from the property of the
rich or to pasture his goats illegally on one of the large
properties is not considered immoral. It is a greater wrong
that some should go short when others have abundance.

On the other hand, legal sanctions may sometimes be in
voked against the institutions which preserve the morality of

BANDITS AND GYPSIES

the pueblo, against the vito or against the activities of those
persons to be discussed below who, in the terminology of the
Penal Code, " abuse the credulity of the public". The law
steps in to protect the adulterer against the sanctions of the
pueblo, the thief against the sdbia who would find him out,

Once more the intermediate position of the ruling group
between state and community manifests itself. While they, or
individuals among their number, have the duty of applying
the sanctions of organised force, they are also members of the
community. Though they have far more regard for the law
than does the pueblo, they do not confuse it with morality. It
is rather the instrument which provides them with the means
of government. The incident described on page 1129 illustrates
how their use of that power is influenced by moral considera
tions. 1

By distinguishing in this way between the sanctions of
morality and those of organised force, tracing the former via
the traditional customs and the value system of the pueblo to
the structure of personal relations within the pueblo, and the
latter via the formal political institutions and the code of law
to the state, the nature of certain personalities, typical of
Andalusia, becomes clear.

The bandit is a traditional and picturesque figure in
Andalusia. He was already established there in the time of
Cicero and has been there almost consistently ever since. In
recent times he has been much romanticised, and has become
the hero of a literary genre which might be compared with
the American "Western". He is today one of the heroes of
the cinema. This literary figure sprang from a folk tradition
similar to that which surrounds the name of Robin Hood. Its
essence is well expressed in a couplet referring originally to
the name of Diego Corrientes, a famous eighteenth-century
bandit, but frequently heard with another name in his place.

"Diego Corrientes, el ladron de Andalucfa,
Que a los ricos robaba y a los pobres socorrfa."

"Diego Corrientes, the robber of Andalusia,
Who used to rob the rich and help the poor."

i The values upon which such moral considerations are based, how far those of
the educated are identical with those of the pueblo (pkbs) 9 will be discussed later.

l8o LAW AND MORALITY

According to Bernaldo de Quiros 1 there appears to be little
justification for this assertion with regard to Diego Corrientes
or any other bandit of the past, with the exception of Jose-
Maria el Tempranillo whose style and gallantry did much to
promote the legend in the early nineteenth century. This
striking figure of whom Merimee has left a portrait in his
Voyage en Espagne is the subject of many stories told by those
of Alcala. One of the most popular tells how, riding one day
through the campifia of Guadalmesi, he encountered a poor
tenant farmer leading his aged and crotchety mule. Jose-
Maria remarked that such a mule would be better off dead,
and, drawing his pistol, he shot it. The poor man complained
that it was the only beast he possessed but Jose- Maria told
him to go to a cortijo nearby where they were selling a fine
young animal and buy it. He threw the man a bag of money
containing the required price. The man did as he was told
and bought the mule, and no sooner had he ridden away on
it than Jose- Maria galloped into the farm-yard and drawing
his pistols demanded his money back. This story is one of the
" chestnuts" of banditry for it is told everywhere of the local
bandit hero. More reliable, historically, is that which
records that he had a sweetheart from a pueblo of the sierra
and that he attended the baptism of the child she bore him in
the church of Alcala. He obtained his pardon from the king
while still quite young and passed into the royal service as a
guard upon the mail coaches of Andalusia. He was killed
defending a convoy against an assault led by his one-time
lieutenant. In recent times the bandits have been mainly
men who, either on account of a crime they had committed
or to avoid military service, took to the hills rather than face
capture by the Civil Guard and lead a precarious existence,
robbing the isolated cortijo or capturing the member of a
wealthy family for ransom. At different times the bandits
have taken a distinct political colour, and those of the post
war period were led originally by former officers of the
Republican forces and were supplied with arms from abroad.
They were referred to as los Rojos ("the Reds") or los de la
sierra ("those of the mountains") and were active in the
country round Alcald down to 1951.

1 Bernaldo de Quiros and Ardila, El Bandolerismo.

BANDITS AND GYPSIES l8l

The demographic background of the problem of banditry
has been recognised for a long time. The colonisation of the
wastes around Cordoba in the eighteenth century were under
taken with the avowed object of protecting the main road
from the bandits who were endangering the communications
between Madrid and that region. 1 Bernaldo de Quiros
observes 2 that the principal characteristics of the social
structure of the countryside are responsible for Andalusian
banditry, and those he enumerates as :

(i) El latifundismo, the ownership and exploitation of
agricultural property in large units.

(ii) The absence of a middle class. 3

(iii) The great mass of agricultural proletariat, "almost
entirely without roots, possessing no land, living . . . beside
and in the view of the territorial aristocracy, witnessing
their power, idleness and riches, while themselves enduring
hunger and injustice. . . ."

He also notes, however, that in Extremadura where the
same conditions obtain there is no tradition of banditry. He
fails to note unfortunately that there is also a flourishing
tradition of banditry in the mountainous parts of Andalusia
where the conditions which he defines are not general,
notably in the sierra of Ronda.

Ronda is like a provincial capital to the pueblos of the
sierra. Like Jerez, it possesses a resident aristocracy. The
pueblos to the south, in the valley of the Rio Genal, are
small, less than one thousand inhabitants in number, and
situated in wild country. The agricultural land of these
pueblos and much of the low-lying forest is divided into small

1 Cf. J. Garo Baroja, "Las 'nuevas poblaciones' de sierra morena y Anda-
lucia" in Clavilefio, 1952. No. 18. Also Bernaldo de Quiros, Los Reyes, etc.

2 El Bandolerismo, p. 71.

3 What Bernaldo de Quiros appears to mean by this statement, and it is one
which is frequently made regarding Andalusia, is that the society is composed
only of rich and of poor, that there is no middle class, in the sense of people of
intermediary economic position. This is plainly untrue, even in the areas
where latifundismo is most accentuated. What is missing is not the category of
people of medium wealth but the ideal type of the bourgeois, distinguished by
occupation, and place of habitation and values from the landowners and the
agricultural labourers. Where all live in towns the term "bourgeoisie" (taken
in its literal sense) clearly becomes meaningless. Diaz del Moral uses the term
burgesia agricidtora in order to refer to this class. (See quotation on p. 61.)

1 82 LAW AND MORALITY

properties. Large pastoral properties are owned by the state
and by the aristocracy of Ronda who also own much of the
better land round Ronda itself. An admirable article in
Estampa, 1934, examines the condition of banditry in this
region :

"Just as in some regions there are pueblos which strive to
produce the most and the best bullfighters, so here they want
to have bandits. 55 It is a Civil Guard speaking to the journa
list. " There are five or six from Parauta and you should see
how proud the neighbours are of them. 55 " All the folk of the
sierra protect Flores" (a bandit). "In Igualeja the pueblo is
on Flores 5 side. They are all spies who watch our every act.
Only by a betrayal could we come to grips with him 3 and
no one dares betray him for he would soon be avenged. 55 The
Civil Guard sees it as a permanent system : " When one dies,
either a bandit or a Civil Guard, at once another steps for
ward to replace him and the show goes on. . . ."

The story is told of another bandit, Juan el Nene of
Igualeja, described as bandido de honor, who attacked only the
unjust, punished the peasants who got drunk and beat their
wives and gave alms to the needy. After twelve years he gave
himself up and was pardoned.

The victims of these bandits are the caciques and the
wealthy farmers. 1 The large landowners, on the contrary,
enter into pacts with them for the sake of peace, A lady of the
aristocracy explains the system: "The bandit respects our
properties and the lives of our workers, in fact he protects
them. On our part we never give him away. 55 She goes on to
explain how when she went once to visit a distant property
Flores accompanied her, because as he explained, there were
many petty robbers in the neighbourhood.

The different sections of the community ally themselves
in different ways according to the locality. The only con
stants which can be established are the relationship between
the bandit and the Civil Guard and the relationship of both

i The typical victim today is the farmer who has made much money from
the black market. It is not only that people of higher social status are more
difficult to catch. (When Don Antonio's family is in residence in the Pileta
there used always to be a pair of Civil Guards on duty there.) The bandits also
realise that the greater the importance of the person attacked the greater will
be the outcry in the area and the demand for measures against them.

BANDITS AND GYPSIES 183

these to the pueblo. In communities such as the Andalusian
pueblo it is not possible to hide, as it is in a large city. A
person who is outside the law must either go far away to the
city where his country ways will make him conspicuous,
where his speech, vocabulary, dress, manners will betray him
at once as belonging to the mountains and where unless he
has a confidential contact he will soon be apprehended. Or
he must take to the hills, retaining his confidential contacts
in his own pueblo. His opposition to the Civil Guard assures
him the sympathy of a large part of the pueblo. Theoretically,
at any rate, a romantic and honourable figure, he is outside
the law but he is not immoral. It is the fact that he remains a
member of the moral community, at least in relation to
certain sections of it, that he is able to subsist outside the
law. Once the shepherds begin to inform upon him to the
Civil Guard, once his friends in the pueblo fail him when he
comes down for supplies, then he has reached the end of his
tether. A clear understanding of this problem was responsible
for the recent suppression of banditry in the sierra. The Civil
Guard, unable to trap the elusive and well-armed "Reds",
concentrated their efforts against their contacts in the
pueblos. Finding their supplies endangered, the bandits took
to plundering the shepherds and the latter reacted by
betraying them to their pursuers.

Because he is not morally an outcast the bandit's reintegra-
tion into society was traditionally easier than that of other
malefactors, and one is surprised at the number of bandits
who, throughout the history of Andalusia, have obtained the
royal pardon and settled down to a respectable old age.
"Pasos Largos", a twentieth-century bandit of Ronda, is
said to have become the guard on a property which he was
sent to prison for robbing, and there are other examples of
bandits who retired from law-breaking in order to defend
the law. One is reminded of a similar pattern in another
social sphere which is no less current in Andalusia, that
recorded in the story of Don Juan Tenorio, the rebel against
the sexual morality of his society who ended his days in
extreme penitence and humility.

The contrabandista is another picturesque and traditional
figure. The demand for foreign tobacco was perhaps

184 LAW AND MORALITY

responsible for his prominence in the nineteenth century,
though he was established there long before the age of
tobacco. A network of illicit commercial relations operated
from Gibraltar over the whole of Andalusia. The smugglers
appear to have used routes through the mountains which lie
to the north in preference to risking the passage along the
coast where they might be easily apprehended by the authori
ties. The main route appears to have led up the valley of the
Rio Genal to Ronda past pueblos famous in the history of
banditry: Gaucin, Cortes, La Sauceda, Parauta and
Igualeja. Tio Puente can remember them in the days of his
youth, coming with horse- and mule-trains of sixty beasts, a
man to each animal and a cargo of tobacco on its back. They
stopped at isolated farms for rest and supplies, and the farmer
was glad to give them whatever they wanted for he knew that
when they came to leave each man would pull a packet from
his cargo and throw it down upon a pile in the patio. In those
days there were few posts of Civil Guards in the mountains
and fewer roads. Today the trains of contraband consist of
no more than a few animals, and a host of individuals
operate in different ways and on varying scales. But contra
band tobacco can be bought anywhere and normally at
steady and reasonable prices. Its distribution has at times
contrasted favourably with the official systems of distribution.
The contrabandistas worked in similar areas if not in actual
co-operation with the bandits, and the difference between the
two was not great. Their position in the social structure was
similar, and often enough a bandit turns out to have started
his career as a smuggler and to have taken to the hills only
after some unfortunate clash with the Civil Guards.

Shame as a sociological concept has been discussed in
Chapter VIII, and what is meant by sin verguenza has been
-explained. There are certain persons in this community who
ai^e recognised "shameless ones". Perhaps it would be better
to^all them self-confessed shameless ones, for they have no
pretensions to shame, and do not respond at all to the sanc
tions which operate upon a person's shame. They cannot be
threatened with loss of face, for they have morally nothing
to lose. It is this which distinguishes them from those who

BANDITS AND GYPSIES 185

may be thought to be shameless and may even be said to be
shameless behind their back, but who keep up the pretence of
having shame. Such a shameless person is a kind of pariah,
and in contrast to the manners with which other people are
treated he is very often afforded scant courtesy. He is a person
who may be called shameless, to his face even, with impunity.
Structurally the opposite to the bandit, he is within the law
but beyond the pale, as far as the moral community goes.
Most commonly a beggar, though also a tinker or hawker, he
will never do "an honest job of work", nor indeed will
people employ such a person in any capacity which necessi
tates a relationship of trust. Yet though such a person cannot
be made to respond to the sanctions of popular morality, that
does not prevent him or her from abusing them and playing
upon the sense of shame of others. Some of the old women
who come round the farms begging are feared rather than
pitied. They will accuse people of meanness at once if they
do not give, will make up lies about them and tell their
neighbours, will curse them and bewitch their dogs and so
on. Thanks to their own shamelessness they are able to apply
pressure to the shame of others, for shame is a self-regarding
sentiment, and the fact that the victim of such manoeuvres
feels no moral compunction to give way does not prevent him
from reacting in order to save his pride. On the other hand, a
shameless one, having forfeited his moral membership of the
community, is no longer entitled to be treated like a neigh
bour and people show no hesitation in denouncing him to
the Civil Guard for an infringement of the law. When el
Tuerto came down to the valley with an accomplice and
robbed beehives, the victim went straight to the Civil Guard.
El Tuerto is used by the Civil Guard, on the other hand, as
an informer, a role in which his lack of shame is, to say the
least, convenient.

In the first instance the bandit is the ally of the pueblo as
long as he remains within the pale. In the second, the shame
less one is free to molest honest people as long as he remains
within the law. When either puts himself outside the law and
also outside the moral community then the pueblo makes
common cause with the Civil Guard. At this point law and
morality join forces.

1 86 LAW AND MORALITY

The Gypsies of Andalusia are partly sedentary and partly
migratory. Before the war there were a number of families
living in the pueblo of Alcala of whom few remain now.
Others come from other parts of Europe during the winter,
but these camp away from the pueblos and have no lasting
relationships there.

The gypsies are regarded as a race apart. The people of
Alcala referring to a non-gypsy say "a Castilian" or
"a Christian" as though gypsies were neither, yet they are,
for the most part, Spanish subjects and profess to adhere
to the Church. They are distinguished by their appear
ance, and everybody is confident that he can tell a gypsy
long before he opens his mouth. He can be told by his
skin colour, by his hair, by his dress, by his gait or, in the
women, by the style of doing the hair, by the ornaments they
wear a ii this before considering their language, the catt,
and their customs. Such vast differences might imply the
absence of miscegenation, but this is not in fact the case.
There are mixed marriages in abundance, and whether the
children of such marriages are gypsies or Castilians will
depend very largely upon how they appear to the pueblo.
There are in fact a number of dark skins among the Castilians
and of fair ones among gypsies. They will appear one thing
or the other to the pueblo according not only to their
appearance but also according to their character and way of
life. When I complained that some vagabonds, camped just
outside the pueblo, lacked the physical characteristics of
gypsies, I was told: "Even if they aren't, they're as good as
gypsies." Upon another occasion, it was commented that
^here was a gypsy (he was in fact a half-caste), who worked in
the fields "as if he were a Castilian 55 . For gypsies do not
undertake agricultural work. They are beggars, thieves,
fortune-tellers, basket-makers, horse-dealers, and so forth,
but a gypsy who does "an honest job of work s> is simply not
behaving like a gypsy. To define them sociologically, one
might say that they are a caste of shameless ones, for even
though there are gypsies who behave like Castillians it is
recognised that gypsies are shameless. (It is said that a
number have entered the ranks of their traditional enemies
the Civil Guard and the pueblo comments humorously that

BANDITS AND GYPSIES 1 87

this is understandable, their lack of shame will not be noticed
there.) Borrow, whose insight into their nature was remark
able, observes 1 :

"One great advantage which the gypsies possess over
all other people is an utter absence ofmauvaise honte\ their
speech is fluent, their eyes as unabashed, in the presence of
royalty, as before those from whom they have nothing to
hope or fear."

He points out that they only feel shame before their own
people. How far it is true that they feel no shame cannot be
answered. Suffice that this is the general belief. 2 It is this
real or supposed absence of shame which defines their
position in society, makes them unemployable in any lasting
engagement, but at the same time fits them admirably for the
practice of the trade of horse-dealer in which they excel in
the fairs. No lie is so great, no deceit so ingenious that they
will not brazenly proceed with it.

Some explanation can now be offered both of the hero-
worship of the bandit in popular tradition and also of the
cult of the gypsy among the well-to-do. In the first, the
pueblo expresses its opposition to the state by romanticising
the figure who symbolises defiance to the state. The second is
of a different order. Throughout European history a tendency
may be noted for aristocracies to ally themselves with
dissident groups and castes, and the attraction which gypsies
have exerted upon them from the time of the famous Lady
Berners down to the modern Spanish grandee may have an
element of similarity with such alliances. Their skill in
dancing may also be adduced to make them symbolical of
gaiety, yet it is believed that they have not always occupied
the predominant position in Andalusian dancing which they
occupy today. Moreover, this would not suffice to explain the
quantity of pseudo-gypsy poetry which had been popular
since and even before Borrow' s day. No, the gypsy has be
come the symbol of merry-making, not only because of the

1 The Gypsies of Spain, p. 253.

2 The general belief is frequently quite erroneous, as Borrow pointed out,
but I am not concerned here with the gypsies themselves so much as with their
significance in relation to " Gastilian" society. In particular, regarding feminine
chastity among the gypsies, the Castilians are apt to be quite mistaken*

1 88 LAW AND MORALITY

grace and wit of gypsy women but because of their accepted
shamelessness. By donning the traje de lunar es, the gypsy dress
for the fair, romeria, or flamenco party the young girl or woman
of good family can feel free of the excessive vergiienza which
might make it impossible for her to enjoy herself. Through the
pretence of disguising herself as a gypsy of whom shame is
not expected, she can permit some of her habitual reserve to
lapse, while at the same time she could never be taken seriously
for a gypsy. Through their cult of the gypsies, people can
participate in a realm of behaviour where they are not
thwarted by the sanctions of a society which demands
attitudes of shame and respect the trammels of the social
structure. Thanks to the privilege of their caste the gypsies
are able to offer a world which appears free from such
restraints because it is outside the moral community.

This explanation is valid not only in instances where the
customs of the wealthy have assimilated items of Romany
culture and use the symbol of the gitano in order to obtain
the temporary release from those standards which the
gypsies are thought not to obey. The recent history of
Andalusia contains a number of examples of members of
the aristocracy who have fled the society of their equals in
order to live almost entirely surrounded by these people.

CHAPTER XIII

Law and Morality
(Hi) The Supernatural \

THE POPULAR institutions which stand in opposition to
those of the state are not only juridical in character. Within
the pueblo are found others which aim to fulfil a variety of
functions. It might be stated as a principle that wherever
hostility is felt towards the formal structure the pueblo evolves
its own supplementary institutions. A central figure in these
is the sabia or wise woman.

There are two sabias in Alcala; Juana de la Pileta and
Redencion. Juana is a woman of fifty-five who has been blind
from childhood. She has nevertheless had two husbands (she
was properly married in church to one of them) and several
children. Redencion is some ten years older but of a more
retiring disposition and of more modest achievements as a
sabia. She also has been married and has children.

A sabia is a woman who possesses powers of a supernatural
order. These powers derive from the possession of gracia
(grace) . The word is used in a variety of contexts. It means a
favour, a free gift. Also, in the sense of "well-favoured", it
means grace in one's person, grace of movement, as, in
English, grace in walking or dancing the power to evoke
admiration. It means humour the power to evoke laughter.
In the religious sense it means grace. In all its senses it means
a divinely ordained privilege, a power which is a free gift,
which demands no rational justification and no payment. (It
is also the word used in saying thank you, for it is that which
may be returned in acknowledgement of a favour.) Disgrace

i The word is used in an admittedly subjective sense. "That which tran
scends the natural order", the natural order being that which the writer
regards as natural. For many of the people of Alcala, much that is here regarded
as supernatural is part of the natural order.

1 90 LAW AND MORALITY

consequently means a loss of this and desgraciado means both
"unfortunate" and, also, "in a shameful situation", as well
as out of favour. It may mean either out of God's favour or
out of one's neighbour's. Thus it comes to mean something
similar to a shameless one, though a less damaging term. A
desgraciado is an outcast through the will of God and not
through the fault of his mother.

It is her gracia which gives the sabia her powers. She must
have "grace in the hand" in order to cure by touch, but it
is a quality resident in her person. The signs of grace are
various. The five most generally recognised are :

(1) To be a twin.

(2) To be born on Good Friday.

(3) To cry out in one's mother's womb.

(4) To be visited by the Holy Virgin in dreams. This
normally occurs during childhood. Also "las Marias
tienen gracia" ("those called Maria have grace"), but
this is only in a purely minor way, such as having protec
tion from such things as snakes. 1

(5) To have the two transverse lines of the hand joined
in one.

But possession of one of these signs does not bestow grace
automatically. They merely indicate that it is likely that the
person in question has it. Nor does possession of grace enable
a person to operate her power without knowledge and
training. Like shame, it is a matter both of endemic quality
and also of education.

The powers of the sabia vary in each individual case. But
the following are functions which, generally speaking, are
fulfilled by them.

(i) To find out the whereabouts of objects which are
lost, or animals which have strayed. (2) To discover the
name of the thief if they have been stolen, revealing the
circumstances of their disappearance. (3) To discover
whether an absent one is alright, in good health and so
on. To discover whether he or she is still pensando (think
ing i.e. remains faithful). (4) To cause to fall in love, or

i It is significant that a particular taboo prohibits the mention of the words
for snake and lizard which are both referred to by some more general term. To
mention these words is thought to attract ill-fortune.

THE SUPERNATURAL igi

to fall in love again with a person for whom affection was
waning. To operate upon the emotions in other ways, to
end quarrels or pacify a violent husband. (5) To protect
from acts of God or the fear aroused by them (which, as
has been mentioned earlier, is liable to be physically detri
mental, even dangerous). To ensure that a person who
dies without receiving the last unction does not go to hell.
(6) Curing, midwifery, etc., through medical, pseudo-
medical and supernatural methods.

The list is by no means complete. Juana can also assist
in calming poltergeists and finding treasure and she gives
advice to enable people to be successful in their choice of
lottery tickets.

The powers to whom her invocations are addressed are
mainly powers of the established religion. It is true that
Astarte and Venus both make fleeting appearances, and that
certain texts invoke directly the rosemary or the salt in an
animistic manner as though they were possessed of magical
power. But Juana is insistent upon her orthodoxy and
devotion. "Nothing but the things of God" does she do, she
assures. The belief in the miraculous powers of saints is
general in Andalusia, and shrines, bedecked with the testi
monies of those whose prayers have been answered, are
common. The sabia is a person who by her grace and know
ledge is able to manipulate these powers. Some of the signs
of grace, it has been noted, imply a favoured relationship to
religion. Moreover she takes a strict moral line with regard
to the behaviour of girls. There is a passage in the oration of
love in which she thanks God that her client has reached or
is about to reach matrimony in a state of purity, and if this
is not so then her grace enables her to be aware of the fact
and her tongue cannot say the words. She confirms the
general opinion regarding the decline in the standards of
sexual morality. Formerly an occasional instance would
occur when she could not finish the oration, but these days
she is aghast at the number there are. While disapproving,
she strives to see that matters go no further astray and to
assure the fidelity of the nomo. Her purpose throughout is
highly moral. She uses her power to set right that which has
gone wrong. But this is not on account of the power itself

JQQ LAW AND MORALITY

but simply because she is a- good woman. The same power
invoking "things which are not of God", may be used for
evil.

Once more the intention, the state of the heart, is the
important thing. A person possessed of such powers but of
evil intent is not a sabia but a bruja (witch). She can cause
people to lose not find things, can give the thief protection,
can make a man blind to his wife's adulteries, can ensure that
illicit passions are returned, can drive people mad, can afflict
with illness or death. 1

The forces of the supernatural operate, within the com
munity, through immanent qualities such as grace and one
which will be discussed later, calio, which are the specific
attributes of women. A somewhat anomalous instance can
be given to illustrate this. In the year 1950 there appeared in
the valley a new phenomenon, a young man of markedly
effeminate manner and dress named Rafael and referred to
as "el Sabio de la Linea" (la Linea is the pueblo which acts
as a contraband emporium opposite Gibraltar) . Rafael had
an original style in matters of curing. To begin with he was a
townsman not a countryman, and he effected a certain
education. He mixed an amount of medical jargon into his
talk, though his essential ideas were closer to those of Juana
than to those of the medical profession, and he impressed
people as someone who "really knew" about these things.
His pretensions in the supernatural world were certainly no
less. "Others/ 5 he said, "may have their grace, but my grace
is of the Holy Spirit itself. It was bestowed upon me at my
birth." The report that he had cured the son of a miller who
was thought to be incurable raised his prestige, and for a
short time many people had faith in him. At the end of three
months, however, he was discovered to be a confidence
trickster, for he disappeared to Tangier with a large sum of
money which had been entrusted to him by a patient. Yet
before the time of this revelation he had seriously challenged
the position of Juana and Redenci6n. When they were

l Attribution of madness and illness to the power of witches is common
enough. I have never come across a case in which death was suspected of being
caused by a witch, but both death and also disappearance are thought to be
possible achievements for them. I have known one instance of suicide resulting
from madness attributed by some to witchcraft.

THE SUPERNATURAL 193

mentioned to him he said scornfully : "Those two old women
do nothing, neither good nor harm. Or rather yes, they do,
Redencion is an alcahueta" He used the word in the sense
of procureuse, for he went on: "She has a cupboard in the
back of her house and in it she keeps a string with five
sardines threaded on it through their eyes and various other
charms." He 'explained that they had no grace but meddled
immorally in sorcery and procured with the money of their
clients favours which they attributed to their love-magic. He
referred to them as witches. 1

Rafael's words had considerable effect and for a time
many people's confidence in the sabias of the pueblo was
shaken. An ambivalence exists in the regard which people
have for the sabia. Who knows? She may in reality be a
witch. This is visible in the insistence which people who re
quire her services praise her goodness. " Such a good woman,
and how badly people speak of her, poor thing ! Yet when
they get ill they come running to her quickly enough."

People are shy of being seen going to visit the sabia,
particularly if they are people of a certain standing, and very
often they refrain from visiting the sabia in their own pueblo
but visit one elsewhere. A number of people come from Ronda
to visit Juana, and people of Alcala go to visit others in the
neighbourhood. How far this is due to a desire to avoid
the suspicions of neighbours and how far to the belief in the
superior powers of bther sabias cannot be said. The people
of the valley have not to face the curiosity of neighbours, for
Juana comes round begging, and a message is easily slipped
to her to call at this or that farm next time she is down that
way.

Opposition towards the sabia has a structural background.
Her practices are against the teachings of the Church,
though she may well be regarded as harmless by the priest.
At the same time the Civil Guard does not applaud her
services in the repression of theft. A former sergeant warned

i The association between alcafwteria, in the sense of procuring, and
brujeria (from bruja) is an ancient and general one typified in the personage of
La Celestina, a comedy of Fernando de Rojas, 1498. See also: J. Caro.Baroja,
Algunos Mitos Espanoles (Madrid, 1944), p. 235: "los vocablos de bruja y
hechicera de un lado, y de otro los de alcahueta y cdestina estaban casi
identificados ..."

p.s. 13

LAW AND MORALITY

Juana not to dabble in accusations as it gave rise to violent
quarrels. Educated people condemn such practices, on the
grounds of "rationalism", as country nonsense and "supersti
tion", the word by which they are officially condemned by
the Church. In this sense, the ambivalence relating to her is
the inverse of that which relates to the institutions of the
formal structure. It is quite different from that which has
been mentioned above which springs from the fear that she
may be in reality a witch. In the first case she is condemned
on the grounds that she effectively uses magic but uses it for
evil ends ; in the second case because she is a silly old woman
who fools people. It is illustrative of Rafael's place in the
social structure that he should have seen fit to attack her on
both scores.

The sabia is not the only alternative to the doctor in
matters of health. A whole range of practitioners presents
itself to the person in need, ranging from simple quacks (male
or female), who effect their cures through the application of
a patent medicine without any pretensions to grace, down to
the purely supernatural techniques of certain sabias. All these
are grouped under the name curandero(-a). The natural and
the supernatural mingle together and it is not possible to
draw any clear line as to where one ends and the other begins.
One of the most practical and materialistic of the curanderas
specialises in curing a painful and persistent boil, a common
affliction in the area, with the aid of a powder the ingredients
of which are a family secret. She pronounced herself on one
occasion unable to cure a boil on account of its position on
the patient's neck, and recommended that the patient make
a vow in the shrine of our Lady of Remedies, the patron of
her pueblo, asking that the position of the boil might be
changed. The boil disappeared from the neck and re
appeared upon the patient's nose whereupon the curandera

cured it.

Another variety ofcurandero is the bone-setter. These men,
for they are always men, have no particular grace and effect
their cures through skill, a skill which at certain points comes
near to being supernatural, for it is not a skill which anyone
can acquire and it is most frequently hereditary, yet it

THE SUPERNATURAL 195

involves the invocation of no supernatural powers and owes
nothing other than to the knack and knowledge of the bone-
setter himself. Neither their methods nor their achievements
seem to differ very much from those of the medically
recognised osteopath, though popular credence is sometimes
given to stories of their exceptional ability. Men can never in
fact have grace and consequently they are limited to methods
which are purely manipulatory or herbalistic. El Sabio de La
Linea is of course an exception one which his effeminacy
does something to palliate but he is legitimately regarded as
exceptional from every point of view. His influence, though
great, endured only a few months and ended in a total
eclipse. Following his disgrace all those whom he had helped
suffered an immediate relapse. Rather than an institution of
the life of the pueblo he was an exploiter of popular credulity,
and his ability to combine the best of both worlds, his high-
faluting language and his city suit, on the one hand, and his
emotional appeal and his pretensions to exceptional grace
on the other, were the keys to his success. His ambiguity in
relation to sex merely reinforced his position as belonging at
the same time to the male world of the formal structure and
scientific .medicine, and also to the female world of grace.

That supernatural power derived from grace belongs to
women is made abundantly clear by an examination of the
other forms of supernatural power. The distinction made by
Professor Evans-Pritchard between witchcraft and sorcery, 1
while valid in this society as a method of analysis, does not in
all cases find clear-cut exemplification. The sabia owes her
powers both to her inherent grace and also to her knowledge
of invocations and practical techniques. She is neither entirely
one thing nor the other, neither witch nor sorceress.

There remain two varieties of supernatural power which
fit Professor Evans-Pritchard's terms more exactly: sorcery
and menstrual magic.

Sorcery is commonly associated with poltergeists in Alcala,
though its theoretical background is so uncertain that it is
difficult to give a coherent account of it. It is admitted that
the use of magical skills for malevolent purposes is possible

l E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande
(Oxford, 1937).

LAW AND MORALITY

anywhere, but how, in fact, they produce their effect is, if
not a mystery, at any rate a trade secret. From the few cases
recorded the following facts emerge. Sorcery is recognised
by the effect which it has on the victim, who suffers from
sharp pains, whose needles are stuck into her, whose crockery
is smashed and who, in one case, was locked into her own
house and the key vanished. The victims were all women, as
it happened. These phenomena were explained by the attack
of spirits who were sent by a person who had acquired
control over them. Similar spirits appear in other beliefs
and are particularly associated with Moorish treasure. These
spirits are, according to some, the ghosts of the original
owners of treasure who choose to reveal the whereabouts
of their wealth to a particular person. Others believe that
they are spirits sent by the ghosts. They manifest themselves
through strange noises and voices which are very terrifying
and are heard only at dead of night. They also throw things,
crockery or stones, but are never seen save in the incarnation
of a dog or cat or goat. In one instance a beautiful girl was
seen in a tent lit up upon the mountain-side, but she was not
thought to be the spirit but only an hallucination which the
spirit had arranged. The person who has the courage to
endure the ordeal of terror to the end is rewarded by finding
the treasure. But treasure is also found by chance or simply
by intuition, so people think.

The sorcerer who sends the spirits to afflict his victim
obtains his power over them by reading a book of magic, and
the expression used to explain this manoeuvre is that he is
"reading for so-and-so" ("estd leyendo para Fulana"). To
do this requires no grace and all that need be done is to
follow the instructions in the book. Consequently, men can
do it and in fact it is more often thought to be men who are
responsible. It is done for motives of jealousy, a jilted novio
in one case was thought to be responsible, a cousin's wife
dissatisfied with the division of an inheritance in another. It
is always done from far away, for it is explained that if it
were done within the pueblo people would know about it. In
one instance it was done by a small farmer of the valley to
his sister-in-law who lived near-by. He did not do it seriously
but only, having acquired the book during the war, to see if it

THE SUPERNATURAL 197

worked. When it was proved effective he confessed and
apologised. On one occasion an informant described it as
"lo que hacen, estando ellos fuera" ("That which they do
from outside").

The subject of menstrual magic is not easily discussed.
During the time of their period women possess certain in
voluntary destructive .powers. If they pick flowers they
whither ; they can kill bushes and trees with their touch and
can wound the back of an animal upon which they ride.
Their presence suffices to put out the fire in a lime-kiln or a
plaster-kiln. 1 The vocabulary suggests an association between
the emotion of jealousy and menstruation. En celos (literally,
zeal or jealousy) is used to express the latter. Thus la mujer
celosa (the jealous woman) is dangerous, for by association she
possesses the powers which she would have while in that
condition. Manifestation of the emotion of jealousy is no
indication of their presence, however. There is little clarity
in the minds or conformity of the opinions of the people of
Alcald upon this subject. People simply are not sure what the
jealous woman is, nor how you can tell whether a woman is
possessed of these powers or not. All that is certain is that
any woman during that time possesses them while certain
women are thought to be dangerous the whole time in this
way as though they were permanently in such a condition,
and this idea is expressed by saying that they have calio. No
doubt there would be a great diversity of opinion if it were
possible to know who was thought to possess it and who not,
but such matters are only mentioned in strict confidence.The
fear relating to calio is bound up with the fear of the potenti
ally anti-social force of female sexuality which has been
examined in Chapter VIII. Sexual passion is expressed
through the idiom of heat nicknames such as " el Calentito "
and "la Tonta Caliente" were earned through a display of
this quality and the idea of heat is also associated with
menstruation. The explanation of the wound inflicted upon
the mule's back was that the rider was "burning". Calio is,

i Both these operations involve an element of hazard and their failure,
unaccountable otherwise, is sometimes attributed to the power of women. The
fire of the charcoal burner, equally subject to failure from inexplicable causes,
is not affected by women on the other hand.

LAW AND MORALITY

in sum, a secret and dangerous power possessed by a few
women in the community and exercised independently of
their will, and independently of their menstrual periods.

One final power, thought by the majority not to be con
nected with cdio, is that of casting the evil eye. 1 The evil eye
is a belief found in many parts of the world. It is the power
to make a person, particularly a young child, sick and even
to kill him, through bestowing a particularly bold and
penetrating glance. Unlike other societies where the power
may be possessed by members of either sex, it is the preroga
tive, here, of women. Gypsy women are particularly feared,
perhaps, on account of the boldness with which they are
accustomed to stare. Old gypsy women are often thought to
be ill-intentioned and this may add to their power, but
intention is not an essential factor. Stories are told of a
Castilian woman who possessed it without any evil intent.
She simply possessed that desgracia. Calio and the evil eye
are seen, then, to be similar to grace but in a negative way.

There is no redress against sorcery. 2 Against the evil eye
there are both defences and also remedies. Religious medal
lions and amulets, hung round a child's neck defend it against
the evil eye and also against other mischances. 3 Juana de
la Pileta is also believed to be able to prescribe or perform
a cure for it, and other cures are commonly known by
persons learned in such matters.

Within the community the powers of the supernatural are
in the hands of women, and this fact accords with the view
of the dichotomy ^ the sexes already given. Though the
conceptions used to explain them are not associated with
that of verguenza except in so far as immorality signifies its

1 Yet the glance of a menstruating woman is sufficient on occasions, to
produce the same effect as her touch. It is her glance which puts out the fire in
a kiln.

2 The Church possesses the power to exorcise poltergeists.

3 An evil wind is also a threat to the life of the young child. In C. J. Cela,
Lafamilia de Pascual Duarte, the story-teller relates laconically the death of his
infant brother : "Un mal aire le entr6 y se muri6" ("an evil wind entered him
and he died"). A story recounted to me told of a child who was bringing a
glass jug to his mother when an ill wind entered the jug and it broke in half.
"What luck," the mother commented, "that it went into the jug and not into
the child." The idea does not have the extended significance found by Redfield
in Yucatan. (R. Redfield, The Folk Culturt of Yucatan (Chicago, I94 1 )-)

THE SUPERNATURAL 1 99

lack, both the danger to vergiienza, upon which the social
order of the community is founded, and the source of evil
magic within the community, derive from forms of female
sexuality, which are both sometimes expressed in the idiom of
heat.

It may well be asked at this point how among people who,
even though they possess but a low standard of book-learning,
belong nevertheless to a modern European culture, such
beliefs can persist and whether in fact they do believe in the
efficacy of the powers of the sabia and the practices which she
prescribes, or whether they do not observe such superstitions
in the same spirit as, say, superstitions regarding the salt or
the lighting of cigarettes are observed in an Oxford common-
room. Many people, and here again the difference between
the sexes is most noticeable, assert sternly that such matters
are nonsense, that the sabia can do no more than any other
person ; that such beliefs are for old women and so on. The
young tend to be slightly more sceptical than the old, men
tend to be much more sceptical than women. It is thought
indeed to be credulous and unmanly to pay attention to all
this alcahueteria. Yet, members of the pueblo believe always
in some part of it. Though they may dismiss the sabias as
ineffectual, they do not doubt the possibility of supernatural
evil or the power of true grace. Curro, for example, an
avowed rationalist, dismisses the sabias in that way, yet can
give instances from his own experiences of the evil effects of
calio. The inn-keeper who thinks that Redenci6n's cures are
for ignorant people who know no better, is himself convinced
that a local bone-setter can mend broken bones instantly
and far better than any doctor. He tells the story of an
apparently miraculous cure effected by this man. Their
beliefs show no logical consistency. Their consistency is to be
found in regard to their attitudes to the formal institutions
which oppose those of the "infra-structure". Doctors in
general, chemists, in general, are continually spoken badly of.
"Nothing grows in the chemist's shop" is the saying which
expresses their belief in the superiority of country cures to
the products of modern science. Yet this belief does not
prevent them from buying the latter. In the same way no

200 LAW AND MORALITY

opportunity is lost to repeat stories in which sdbias brought
off spectacular cures after all the doctors had failed, and even
stories of doctors admitting themselves defeated in their
attempts to cure themselves or their children, and resorting
to the practitioners whom they had always condemned. The
humbled doctor is portrayed pleading with the sabia to cure
him. For doctors have adequate reasons for condemning the
practices of the curanderos, and even on occasions they have
been known to take action against them.

What happens very frequently is that the patient goes to
the doctor first and if he is not immediately cured he then
resorts to the sabia or curandem. When he finally gets better,
having followed the treatment of both, the credit is given to
the latter. Neither are believed to be infallible and the sabia
may well do you no good. But she is a good woman and does
her curing out of goodness in return for what you choose to
give her. She does not extort money like the doctor. The
preference for her expresses a moral judgement more than
anything else. As to their relative efficacity, the words of a
man of Alcala express the point of view of the pueblo : "When
the hour of his death approaches no man can stay the clock.
The same when the hour comes for his tooth to ache. Only if
he is given the right treatment it will ache less." The question
of which is the right treatment, the doctor's or that of the
sabia, is one each man must answer for himself.

The formally constituted institutions controlled by the
ruling group or the state and the activities wherein the
pueblo avoids them stand in opposition to one another.
The latter spring from the network of interpersonal relations
within the community and depend upon the memories and
cultural traditions of the pueblo rather than on the written
word. The former owe their existence to authority delegated
by a central power. Pairing them together one can see, in
place of the sanctions of law, the sanctions of the pueblo's
mockery; in place of the food-control, the clandestine mills
and the black market ; in place of the matriculated shops,
the revendonas and illicit traders; in place of the Civil Guard,
the bandit and the smuggler. In place of the schools, the
maestros rurales; in place of the doctor, vet and chemist, the

THE SUPERNATURAL 201

curanderos; in place of the practicanta (trained nurse) , the
patterns (country midwives). And for the purpose of invoking
the powers of religion in such matters, in place of the priest,
the sabia.

In the attitude of the pueblo towards the ruling group a
certain ambivalence has been detected. Ambivalence is also
discernible in the pueblo's attitude not only towards the
witch but towards the whole "infra-structure". This might
almost be deduced logically from what has gone before.
When a man expresses respect for education he cannot but
deplore the humble achievements of the rural teacher. The
sabia' s activities are condemned by the Church ; the curandero
turns into a quack beside the wonders of modern medical
science. Where the values of authority Teign, the bandit is a
criminal traitor, the vito is a breach of the peace inspired by
the envious nature of mankind, which, as la Rabona ob
served, is also responsible for the nickname. The food-control
admittedly can never be defended, but then it is equally the
enemy of the ruling group.

I have stressed earlier that the infra-structure is an aspect
of structure not a segment of the community. One personality
may stand closer to the sanctions of the law than those of
the community or vice versa, but every member of the
pueblo participates to a greater or lesser extent both in the
formal and also in the infra-structure. The ambivalences
reflect the individual's participation in two conflicting
systems of behaviour. It must be realised that neither could
subsist without the other. A man needs a surname whether
he has a nickname or not. When he has no nickname his
surname is used as one. He is at the same time a member of
the pueblo and a member of the state. The infra-structure
could not suffice to organise the relations of the community
without the law. Yet the law can only be applied through
personal contacts. The two systems are, at the same time,
interdependent and in opposition. They are both part of the
same structure. If a tension exists between the two, it is as
much a condition of the one as of the other. And what
requires to be explained is not only the source of this tension
but the ways through which it is resolved.

CHAPTER XIV

Conclusion

THE POSSESSION of verguenza ensures the adherence of
individuals to the moral standards of the pueblo, and there
by defines the limits of community. But possession of
verguenza is not enough in itself to determine conduct. It
must be related to a common system of ethical values. The
member of a polygamous society cannot be made to feel
ashamed of committing bigamy. Common values are a
necessity if the sanctions of the community are to be effective,
and therefore it comes as no surprise to find that divergencies
in values underlie the situations in which the elements of the
pueblo oppose one another. Here we can summarise the
main areas of these divergencies.

The attitude of the educated towards " village patriotism"
has been noted. Even if they are sons of the pueblo and
permanent residents there, their ties are wider than the
horizons of the pueblo. They think of themselves as Andalu-
sians, but above all as Spaniards. Their national patriotism
is strong and highly emotional. They speak to the foreigner
of themselves as "we Spaniards" and they are extremely
sensitive to his opinion of Spain. Foreigners, they generally
believe, make a derogatory and unjust evaluation of Spain.
This belief owes much to Juan Valera's essay La leyenda Negra
("The Black Legend"), which records with great resent
ment all the untrue and unjust things which have been
written with regard to Spain and Spanish history. The middle-
classes of Andalusia are conscious of the Black Legend and
believe it to inspire the attitudes of foreign governments to
wards their country. These feelings are sharpened by a
political ideology (to which they subscribe at any rate
superficially) which castigates even its compatriot critics with
the epithet "anti-Spanish". Those who have no pretensions
to education, however, often speak of themselves to the

CONCLUSION

foreigner as "nosotros de por aqui" ("we, of these parts") or
"nosotros Andaluces" ("we Andalusians"). They do not
take it upon themselves to speak for all their countrymen,
and when they speak of Spain they speak without emotional
bias. By nature they are Alcalarenos and Andalusians. They
happen to be Spanish by nationality.

Certain differences in the values relating to sex have also
been observed. In general behaviour, women of the educated
class in Andalusia show a far greater reserve than their men
folk who possess an easy sociability. The uneducated, on the
other hand, are often shy compared to their womenfolk whose
self-confident ease in social intercourse with strangers has
often won the admiration of travellers. 1 In regard to religious
values the pueblo and the educated again diverge. Among
the former, faith is not found to be incompatible with grave
dogmatic errors and with a lack of respect for the temporal
order of the Church. Also, the women of the pueblo are much
more active in devotion than the men, whose attitude is more
often sceptical and indifferent, if not actually hostile.

The egalitarianism of the pueblo has been frequently
stressed. This inevitably comes into conflict with the feelings
of the well-to-do who, ever more responsive to the goals of a
social order not the pueblo's, tend to feel superior not on
account of their value as patrons within the community but
on account of belonging to a middle-class extraneous to the
pueblo, and who tend in social behaviour to claim an
exclusiveness which the values of the pueblo do not admit.
The present poverty of the pueblo is often blamed upon the
wealthy families who within the last few decades have moved
to Jerez. (The explanation was once given by a member of
the ruling group who added that the capitalists fled on
account of the activities of the Black Hand and took their
capital elsewhere, whereafter the industry of Alcala declined.)
The resentment of economic inequality is not, as has been
noted, tantamount to a rejection of the idea of private
property. On the contrary, it is accompanied by the asser
tion that every man is master of his own property and has

l E.g. A. dc Latour, Voyage en Espagne (Madrid, 1855) : "II r&ultait quc
PAndalouse n'existait qu'entre les fUles du peuple." Byron made a similar
observation.

204 CONCLUSION

the right to dispose of it as he wishes. The resentment aims
not so much at the existence of economic inequality as at the
failure of the rich man to care for those who are less fortunate,
at his lack of charity. It is not so much the system which is
wrong, it is the rich who are evil. This accounts for the
ambivalence which the pueblo feels towards the senorito and
indeed explains how the system of patronage is morally
possible. Patronage is good when the patron is good, but
like friendship upon which it is based it has two faces. It can
either confirm the superiority of the senorito or it can be
exploited by the rich man in order to obtain a nefarious
advantage over poor people. It covers a range of relation
ships from noble protection of dependents in accordance
with the moral solidarity of the pueblo to the scurrilous
coercions of the later period of caciquismo. The system is,
clearly, only to be judged good in so far as it ensures that
people do not go hungry, that injustice is not done. Where the
majority of the community can look to a patron in time of
need, such a system reinforces the integration of the pueblo
as a whole. Where those who enjoy the advantages of
patronage are a minority, then they and their patrons are
likely to be resented by the remainder.

The values discussed so far have been deduced from
observations of behaviour and commonly expressed judge
ments of behaviour. It is also possible to discern a reflection
of these in the beliefs of the pueblo. The dangers to which
children are exposed are not confined to evil winds and
evil eyes. There is also a belief in a kind of "bluebeard"
referred to commonly throughout Spain as the sacamantecas,
though not so called in Alcala, which refers to him only as
a bad man, or baby-stealer. This personage comes always
from outside, so that he is not known by anyone in the com
munity. He may come disguised as a beggar or as a trader.
He comes alone bearing either a sack or a pitcher and he
comes for the blood of a healthy child. The disappearance of
a child can only be accounted for in this way, and, though
children do not normally disappear, most people can think
of several stories which they have been told of children
disappearing and the explanation is that they have been
stolen. This belief might be derided by sophisticated people

CONCLUSION 205

as something to which only the most gullible would grant
credence. Yet I am told that cases have occurred during the
present century of child murders which have been reported
in the press under the title of "el sacamantecas de . . .".
Given the existence of the myth it is only a matter of time
before some deranged individual attempts to incarnate it.
When asked why the baby-thief comes, the answer is that he
is hired by a rich man whose child is ill and can only be
saved by the blood of a healthy baby. Knowledge of the
practice of blood transfusion in the hospitals of the large
towns comes to underline the inherent probability of such a
procedure. In the same way the nebulous character of the
rich man comes to play a part in the contemporary myth
ology, and it is always the part of the villain characterised by
the complete absence of morality. The belief that the land
has in some way or other been spoilt by the rich men is
common among the pueblos of the sierra. The explantion
given in one instance was that the land was good cultivable
land until the rich owner decided to pasture his flocks on it
instead of cultivating it. This enabled him to go away and
leave only a single employee to look after his affairs, and it
had the effect of throwing the people into unemployment.
(The man who held this belief was otherwise well aware that
land which is turned over to pasture does not deteriorate
but on the contrary improves.) This belief may be related to
the land tenure of the pueblos of the sierra where the agri
cultural land is held in small-holdings in contrast to the large
pastoral estates and which Buffer chronically from over
population and unemployment. Opposition to the priests and
the supporters of the Church is expressed in similar beliefs.
"En la puerta del beato," the saying goes, "no cuelga el
jato." ("In the doorways of the pious no beggar's blanket is
to be seen.") In particular, beliefs regarding the sexual
activities of those under vows of celibacy appear to relate not
to known facts but to the desire to assert: "They're only
men, just like us. 39 Such beliefs may be held by individuals
whose faith in other aspects of religion remains unassailed.

In the stories regarding treasure hidden by the Moors, the
part of the villain is played by the state. Certain members of
the pueblo are known to have discovered hidden treasure.

206 CONCLUSION

but they can never admit to having done so because if the
state knew, it would confiscate the treasure. Any neighbour
who discovers the secret can demand half under threat of
betrayal Consequently it becomes impossible for the
anthropologist to verify whether any treasure has ever been
discovered or not. As with the practice of sorcery it is some
thing which would never be admitted to. The fortunate
individual to whom the Moor appears and gives instructions
how to find the horde will only be able to enjoy his good
fortune on condition that he keeps the secret,

A symbolical meaning might be read into these stories.
The hostile state wishes to get its hands upon the pristine
wealth which lies buried in the pueblo. It can only be
frustrated through secrecy. For information is a necessity to
any system of government or, more precisely, to any system
of sanctions and the force of those of the pueblo have been
shown to derive from the very closeness of the community.
Secrecy, the witholding of information, permits conflicting
social forces to co-exist and gives to this structure the resili
ence which enables it to persist. Thanks to secrecy the conflict
between state and local community is resolved.

"The law" is an abstraction which it is useful to make for
certain purposes of discussion. Yet when we consider in
dividual situations it becomes a cloak for ambiguities. Instead,
we must consider individual personalities and the way in
which sanctions operate upon them. All laws are not of
equal value even to the state. The inspector exerts one order
of sanctions and himself is subject to another. Those which
the corporal of the Civil Guard exerts are different again,
and those to which he is subject also. The corporal knows that
the millers mill, but he does not denounce them to the in
spector. On the contrary, he connives in maintaining the
fiction that they do not mill and closes them down only when
they are in danger from the inspector, for he lives in Alcala
and must needs be on reasonable terms with the inhabitants
if he is to fulfil his other duties in pursuing serious crime. The
solidarity of the whole pueblo in face of the inspector
permits clandestine milling, a secret shared by all, to go on.
Anybody could denounce the millers, but nobody does.
Secrecy operates, then, not merely in order to protect the

CONCLUSION 207

community from the state, the inhabitants from the authori
ties, but also to protect the authorities, like the inhabitants,
from each other. Within the pueblo, secrecy must be as com
plete as possible in order to be effective. To hide a secret
from one person it is better to hide it from all, while the less
you tell the less chance there is of the true story being put
together. Hence the taboo upon gossiping (not merely upon
old women's chatter but upon giving away information about
your neighbour), and the continual spying which is its
counterpart.

Things which are talked of openly in other societies
become here matters of intrigue. Calla'ito (on the quiet), it is
explained, is how things are done here. 1 Nobody, least of all
the inspector, knows what the produce of the land is. Nobody
can be quite sure whom a piece of land really belongs to. It
may only be in a man's name and really belong to someone
else. From this we can see the importance of the client in the
relationship of patronage. He provides the information
which enables a patron to appreciate the situation. When
Curro spoke of selling his huerto the information went back
to Fernando within a few hours, but Juanito kept his counsel
and awaited his opportunity. To give away information
about your affairs puts you in a weak position, for you can
no longer keep the other man guessing. In relation to the
same facts it is possible to understand the importance to
these people of "confidence" and of its counterpart, decep
tion ; and the value which they attach to the state of the
heart.

Yet the state of the heart is important not because society
demands constancy but precisely because it does not. Where
so many relationships are, in response to the fluidity of the
structure, unstable, the heart provides a guarantee of
fidelity in time. For it is characteristic of the " Andalusian
temperament" (and we can here see a structural explanation
for this fact) that only the present matters. Just as the secret
and the conventional fictions of good behaviour permit the

1 "Estas cosas son de mundo y no me pregunte su merced nada, porque mi
oficio es callar" ("These are matters of the world and may Your Mercy not ask
me about them, for my job is to keep my mouth shut"), says the smuggler in
El Ventero. See Angel Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, obras completas, (Madrid);
first published in Los Espanoles pintados por si mismos (Madrid, 1843).

208 CONCLUSION

adjustments of personal relationships in the present, so the
"devaluation" of the past permits their readjustment. But
the heart alone, outside the marriage bond and the compa-
drazgo, ensures a degree of permanency in human ties.

But if a margin of fiction exists between the ideal legal
realm and the reality, it is no less true to say that another
margin exists between the ideal community and the reality.
As long as the law is "upheld" to all appearances, the
power of the state is inviolate and the authorities are
satisfied. 1 As long as the lack of shame of a person is not
exposed, then manners demand that he be credited with the
supposition of shame, for otherwise the principle of com
munity breaks down. Both the law and the community can
be seen, finally, as sets of sanctions which defend systems of
values, both of them largely fictional.

What then is meant by values ? I have assumed that they
can be discovered by observing social behaviour, are a kind
of short-hand term for the choice of conduct which a social
system imposes. Yet they are not to be derived, in the last
analysis, from the social reality of action, but rather from
that other reality which exists only in the minds of the mem
bers of a society.

The chosen unit of analysis of this book was a community
of about three thousand souls within which I have sought to
find a system of social relations, yet if system it is why should
it stop there? The whole of Andalusia, of Spain or of Europe
might equally claim to be a system. This is one of the hoariest
problems of social anthropology and like most of its kind it
turns out on closer examination to be a pseudo-problem. One
delimits the area of one's data according to the techniques
which one intends to use. In studying any society one must
face two problems : What is the system of social relations
within the community? and how is it affected by being part
of the larger structure of the country, or of the continent?

The first chapter defined the limits of the community,
the second how it was linked to the national structure, and, in

1 Brenan rightly remarks upon the traditional lenience of Spanish justice
(The Spanish Labyrinth, p. 85). No such tradition of lenience exists in Spain for
the treatment of heresy.

CONCLUSION

effect, they contained the answer to these questions in
embryo an answer which subsequent chapters have done
no more than unfold in different spheres. The structure is
founded upon an evaluation of physical proximity which
not only orders the grouping within it, through conceptions
like the neighbour or the pueblo, but also runs through every
aspect of its culture, from the conventions which govern its
manners to its ethical principles or its evaluation of space
and time. This value rests upon the assumption that there is
no difference in the quality of men, that by nature all are
equal.

Being part of a larger structure in that the community is
subject to the powers of provincial and central government
and of persons allied to those powers, whose non-membership
of the community enables them to escape the sanctions
whereby its values are maintained is shown to involve a
violation of the principle of proximity, and the tension
resulting between state and community is transfused through
a ruling group thanks to the institution of patronage.

The nation is an agglomeration of interrelated communi
ties, founded each upon a territorial basis and linked together
by other communities of higher social status, greater economic
means and a more comprehensive territorial scope. But it is
also a state, a system of authority. Yet state and community
are different not only in size but in nature. The community
is essentially composed of identifiable individuals, while the
state contains only anonymous categories, the products of
abstraction and generalisation. The sanctions of the com
munity apply inductively, for covert motives, while those of the
state are deductive, devolving from some logical code. Law
must possess a logical consistency since it is framed to apply
not to particular individuals but to persons unspecified and,
since it aims to antecede the situations which it will govern,
unspecifiable. The goddess is blind, but the executive must
keep its eyes open, for the law in application changes its
nature and, no longer an abstraction, becomes materialised
in the person of the town clerk or the tax-collector, a person
who is a member of a community, who, to do his job must
have particular information regarding individual personal
ities. The executive process can be expressed, if one wishes, as

p.s. 14

210 CONCLUSION

a syllogism : The law provides the major premiss, that which
in general terms the legislative power commands. The minor
premiss is filled in by the local executive who determines to
whom it does in fact apply. The conclusion developing
logically from these is the action to be taken, 1 But between
the major premiss established by the legislature and the
minor premiss which is supplied by knowledge of the
community stands the hierarchy of the executive. The lower
an administrator stands in the hierarchy the greater his
knowledge of detail, and the less his concern with the logic of
the policy, the greater his dependence upon the local com
munity and the greater the number of administrative levels
which separate him from the source of power. There are,
then, a number of different levels at which the sanctions of
law balance the sanctions of personal relations and permit
the power of the state to adapt itself to the local community.
In this book I have been concerned only to show in detail
how this adaptation is effected in the example of a distant
mountain town. The facts are unique, but the principles
which they illustrate are not. The tension between local
community and central state is certainly not unique, if
indeed it is not inherent in every structure of authority, but
the mode of resolving it is particular to one culture and one
environment, and to one time* Where similar conditions
reign there will, I trust, be found similarities in the solution,
and this study may then, as I would hope, be of some use,

i To illustrate this point I offer the following example which, needless to
$ay, has nothing to do with Alcald. Let us suppose that:

(Major premiss) The legislature wishes to impose a tax upon taxi-drivers.

(Minor premiss) The executive decides that X is a taxi-driver.

(Conclusion) X must pay the tax.
But under certain social conditions the following variation is possible :

(Minor premiss) It is said that X plies for hire with his motor-car, yet when the
executive authorities ask him to drive them he does not charge anything.

(Conclusion) X does not require a licence, he is a friend. He need pay nothing.

APPENDIX

The Present and the Past

I HAVE TRIED in this book to describe and explain the social
structure of a pueblo of the Sierra de Cadiz as it exists in the
present, and where I have referred to the more or less distant
past I have done so haphazardly with no other object than
to illuminate the point under discussion through an analogy
or a contrast which the reader was left at liberty to take or
leave. I have, in the main, resisted the temptation to prove
anything observed today through a reference to its historical
origin or to explain any historical facts through an analogy
with the present. I have done this in recognition of the limita
tions of my theme and my material and" not through any
methodological stricture regarding the relevance of the
diachronic view. On the contrary, the structure of a society
at a given moment, whether its past has been recorded or not,
appears to me to be very largely determined by its previous
state. That this should be the case is not merely a matter of
common-sense observation. The very perplexity which sur
rounds the use of the word "system " 1 in a sociological context
relates to the fact that societies exist in the dimension of
time (like a piece of music but unlike a drawing) in the
sense that time is an element of their constitution and that
their nature at any given moment is reducible to systematic
terms only by extending that moment to include at any rate
an hypothetical time-depth. What is done today makes sense
only in conjunction with what was done yesterday, last year
or in the last generation. Thus an analysis of the family
system anywhere must consider the individual family over a
period of several generations, while an even longer time-
span may be necessary in order to evaluate the significance
of the family within, say, the political structure. The term
"social present" has been used in order to bring within a

i A problem touched on in the introduction

14*

212 APPENDIX

single conceptual scheme events which have in fact occurred
at different times. But this mode of reasoning is open to the
logical criticism that if they occurred at different times the
whole system may have changed meanwhile. They may not
be part of the same "social present" at all. Admitting this
for what it is worth, social structure remains an abstraction of
a moment in a temporal process which stands between a
previous and a subsequent state and, thanks precisely to the
disequilibrium in its component elements what might be
termed the functional maladjustments of the society leads
from one to the other.

This process is the study of the social historian, and the
rules which govern it are the subject, ultimately, of the
philosophy of history, though such historians as have at
tempted to schematise them have not seen their efforts
greeted with universal approval, least of all among their
colleagues. Entering the field of history, I certainly do not
hope to improve upon the endeavours of its legitimate holders.
But the formulation of sociological theory has been frustrated
by the difficulty of agreeing whether any two societies are
truly comparable, whether the rule formulated from the
study of one can be expected to hold good in any other, or
whether, on the contrary no rule can be formulated in terms
which cover the contingencies as varied as are found in
different cultures. Yet while it may with some justice be
conceded that no two social facts drawn from different social
contexts are comparable it cannot be denied that those of a
given society are comparable with others of the same society
at a different period. History offers, then, if the required
historical data are available, the possibility of checking the
formulations derived from the present by reference to the
past. By looking backward in time the phenomena regarded
as conditionally related together may be seen, or not, in
coexistence with one another. The social anthropologist enters
the field of history not to teach the historian but to seek to
ratify his conclusions regarding the present. The purpose of
this appendix is to take, briefly, such a backward glance.

The hypothesis which I have derived from this analysis ,
of the way of life of the people of the sierra can be formu
lated for our purpose in the following terms :

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 21$

A structural tension exists between the sanctions devolving
from the local community and those devolving from the
central government of the country. In this instance the
tension is visible in every social sphere from the relations of
the sexes to the medical techniques, and from the institution
of friendship to that of the bandit. It corresponds to a conflict
between the values of authority and those of equality. In
deed, a community such as this in which the principle of
proximity is the foundation of social solidarity, in which the
individual physical presence is evaluated above all abstract
conceptions, cannot expect to find its needs respected five
hundred miles away by masters whom it will never set eyes
on. Yet these same conflicting values are both of them neces
sary to the structure of the community itself, as well as to the
country as a whole. This tension is resolved through a hier
archy of patronage and through conventions of secrecy and
fiction which have been shown to be essential to the system
as it exists, even though they do not lack their native critics.

I have postulated that this tension stands in relation to the
divergence in values and the degree of contact between the
central government and the community, in the sense that
the greater the difference in culture and values between
state and community on the one hand, and on the other the
shorter the effective spatial distance and the greater the
political pressure exerted by the state, the more this tension
increases. For conflict implies, by definition, first of all a
basis of difference and secondly a ground of common contact,
and applied to the situation in question these two factors can
be seen to have changed considerably during the recent past.
According to these changes, the postulated theory will, if it
be true, apply as well in 1852 as in 1952, and as well in 1752
as in 1852. A review of the social history of the sierra during
the past two hundred years should reflect changes in the
social structure in terms of this contention.

The year 1 752 happens to make a convenient chronological
starting-point thanks to the survey carried out in that year
by the agents of the Marques de Campo Verde, Intendant-
General of the Kingdom of Granada.

The government of Spain had made little effort to control

214 APPENDIX

or inform itself of local affairs since the reign of Philip II, but
in the middle of the eighteenth century a new spirit began to
inspire the rulers of the state. Energetic measures were intro
duced with the object of simplifying and rationalising the
process of government, and in order to achieve this end
unification and centralisation became the order of the day.
The eighteenth century saw the foundation of many of the
state services. Communications, agriculture, industry, hy
giene, even the dress of the populace became the objects of
concern to the royal ministers, who for a hundred and fifty
years had worried little about what went on outside Madrid.
Systems of roads were built, schemes of agricultural credit
and interior colonisation were put into effect. The royal
enterprises extended all over the country. The Real Haci
enda was entirely reformed. A great catastral survey was
ordered in the middle of the century by the Marques de la
Ensenada which should provide the information necessary to
establish an economic and effective system of taxation to take
the place of the myriad tithes, rights and participations which
supported the different institutions of the central power. The
Marques de Campo Verde's inquiry was initiated in this
intention. A whole volume of statistics relating to the econ
omy of each pueblo of the Kingdom of Granada and Alcala
was still a part of that kingdom was collected during the
years 1752-54. 1 A total of forty questions lays bare the situa
tion of the pueblo, its demography, its agricultural and in
dustrial wealth, its wage and price levels, its municipal
budget, the rights and taxes paid or enjoyed by its inhabi
tants and the economy of the ecclesiastical foundations
within its confines. How far its figures are to be trusted need
not concern us here for we shall not examine them in suffi
cient detail, but misgivings are inspired by a certain note of
truculence which creeps into the text. Some of the answers,
though they were sworn on oath before the parish priest as
commissary of the Holy Office, 2 are regarded in Granada as
unsatisfactory and in December the following year a further

1 Preserved in the Archives of the Casa de los Tiros, Granada, to whose
director I am most grateful for the permission given to consult them.

2 The Church today does not regard the declaration required by the
economic controls as morally binding. A false declaration is not a sin.

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 215

inquiry is initiated to supplement them. To the com
missioner it is explained that the answers given in the first
inquiry were not true anyway: ". . . they said that the
declaration in question was made at the violent persuasion
of Don Juan de Perez the commissioner who conducted the
first inquiry who put down whatever he thought fit".
Clearly, the ancestors of the modern Alcalarenos knew as well
as their descendants how to defend themselves from the
authorities. Nevertheless, one is able to form some idea from
this document of the structure of the pueblo.

In many ways it is remarkably similar. There are rather
more inhabitants and rather more land under cultivation.
The cloth industry is flourishing. Alcala exports ice but no
charcoal. The municipal organisation is much the same. A
budget of 37,000 reales (roughly the same value as today,
calculated in relation to individual wages) provides much
the same services in regard to health, the protection of
property, the organisation of religious festivals and com
mercial fairs. The significant differences may be summed up
briefly.

To begin with, the position of the Church is very different
both materially, and, as it would appear from subsequent
events, morally. It is by far the largest land-owner. The in
come of the ecclesiastical foundations of Alcala from their
properties, tithes and chaplaincies is greater than the
municipal budget. There are thirty-four ecclesiastics living
there altogether priests, chaplains and members of religious
orders, and a convent of Discalced Carmelites as well. The
parish priest bears a notably Alcalareno name as do most of
the incumbents of chaplaincies, though there are probably
outsiders among their number and there is also mention of
"those that come and go". The services rendered to the
community by the Church, other than its ritual functions,
include education and the support of a hospital.

At court, rational ideas went hand-in-hand with anti-
clericalism, and a struggle developed between Church and
State which led to the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. Yet
there is no reason to suppose that any such sentiments lurked
in the pueblo of Alcala, and when, much later, the troops of
the French Revolution beseiged the town the inhabitants

2l6 APPENDIX

defended themselves stoutly in the same church which their
descendants were to burn down in 1936. One of the more
famous guerrilla leaders of the sierra during the French
occupation was a priest of Ubrique.

Extensive common lands are owned by the inhabitants
collectively, and the municipal budget is balanced by the
rents which the Town Hall receives from its possessions. At
this period the state takes no interest in local communica
tions, and the municipality must pay for the work which it
wishes to have done upon its roads and bridges. But on the
other hand it is free of the charge of the services which the
religious foundations perform. There is no indication of any
absentee landlords drawing rent from the community and
living elsewhere upon it. Nevertheless, the statistics claim no
fewer than three hundred beggars "who go from door to
door" against a mere two hundred and fifty journeymen.
Such figures cannot be regarded without suspicion, for the
object of the inquiry was to estimate the capacity of the pueblo
to pay taxes and the poorer it could be made to appear the
less it might reasonably expect to pay. Moreover, Antonio
Ponz, passing through twenty years later, remarks on the
prosperity of the place and the lack of beggars.

The status differences between the qualities of person
no longer have any practical importance, but seigniorial
rights are still of political and economic value. The Marques
de Cadiz, the ancestor of the Duke of Arcos, was given the
seigniory of the town of Alcala together with that of Jacinas,
Benalurin and San Martin in exchange for that of Cadiz.
(He had conquered them personally from- the Moors, or more
literally, he had sacked them and burned them to the
ground.) These four towns are still, in the eighteenth
century, administered integrally as the demesne (estado) of
the Duke. He does not appear to have owned property there
personally, but his seigniorial right entitles him to appoint
the corregidor, the chief judicial officer of the demesne, and
also certain other officials in the towns. As a result of this the
political unity of the four towns appears closer than it does
today. The Duke's agent lives in Alcala and collects the tithes
and taxes due to him. These comprise a third share of the
grain and livestock tithes ("tercio diezmo grano y ganado"),

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 217

a right ofveintena worth 2,200 reales per annum, a tax which
was farmed out to anyone who would rent it, and he also
owns the nionopoly of the seven ice-pits upon the mountain
and a share in certain of the censos. Thanks to their belonging
to the same demesne, the pastures of the four towns are
common to the inhabitants of all and the services of certain
municipal employees are shared. The Duke of Arcos is the
magnate of the plains to the west where his great properties
lie, yet Alcala and the other towns of the demesne belong to
the partido of Ronda and the Kingdom of Granada. The
rentas provinciates and alcabala (excise) are paid to Ronda.

Other taxes are paid in various ways and to various recipi
ents. The first fruits, primicia, are paid to the parish priest.
The tithes (less the Duke of Arcos' third) to the Bishopric of
Malaga, which also possesses a fiscal exemption for a business
enterprise which it owns there. A voto, an endowment worth
150 fanegas of corn, is paid to the cathedral of Santiago de
Galicia. The Royal Purse owns the salt-mines, a royal mono
poly throughout the country. The only tax paid direct to the
Treasury is the excise upon strong liquors, and that is farmed
out to a neighbour of Alcala. There are also two taxes,
utensilio and paja, totalling the value of over 9,000 reales,
paid to Seville for the support of the Army, and this tax is
particularly resented. The poverty of the pueblo is explained
as being due to it. This tax is distributed among the inhabi
tants by the Town Hall, which has the responsibility of
paying it collectively for the whole community. The Mesta
claims 60 reales per annum from the municipality.

The system is complicated, and its lack of unification is
significant. Political power is not centralised in the hands of
any one authority but is divided between institutions which
have their seat in various places. Moreover, the people who
occupy posts in the pueblo are not civil servants appointed
from Madrid as members of a professional corps but em
ployees of the pueblo. The majority have names which indi
cate that they are sons of the pueblo. Those whose names are
qualified in the questionnaire with a mention of their origin
are all from near-by pueblos.

This picture is far from adequate and gives no indication
of the internal conflicts which may have divided Alcala. The

APPENDIX

community is certainly not free from outside interference,
though the authorities appear to allow the municipal
government a high degree of autonomy. A host of powers
external to the pueblo have the right to claim some tax or
service there even an agent of the Admiralty comes to
demand wood from the forests. The high cost involved in
collecting and forwarding in money or in kind these some
times quite small sums is considerable without counting the
legal expenses in which the Town Hall involves itself through
challenging them in a quantity of lawsuits and pleas. Yet
there are no signs at this time of the social unrest which
characterises a later period, and the Church appears to be on
good terms with the temporal authority. The Town Hall
gives alms to the nuns and to the diocesan treasury, and
rather unexpectedly one discovers the account of the sale of
bulls inserted in its finances between the Treasury's tax upon
strong liquor and the unpopular contribution to the support
of the cavalry in Seville. (Almost as much money is raised by
the bulls as is paid to the Army.) The Church still sanctions
the authority of the state, and the state has not yet attacked
the material position of the Church.

I shall perhaps be pardoned for recalling some of the
changes in the Spanish social scene which separate this
period from modern times.

The rationalisation of government in the second half of
the eighteenth century took place within the traditional
framework. Revolutionary ideas do not appear until the
nineteenth century. Then, after a series of rebellions and
counter-rebellions, of constitutions and absolutist decrees,
the Liberal epoch opens. "Liberal", in Spanish politics,
meant, first and foremost, anti-clerical. From the beginning
of the century anti-clericalism, which had previously been
confined to the court and the intellectuals, spread to the
middle classes and the Army. It was not until the second half
of the century that it became common in the pueblo. Under
the influence of the Liberal government a social and econ
omic revolution succeeded the political revolution. By 1852
the structure of the pueblo of Alcald had changed funda-

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 2ig

mentally. The Kingdom of Granada and the seigniorial
demesne have vanished. The province has come into existence.
The church lands have been confiscated and placed on the
market, and the great acorn forest which was common land
has been sold into private hands also. A small part of it was
cleared and distributed in small individual holdings among
the pueblo. A new land-owning class has come into existence
in Andalusia who owe their position to their skill in business,
but whose landed possessions, acquired at the expense of the
Church, soon convert them into good churchmen.

The Liberal government continued to extend its powers
from the moment it acquired them and, faced with the
rebellion in the north, found itself forced to build up a
standing army, paid for at first by money raised from ex
propriations, which for political reasons no one could subse
quently afford to reduce. Shortly after the war, the creation of
the Civil Guard relieved the local community of its responsi
bilities regarding the evil-doers and the highwaymen. The
numbers of state servants multiply and re-multiply. Repre
sentatives of government-controlled institutions penetrate to
the pueblo. So, when Garcia Oviedo 1 sees a tendency to
wards decentralisation from 1877-1935 this is true only in
regard to the competence of the municipality in matters of
law. The power which the state relinquishes is not given to the
pueblo but to its servants in the pueblo. (It was precisely in
1877 that a law was first passed projecting schools for munici
pal functionaries.) We can see then that this development
involves not only placing the affairs of the local community
under the control of the state and accumulating information
regarding the pueblo in the offices of the central administra
tion. It also means participation in the internal affairs of the
pueblo by agents whose fundamental loyalty is to the state.

During the period in which all this occurs the schism in
the values of the pueblo becomes visible. While the Church
maintained its properties it appears to have held the loyalty
of the whole pueblo, for, apart from the prestige which it
enjoyed in the role of patron within the local community,
its values were those of the pueblo. But the power of the
people who replaced it in this respect was sanctioned by no
* Garcia Oviedo, op. cit. See footnote on page 14.

220 APPENDIX

religious principle but only by their right of property or by
a state appointment. The impersonal, morally neutral
doctrines of liberal economy have replaced the theocratic
society. The place of the Church is taken by the cacique:
Authority comes no longer from God but from Madrid.

Even before the development of the Anarchist Movement
there are signs of a profound social discontent. The rising of
Perez del Alamo in 1 86 1 raised an army of 1 0,000 men against
the established order, while the first Anarchist newspaper
was not founded until 1869. It appears that the pueblos of
Andalusia did not require a political doctrine in order to rebel.

When, after the abortive federalism of 1873, the middle
classes of Andalusia made their peace with Madrid the exten
sion of the Anarchist Movement was rapid. The pueblos of
the Serrania de Ronda were fertile ground for the new move
ment. Whether the scarcity of Civil Guards, which also
made the country favourable for bandits and smugglers, 1 en
couraged Anarchism, whether the doctrine was propagated
through the network of the system of contraband, the moun
tains quickly became a stronghold. Of the sections which
sent either delegates or messages of sympathy to the Seville
Congress of the Federaci6n de Trabaj adores de la region
Espanola in 1882, those of the pueblos of the sierra represent
a far higher percentage of their total population than do
those of the larger towns of the plain. They appear to include
not merely the artisans who formed the main body of the
anarchists in the capitals and large towns but, in many cases,
the bulk of agricultural labourers. When the law forced the
movement underground it was here that the Black Hand
made its appearance.

Much has been written regarding the Anarchist Movement
which I shall not attempt to reiterate. What has not been
adequately stressed is the extent to which, in Andalusia, the
social background of the pueblo influenced the movement.
Its moralism, its naturalism, its messianic belief, its insistence
upon justice 2 and order in the organisation of social relations,

1 Bernaldo de Quiros and others have stressed the close association between
the anarchists and the bandits.

2 The telegrams to the congress of 1882 which came from Catalonia and the
north ring with phrases like "ideas anarco-sindicalistas". Those from the sierra
talk only of justice and the just cause of the people.

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 221

its refusal at the same time to tolerate any authority not
vested in the community, to admit any basis of social
organisation other than the pueblo, the natural unit of
society, provide some justification for regarding it as the
product of a tension within the structure of the local com
munity. Yet this must not be taken as an excuse for overlook
ing the differences which can be seen to have existed in
modern times between the values of the pueblo and those of
the anarchists. Though the pueblo tends to show hostility to
the temporal order of the Church the powers of religion play
an all-important part in its institutions, and indeed its
solidarity is expressed in its relation to the patron saint. Yet
Anarchism went further than hostility to the temporal order,
and even than church-burning. It prescribed a complete
rejection of all religion, the substitution of salutations such as
Salud (health or salvation) for the conventional Vqya Vd. con
Dies or Adios and the elimination of the powers of religion
from the vocabulary of everyday use. The anarchist sections
from towns named after saints to the congress of 1882 fre
quently refer to their pueblo without the San, thus "Jose del
Valle" for "San Jose del Valle". The avowed rationalism
of the anarchists condemned the activities of the sabias as
superstition and condemned the doctrines of religion on the
same grounds. They attacked not only the idea of patronage
and social inequality but also the festival of the bull-fight,
alcohol and sexual promiscuity, all the flamboyant symbols
of Andalusian culture. It would be quite wrong to conclude
therefore that the anarchists represented the values of the
pueblo as a whole. They represented, rather, a reaction
against the imposition of new influences upon the traditional
structure of the pueblo.

A further refinement is required at this point. In reality
we can no more discuss "Anarchism" than we can discuss
"witchcraft". We can only analyse the social significance of
the latter by taking the witch and examining her relation
ship to the pueblo. Let us try therefore to see not Anarchism
but the anarchist. Diaz del Moral has observed the import
ance of a small nucleus of convinced anarchists "los obreros
concientes" 1 upon whom the whole movement depended. In

i Diaz del Moral, op. dt.

222 APPENDIX

the speech of those who today remember pre-war times "los
que tenian ideas" (those who had ideas) appear to indicate
a similar category. The Anarchist Movement appears, then,
as a certain number of convinced anarchists, a small per
centage of the pueblo, who enjoy the support of the great
majority of the pueblo upbn certain occasions, but who are
simply members of the pueblo for the remainder of the
time like the sabia and who have no great influence upon
events. The attitude towards them appears to have been
ambivalent from the accounts of those who are prepared
to discuss them. Moreover, such an explanation would
account for the characteristics noted in the history of the
movement, the lack of formal organisation and discipline,
the suddenness with which the rebellions break out and the
equal suddenness with which they subside. It would also
account for the apparent indifference on the part of the rank
and file towards the dogmas of the movement.

To what extent they accepted them as articles of faith is a
thing which cannot be said, any more than it is possible to
say whether the artisans of the capital cities attached the
same significance to them as the peasants of the sierra. The
evolution of the Anarchist Movement in Andalusia was
away from the primitive messianic Anarchism and towards a
more urban conception of revolution. 1 The doctrine of the
General Strike which dominated the movement from the
beginning of the twentieth century implied collective action
on a wider basis than the pueblo, however much this
implication was resisted, and this tendency was carried still
further with the organisation of the C.N.T. upon a national
scale and the predominance within it of syndicalist ideas.
Some evidence has been put forward to suggest that during
the period of the Civil War certain tensions were visible
between the anarchists of the large towns and those of the
surrounding pueblos. The requirements of organisation in
time of war made necessary a kind of authority which

i Messianic Anarchism continued to exist in the country districts (e.g. the
rising at Casas Viejas in 1934), and the mentality which goes with it remained
the basis of the faith upon which the political association was founded. The
resistance to becoming a national organisation was very strong, for it was
recognised that it involved the sacrifice of an essential value, the sovereignty
of the local community.

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 323

inevitably ran counter to the conceptions of the anarchists of
the pueblo. It is said that since the war the underground
political opposition in Andalusia has been entirely com
munist, this in spite of the fact that Communism had no
previous importance there.

Seen in the dimension of time, the Anarchist Movement
in the pueblos of the sierra does indeed appear as a develop
ment in the relationship of the pueblo to the state, in the
conflict between the values of the community and those of
the central power and its allies. It is born after the power
of the Church has been destroyed by the growing state and
its place in the structure of the pueblo has been taken by a
class of no longer anti-clerical property-owners. It ends
when the state, having destroyed the anarcho-syndicalist
syndicate, imposes the reign of syndicalism. During that time
the spirit of the Anarchist Movement has changed and its
centre of balance has moved from the pueblo to the big city.

In this process the state is seen encroaching upon the
functions which were formerly vested in the community, in
creasing its influence there and imposing decisions made in
Cadiz or Madrid upon the internal affairs of the pueblo.
Yet today the divergence between the national rulers and
the pueblo grows less. State education, the radio, the cinema,
easy communications and the experience of military service
all in their different ways carry the culture of urban society
to Alcala. The pueblo adapts itself to new political and
technological influences. Meanwhile, the fundamental values
of Andalusian society persist, for they are common to the
whole culture, the whole population of the South. Thanks
to them the different elements of the structure hold together.
They give to Andalusia its historical continuity, the stamp
of its character.

Glossary of Spanish Words

These words are defined as they are used in
Alcala ; certain, variations of meaning will be
seen to exist between that given in this
Glossary and that given in a dictionary.

agua robada. Literally, stolen water, i.e. water diverted
clandestinely from the communal stream.

alcahueta. A gossip; hence alcahueteria, scandalmongering.

aparceria. An arrangement whereby land is exploited in
partnership between two or more people; hence aparcero, a
person with whom such an arrangement is made.

bruja. A witch; one who employs magic for evil ends; an un
complimentary way of referring to a sabia.

cabron. Literally, he-goat (not used in this sense); a cuckold;
cabrito, a kid or he-goat.

cacique. A local political boss; usually, in Andalusia, a land
owner; hence caciquismo, the system whereby, during the
epoch of constitutional government, political elections were
arranged by the cacique.

calio. An evil and involuntary power associated with menstrua
tion.

camelar. To compliment; to deceive with flattery; hence
camelo, a tall story or nonsense.

campina. The agricultural plain.

cara dura. Literally, hard-faced; shameless.

casino. The recreational club to which leading personalities of
the pueblo belong.

celos. Jealousy or zeal; en celo, on heat (used of animals);
celosa, jealous or zealous; a person possessing calio.

cojones. Literally, testicles; hence courage, manliness.

compadrazgo. The relationship between the parent and the
god-parent; hence compadre, the person in such a relation
ship to another.

confianza. Confidence; willingness to enter into friendship with
a person.

consuegro. The parent of a person's child's spouse (from suegro,
a parent-in-law).

GLOSSARY OF SPANISH WORDS 225

corredor. A professional broker; a person who assists in arrang
ing deals.

curandero. A person empowered either by knowledge or grace
or a combination of the two to heal human beings or
domestic animals, other than a person officially qualified to
do so.

desgracia. The loss of grace; hence desgraciado, unfortunate;
disgraced; ill-blessed.

encargado. Charged with a duty; hence a person placed in

charge, a bailiff.
feria. A fair.

la fiscalia. The food control organisation or the members of it.
flamenco. Popular music of Andalusia.
forastero. A person from outside the pueblo, translated in the

text as "outsider".
ganado. Livestock; hence ganadero, one who has to do with

livestock; herdsman or herd owner.
gracia. Grace; a favour or free gift; grace in movement; the

power to evoke admiration or laughter; supernatural power;

grace in the religious sense; gracias, thanks.
hombre bueno. One who intervenes in a law suit on behalf of

one of the parties engaged.
hombria. Manliness.
huerta. An irrigated farm; an irrigated valley; hence hortelano,

one who cultivates irrigated land; huerto, small plot of

irrigated land.
jopo. The tail of an animal; augmentative, jopon, person living

in the upper quarter of the town; jopiche, diminutive of

jopo, a person living in the lower quarter of the town.
maestro. A schoolmaster; maestro nacional, a schoolmaster

qualified by the State who teaches in State schools; maestro

rural, a man who gives lessons to children on the farms.
matador. A killer, either of bulls or pigs.
maton. A bully or thug; a person employed to intimidate others.
matriculacion. The municipal tax upon industrial and com
mercial enterprises.
a medias. Half-shares; hence medianeria, an arrangement

whereby an enterprise is shared between the owner and the

exploiter; medianero, one who exploits an undertaking on

such a basis.
naturaleza. Nature; essence; the place of a person's birth; hence

natural, native of a place.
novio, novia. Fiancee; boy-friend, girl-friend; hence noviazgo,

the institution of courtship.

226 GLOSSARY OF SPANISH WORDS

padrino. God-parent; sponsor; a powerful person who protects
and favours.

partido judicial. A number of municipalities grouped together
for certain administrative purposes.

patrono. A patron; an employer.

poblacion. Population; an inhabited place.

prirno. Cousin; foolish person; mug; primo hennano, first
cousin.

pueblo. Town or village; those who live in the place; plebs;
people.

rancho. A cottage outside the town; hence rancnero, a country-
dweller, particularly a small farmer.

reja. The iron bars upon a window; the place where courting is
sometimes done.

remanentes. The waters of a mill-stream or irrigation channel
which continue to flow after the main stream has been cut off.
Also mispronounced, romanientes.

sabia. A wise woman; one empowered by grace and knowledge
to perform magical acts. See bruja.

sacamantecas. A "bluebeard"; a baby-stealer.

sin vergiienza. One who has no shame; a social outcast.

termino. The territory of a municipality.

tertulia. A group of friends, united in an habitual meeting-
place.

los terrazgos or terrajos. An area of very small cultivable land
holdings.

vecino, vecina. A neighbour; the status of an emancipated per
son inscribed in the Parish Register; formerly the head of a
family.

vergiienza. Shame.

INDEX

Accinipa, 2

Admiralty, 218

Affinal ties, 105 et seq., 1 19

Agriculture, Ministry of, 36

Alba, Duchess of, 141

Alcahueta (gossip), 144, 193, 207

Algar, 3

Algeciras, 19, 55

Amorpropio, 91

Anarchism, 17-19, 42, 53, 61, 125,

127, 130-1, 133, i53~4 ? J 59>

220-3

Ancient Greece, 26
Aparceria (see half-shares), 43, 45
Aragon, Kingdom of, 14
Arcos, Duke of, 5, 216-7

Bandit, 51, 130-2, 141, 165, 178

etseq., 200-1, 213, 220
Barcelona, 50, 126
BAROJA, pfo. Las Noches del Bum

Retiro (Madrid, 1934), 80
, , Cesar o Nada (Madrid,

1912), 141
Beggars, 27-8, 33, 54, 59-61, 68,

74~5> l6 5> l8 5~ 6 > !93> 204-5,

216
Benalurln, 3, 8-10, 12, 21, 39, 122,

124, 216

Benamahoma, 40
Benaocaz, 12-13
Benaojan, u
BERNALDO.DE QUiROS, c. Los Reyes

y la Colonizacidn Interior de Espana

desde el Siglo XVI al JT/JT (Madrid,

1929), 4, 181

BERNALDO DE QUIROS, C. and

ARDILA, LUIS, El Bandolerismo
(Madrid, 1931), 141? 180-1,
220

Berners, Lady, 187

Black Hand, 4, 73, 203, 220

P.S. 15

BLASCO IBANEZ, v., La Bodega (Va
lencia, 1905), 73

BORROW, GEORGE, The Gypsies of
Spain, 187

BRENAN, GERALD, The Spanish Laby
rinth (Cambridge, 1943), 17, 28,
39, 76, 132

, , The Face of Spain, 128

Buena conducta, 17

Buleria, 170

Bulls, bullfight, 11, 36, 69-70, 78,
85,90,221

Byron, 203

Gabaneria, 37

Cacique, cadquismo, 17, 75, 135, 141,

157, I59 ? l6 8> 182, 204, 220
Cddiz, 3-4, 1 1, 19, 23, 39, 56, 120,

211, 2l6

Cadiz, Marques de, 216

CALATAYUD SANJUAN, EMILO, Enti-

dopedia Manual Juridico-Admini-

strativo (1933), 17? i?
Calio, 192, 197 etseq.
Cakario, 3, 10
Campanilismo, 30
Campina, 2, 39, 50
Campo Verde, Marque's de, 50,

213-4

Carlist War, 17, 219
Carnaval, 176 et seq.

CARO BAROJA, JULIO, Los VoSCOS

(San Sebastian, 1949), 137
9 , Andlisis de la Cultura

(Barcelona^ 1949), 17^
j , "Las 'nuevas pobla-

ciones' de Sierra Morena y

Andalucia," in Clavileno, 1952

(no. 18), 181
? 9 Algunos Mitos Espanoles

(Madrid, 1944)? X 93

228

CARRi6N, PASCUAL, Los Latifundios

en Espana (Madrid, 1932), 39
Casa de los Tiros, Granada, 214
Casino, 2, 27, 67, 77, 87, 122, 134-

*35> 162
Castile, 39

Castile, Kingdom of, 14
Catalonia, 220
CELA, CAMILO jos, La Familia de

Pascual Duarte (Madrid 1942),

198

Cervantes, 80
Cicero, 179
Civil Guard, 16-18, 23, 28, 67, 72,

122, 126, 129-33, i45> J 47>

156-7, 170-1, 174-5, *8o, 182-

186, 193, 200, 206, 220
Class, (social), 32, 34, 80-1,

"8-9, 125
.Class, middle, 81, 157, 203, 218,

220
Communications, 4, 17, 22-3, 49,

55-6, 135, 214, 216, 223
Compadres, compadrazgo t 32, 107 et

seq., 138, 142, 153, 208
Compadres de Carnaval, 107, 176
ConsuegrO) 76, 96, 106-7
Cordoba, 19, 141, 181
Comdor, dealer, 33, 39, 57-9, 64,

129, 186-7

Corrientes, Diego, 179-80
Cortes, 184
Courting (see JVbz/io), 6, 9, 13, 68,

93^^,98, 100-1, 106
Cousin, 103-6, m
Cuba, 4

Cuckold, n 6, 164, 172
Cursi, 80

DIAZ DEL MORAL, j, Histona de
las Agitaciones Campesinas Anda-
luzas (Madrid, 1929), 19, 61,
181, 221

Doctor, 1 6, 66-7, 72, 124, 199-200

Don, 72-4, 81, 83

DOUGLAS, NORMAN, Old Calabria
(London, 1915), 162

INDEX

DUMONT, LOUIS, La Tarasque, (Paris,

'95i)> 78

DURCKHEIM, EMILE, De la Division
du Travail Social (Paris, 1902),
24

Economic change or decline, 4,

18,21,49,53,62
Education, 61, 71-1, 75-7, 84,

102, 124-5, !4 8 , 190, 192, 201,

215
Education, lack of, 105, 113, 192,

202

El Castor, 10, 17-18, 24, 28
Eljaral, 2,9, 10-11,24,55,58
ElViso, ii
EmpadronamientOy 8
Ensenada, Marques de la, 214
ESTAMPA, 1934, Z 8s

EVANS-PRITCHARD, E. E., Witchcraft,

Oracles and Magic among the
Azande (Oxford, 1937), 195
Evil Eye, 198 et seq., 204

Feria, 8, 69

FERRERO, GUGLIELMO, The Prifa

ciples of Power (New York, 1942),

157

Flores, 182

Folklore, 10, 12, 96, '133, 170

Ford, Richard, i

FOSTER, GEORGE M., Empire's Chil
dren (Smithsonian Institute),

32

Freud, 118
Friend, friendship, 23, 28, 32, 43,

59-61, 64, 68, 88, 104, 106-9,

in, 119-20, 131, 137 et seq.,

160, 168, 210, 213
Fuenteovejuna, 19, 158

Gago, Mateos, 55
Galica, 14

GARCIA OVIEDO, Derecho Admini
strative (Madrid, 1951), 14, 219
Gaucin, 184 '

INDEX

Gibraltar, 26, 58, 184, 192
GONZALEZ, JULIO, Repartimiento de

Sevilla (Madrid, 1951), 39
Governor, 15, 23, 122 et seq.
Gratia, 189 etseq.
Granada, Kingdom of, i, 4, 50,

213-4,217,219
Grazalema, 11, 13
Guadalete, 55
Guadalmesi, 3, 5, 10, 13, 20, 33,

39, 42, 50, 170-1, 1 80
Gypsies, 33, 48, 60, 70, 164, 174,

1 86 et seq. 3 198

Half-shares (see aparceria)^ 38-9,

42.50
HARDY, THOMAS, The Mayor of

Casterbridge> 170
Haro, ii
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST, For Whom the

Bell Tolls, 132
Hombre Bueno, 129
Hortelanoy 41, 48, 52-3, 90-1, 126,

162

Housing, 3-5, 46, 99
Huerto, Huerta (see irrigation), 4,

40-1, 43-4, 52, 90, 142 et seq.,

207

229

Juan el Nene, 182

Jus sanguinis, 30

Jus soli, 30

Justice of the Peace, 129-30

Labourers (see Wages), 3, 4, 17,
23> 27, 32, 37, 42-3, 45, 48, 59,
83, 99, 132, 134, 216, 220

La Carolina, 31

Lacidula, i

La Linea, 192

La Mancha, 39

Land-owners, 16, 25, 37-9, 43-6,
51-2, 58-9, 66-9, 72-3> 75> 125,
168, 219

La Sauceda, 184

LATOUR, ANTOINE DE, Un Voyage en
Espagne (Paris, 1855), 203

Latifundia> 39

Latifundismo, 181

LEVI-PROVENAL, E., UEspagW Mu-

sulmane au Xbne Sikle (Paris,

1932), 39
Ley de Fugas, 131
Liberals, 36, 218-19.
Logrono, 11
Lope de Vega, 19
Lopez, Curro, 141

Ice-pits, 56, 171, 217

Igualeja, 182, 184

Inheritance, 46, 79, 98-9, 102-4,

196
Inspector, 6, 20-1, 23, 33, 50,

128, 138, 142, 148, 155, 178,

206
Irrigation, 2-4, 21, 35, 40-1, 50,

53

Jacinas, 3-4, 9, n-12, 17, 195

2i-4> 29, 33, 5i* 55> 59> IO 5>

131, 170, 216
Jerez, i, 3, 10-11, 16, 19, 22, 26,

55-6> I0 9> r 20, 181, 203
Jesuits, expulsion of, 215
Jimena, 10, n

MACHADO Y ALVAREZ, A. (Editor),

El Folklore Andduz> 12

MACIVER, R. M., The Web of Govern
ment (1947), 67

and PAGE, Society (London,

1949)^5

MADOZ, PASCUAL, Diccwnano Geo-
grqfico-Estadistico-Historico de Es-
pana (Madrid, 1846), 54

Madrid, 14, 217, 220, 223

Mairena, 11

Malaga, 16, 18, 36, 57, 120, 139,

154.157,217 . .

MARETT, R. R., The Beginnings
of Morals and Culture,** in An
Outline of Modern Knowledge
(London, 1931), 113

230

MARIANA, PADRE JUAN DE, De Rege

et Regis Institutione (Spanish trans
lation, Madrid, 1864), 158

Marriage (see courting), 16, 24, 26,
79,82,84,91-6,98^^,, 175,
208

MARSHALL, T. H., Citizenship and
Social Class (Cambridge, 1950),
34,81

Aiatanza, 85

Maton, 141

Mayor, 15-16, 41, 52, 55, 66, 73,
77,122^^,141,147, 154, 156

Mayorazgo, 102

Menstrual magic, 195, 197 et seq*

MERIMEE, PROSPER, Voyage en Es-
pagne 9 180

Mesta, 217

Mills, miller, 4, 6, 20-1, 23, 25, 33,
40> 48-53 3 58, 13 !> Hi et se ^

162, 192, 200, 206

Montejaque, 9, 11, 12, 24
Moors, i, 13, 31, 196, 205-6, 216
Murcia, 14

Naturaleza (place of birth), 8, 30,

III, 120

Neighbour (vecino), 7-8, 28, 108,
122, 137, et seq., 146, 156, 158,
168-9, 171, 173, 182, 185, 193,
206-9

Nicknames, 7, 8, 31, 126, 160 et
seq., 201

jVbr/io, novia, 6, 88, 93-8, 109-11,
117, 119, 176-7, 191, 196

Olvera, i
Orgullo, 91

Outsider (forastero), 9, n, 25-6,
28-9,66, 123, 140, 159, 161, 164,

215
Owner-farmer, 25-6, 36, 40, 44-

45> 105

Padrino, 107-10, 140-1, 155
Parauta, 182, 184
Pareela, 39-40

INDEX

Partido, 15, 23-4, 33, 123-5, 129,

152, 157, 217
Pasos Largos, 183
Patria chica, 30
Patronage, 63, 140-1, 154-5, 204,

207, 209, 213, 219, 221
Patron Saint, 8, 11, 13, 30, 133,

221

Penaloja, 6-8, 15, 21, 24, 54-5, 123
PEREZ CLOTET, PEDRO, La Serrania

de Ronda en la Literatura (Cddiz),

13

Perez de Alamo, 220
Philip II, 214
Phylloxera, 4
Piropo, 92
Plebs, 1 8, 73, 76-7, 80, 118, 133,

141, 152, 161, 167, 179
Polis, 30
Poltergeist, 195
PONZ, ANTONIO, Vioje de Espana

(Madrid, 1787), 4, 53
Power, definition of, 67
Priest, 16, 51, 67, 72, 77, 130,

132-4, 201, 205, 215
Primitive societies, 31, 160
Primo de Rivera, General, 56, 131,

157

Prostitute, 27, 33
Puerto Santa Maria, 8

REDFIELD, ROBERT, The Folk Culture
of Yucatan (Chicago, 1941), 198

Rio Genal, 9, 181, 184

RIVAS, DUQUE DE, "El Ventero",
published in Los Espanoles Pin
tados por si mismos (Madrid,
1843), 207

ROJAS, FERNANDO DE, La Celestina,

193

Ronda, i, 13, 17, 19, 22-4, 36,
54-7, 68, 125, 148, 181-3, 193,

217, 220

ROWSE, A, L., A Cornish Childhood,

170
Ruling Group, 16, 32-3, 66-9, 77,

I34-5* 152, J55> *79> 200-1, 209

INDEX

Sabia, 96-7, 179, 189 et^seq., 199-

201, 221-2

Sacamantecas, 204

Sanctions, 67-8, 92, 965 121, 184,

206, 208-10
,jural, 173
, legal, of organised force, 160-1,

178, 200-1, 213
, moral, of public opinion, 27,

31, 109, 113, 118-19, 158, 161,

168-9, i75-7> i?9> 185, 188,

200, 202, 213

, systems of, 156, 206

San Jos6 del Valle, 221

San Martin, 3, 8, n, 216

San Pedro de Alcantara, 8

Santiago de Galicia, 217

Secrecy, 206-7, 213

Senor, 74, 81-3

Sefiorito, 61, 74-83, 87, 98, 108,

118-20, 133, 135, 167-8, 204
Shame (Verguenza), 60, 70, 109,

uzetseq., 139, 154, 157-9, 184-

185, 198-9, 202
Shameless behaviour, 12, 27, 60-1,

102, 144, 147, 153, 171, 176-7*

184-8
Shepherds, herdsmen (ganaderos),

9, 33> 37-8, 48, 6 9~7> i *6, J 24~

125

Shilluk Kings, 12
Smugglers, i, 183-4, 200, 207, 220
Soberbia, 91, 157
Solidarity, 16, 24, 30, 32-3, 88,

204, 206, 213
Sophocles, 31
Sorcery, 195-8, 206
Status, xiv, 26, 29, 32, 65-83, 92,

120, 125, 137, 1 60, 182, 209,

216
Structure, x, xiii, xiv, 13, 29-30,

34> 49* 56, 59> 66, 81, 98, 103,

106, 115, 120, 122, 132-4, 160-

161, 179, 184, 188, 194, 207,

213, 215, 221, 223
Supernatural, xiv, 96-7, 189, et

seq.
Syndical regulations, 42

231

Syndicates, 15, 52, 67, 122, 127-8,

i34 ? 223

System (see sanctions, values), x,
xiii-xv, 58, 63, 81, 83, 91, 98,
109, 145, 153-5, r 6o, 162, 182,
201, 204, 211-13, 217, 224

Tangier, 192

Taxation, 22, 44, 123, 126, 210,

214, 216

Tax-collector, 16, 209
Tempranillo, Jose-Maria el, 180
Tenant-farmers, 25-6, 40, 44-5,

51, 75, 83, 104-5, I34 3 l6 5> 180
Timing 6, 9, 15-16, 27-8, 32,

35-6, 40, 55

Ttrminos municipales, ley de los, 23
Town Hall, 5, 15-16, 22, 31, 36-7,

44> 5 6 > 59> IIO > J 2i ttseq.t 146,

162, 213, 217-18
Trade, 19-22, 25, 33, 48 etseq., 57

et seq,
Transhumance, 23

Ubrique, n, 216

VALERA, JUAN, Pepita Jimenez, 141
, , La Leyenda Negra> 202
Values, xiv, xv, 12, 46, 59-60,

84-5^89,9^106, 112, 114, 118,

141, 158, 160, 176, 178, 200-4,

206, 209, 213, 223
, economic, 62-3, 65
, egalitarian, 61, 71, 137, 156,

209, 213

-, moral, 113, 115, 145, 158, 202
of the pueblo, 31, 49, 62, 118-

120, 137, 166, 175, 203, 221
, system, 46, 62, 66, 1 18-19, X 44>

158, 179. 208
VEBLEN, T., The Theory of the Leisure

Class (New York, 1922), 70

VERGARA, MARTIN, "L.OS ApodoS

Colectivos", in the Boletin de la
Real Sodedad Geografica (Vol. XV,
1918), 8

232

Villa Faderique, 11-12, 28
Villaluenga del Rosario, 8, 13
Vito, 169-75, 201

Wages, 4, 22-3, 25, 37, 43-5, 59,
75> OO-^oo, 123, 127, 214

WASHINGTON IRVING, The Alhambra
(London, 1832), 60

WEBER, MAX, The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism (Lon
don, 1930), 62

WEULERSSE, J., Pqysans de Syrie et
du Proche-Orient (Paris, 1946), 47

INDEX

Widows, 58, 89, 103, 130, 170-1,

i?3> 175

Wme, 9, 12, 23, 35, 57
Witchcraft, 192 et seq. t 221
WOOLSEY, GAMEL, Death's Other

Kingdom (London, 1939), 18

Zahara, 10, 12

ZOILO ESPEJO, Costumbres de Derecho
yEconomia Rural (Madrid 1900),

44
ZUGASTI, JULIAN, El Bandolerismo

(Madrid, 1876), 141, 157

CD

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