Diario las Américas Newspaper, May 16, 1954, Page 25

ll ll ti ll T it it It Hl Ul lil lI i i 4 * » Skilled weaving of Cora woman im Jesus Maria, Nayarit, exempl- | ifites Indiam customs that need to | he preserved and encouraged. on of the Ministry: of Public Educa: | tion. Although it has faithfully per- formed its tasks, it has always be- en hampered: by budgets and staffs that were tow small for the size} of the Indiam populatiem and the) complexity of its preblems, In 1944 Ministry of Public Edue- ation specialists worked out a plan for teaching monolingual Indians to read and write* their ewn lan-| guage as @ preliminary step to le- arning Spanish. Am Institute of Literacy fer Monolingual Indians was created, and experiments were begun with four groups —the Na- huas, the Otomi, the Mayas, and the Tarascans. Thousands of copi- es of especially prepared bilingual primers were printed, and a. corps | |ly harmful customs with more de- | cultures, | specifie projects recommended by > dinated plans covering all aspects of the Indians’ life can their ecen- omic and cultural level be raised, and that, although every effort should be made to replace obvious- sirable European ones, useful nat- ive folkways should be maintained and eneouraged. The idea is not te Europeanize or Indianize, but } to foster a mestizo way of life com- i bining the best elements of both The Institute is first and fore- most an autonomous agency, com- pletely independent of all the gov- ernment ministries, and its admin- istrater deals directly with the president of Mexico. Its functions are to look into the problems cen- eerning the country’s Indians; work out measures te help them; fight for government approval of |; these measures, and, once this is obtained, coordinate and direct the efforts of the agencies concerned; and collaberate with the Bureaw of Indian Affairs im carrying out the Executive. On the Institute’s governing co- uncil are representatives of the Ministries of Public Edueation, He- | alth, Interior, Agriculture, Hydra- ulie Resourees, and Communiea- | tions, the Agrarian Department, the Bank of Ejidal Credit, the National Institute of Anthropel- ogy, the National University, the } National Polytechnic Institute, the Mexicam Anthropological Society, of teachers was trained in their use, Huichol girl of Tuxpdn, Jalisco, | fetches water in calabashes, Beeause it permits the mastery of Spanish without sacrificing the student’s native tongue, this has proved a highly popular and ef- fective method. Obviously, the ed- ucators will run inte difficulties in applying it to some of the more obseure native languages, not en- i ly beeause of the high cost of preparing teachers and materials, but abeve’ all because of the dif- ficulty im finding capable teachers who know these tongues. But it has certainly proved highly satis- factory im the larger groups. f i] Plying another ancient trade in Desemboque, Sonora. BOMINGO 16 DE MAYO DE 1954. and ef many Indian groups. Dr. | Alfonse Caso is the director and Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran the One of the organization’s first steps was to hire a staff of rese |, archers to gather material for a series of publications spotlighting various aspects of Mexice’s Indi- am problem. In 1951 it establish- ‘ed # Coordinating Center im Sam Cristébal lag Casas for the Tzeltal- Tzotzil zone in the State of Chi- apas. Living in this zone are 125, 000 «= Tzeltal and Tzotzil Indians whe have beem little influenced by Western culture. In addition to seetions concentrating on stoek- raising and farming, health and sanitation, and education, this Cen- ter has supplementary divisions for practical anthropological research and for the production of visual and graphic material. The Minis- resources. Thousande of Indians have ben- efited from the huge Papaloapan Valley Projéct undertaken in 1947 | by the Ministry of Hydraulic Re- | sources to control floods, develop | eemmunications. generate electric- ity, inerease agricultural produc- tien through irrigation, develop re- gional industries, improve the are- a’s urban centers, and so on. In the 17,860 square miles affected by this tremendous project, similar to the TVA, live two hundred tho- usand monolingual Cuicatec, Chin- antec, Mazatec, Mixe, Mixtec, and Zapotec Indians, through the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla. The im the valley are being supplem- ented by work in the field of ap plied social anthropology under the | direction of Alfonso Villa Rojas | and a staff of educators, econom- | ists, sanitary engineers, dietitians, doctors, and the like. Experience | has proved that the Indians look en material benefits with suspici- on, if they don’t turn them down outright, unless they have be- en previously conditioned for the ehange. Only after careful psychol- ogieal preparation were they mov- ed to new lands (obviously better | than the old) and persuaded to | modify primitive methods of farm- | ' ing. and housekeeping. A similar project, though of | smaller propertions, is new under way im the Tepaleatepee Valley |.4 in Mieheacdn. There, too, social | 4 anthropeiogists are laying the gro- und-work fer raising the cultural, seeial, and economic level of the regien’s Indians. The Patrimonio Indigena (In- dian Authority) of the Mezquital Valley, created by law on June 25, 1951, is another expression of the Gevernment’s well-coordinated attacks on all phases of the In- dians’ problems. Located in Hidal- go,, this valley if inhabited by Oto- mi, whose living conditions are wretehed beeause the soil is so peer and dry. The Patrimonio is rum —as an autonnmous agency— by representatives of the Minis- tries ef Finance, Agriculture, Hyd- raulie Resources, Public Education, Communications, and Health; the Agrarian Department; the Nation- | al Indian Institute; the Inter-Am- erieam Indian Institute; the Gov- ernment of Hidalgo; the National | Olive Commission; and the Nation- | al Offiee for the Utilization of Des- | ert Areas. The present director is - Dr. Julio de la Fuente. | Its budget exceeded five millions distributed. material accomplishments | i wears crewn used on hunting e=- peses in 1953, not counting the assistance in personnel and equip- | ment furnished by the various of- | fieial agencies. Careful studies were made to make sure the most urgent needs were met first. The immediate goals are more water and land; better methods of farm- ing and caring for stock and poul- try; credit for the small farmer; : of loeal arts and in- dustries based on the region’s nat- peditions. try of Communications is cooper- ating by building a maim highway through the area. Operating funds come from the National Indian Institute, various federal Ministri- es, and the Government of Chi- apas, The Center has been directed from the outset by trained an- thropologists: first doctor Aguirre Beltran, then Professor Julio de la Fuente, and now Profesor Ricar- do Pozas. When the early results proved satisfactory, similar cen- ters were organized for the Mix- tecs of Oaxaca and the Tarahum- avas of Chihuahua. The ultimate | usands of acres-are still tied up in goal is to establish them im all the | large estates, whose owners have Indian. districts where they are ne-| blocked expropriation. According eded, to the extent of available! to the 1946 eensus, only 55,861 Naturally, with 15 per cent of the population involved, it will ‘take a while to solve our Indian problem fully. But the accomplish- ments of the past decade are very encouraging, not only because of their scope but because of the ‘Yast we seem to have hit on the most scientifie and effective me- thods for assimilating our Indians, Despite the efforts of the Ag- rarian Department and the Banks of Ejidal and Agrarian Credit, the redistribution of the land for dir- ect use by the people is still far from complete. Hundreds of tho- HEMISFERIO heads of monolingual families had jbeem assigned communal lands, | which means that, en the basis of five members to the average family, there were 279;3@5 mono- | lingual Indians living en such lands jat that time. Some 511,565 owned individual plets ef grewnd, which left 631.701, or about 45 per cent, with no land at all on which to plant crops. Those in this position must earn their living by laboring on nearby haciendas for ridicu- lous wages or by working in the mines or in smalft industries such as rope making and straw-hat we- aving. El Maracami, Huielek chanter and priest ef Huiletita, Jalisce. Much still remains te be done, }even theugh pregress has certain- \ly been made im the years since |that census was takem. Yet the outlook is favorable, Mexieo’s schol- | ars and statesmen are well aware of the need to find a speedy ans- |wer to “the Indian questien’, and | giant strides are being made im | that direction. The day is surely \not far eff whem we ean speak in the past tense ef an issue that is now keenly present. 1 of Harold Shapiro, Mayor of Miami Beach. Of Spanish-Jew- ish descent, the First Lady of Miami Beach speaks fluent Spanish, aa well as half a doz- en other languages, Born in Israel, she met Mayor Shapiro while here on a mission from her government, liked Miami Beach so much, that she de- cided to stay and. help the Mayor run 1. They ave beth doing a very geed job of it, = = eed =a =S_ _— —_ — —— SS iS iOS eC ESSE ESE SEE = Se: = rr PAG 18