Modesto DiegoApril 10
A work part takes place in the morning. The day prior they kill a pig and the women prepare and bring it to the field. The pig costs 100 pesos.
Silvestre CuevasApril 13
A work party can have as many as 35 people. It is not obligatory. Servín pays his laborers three pesos [working] until noon, plus a meal. If there is competition he pays as much as five pesos. The quantity of work is not fixed, but results in ¾ of a “day” [the “tarea,” literally a “task,” is loosely equal to a “day’s” work], working from 7 until 11:30. The work is very clean, and not arduous. If one works by the task it is two hours of heavy work, and not very clean. The laborer returns to his house and nearly falls to the floor in exhaustion. During the work season peasants prefer heavy work, finishing the job in two hours, though if they work slowly they finish at 11:00. The work party today was 21 men—they worked hard without much conversation.
Soup and tortillas
Soup and tortillas
Ruperto JiménezApril 25
No one has a permanent salary. Arcadio Diego does not have permanent laborers. He and his family do the work. He pays laborers by the task and for half a day. He provides food. One time he killed a cow for them and did not sell any.
Aurelio Torres
Arcadio Diego is the only one who has permanent laborers-- five to six. There are many people who pay laborers for part of the year.
Silvestre CuevasApril 28
If someone works hard, other people are jealous, and if during a work party he works harder, he makes people angry because they have to work more arduously as well. There are work parties for the harvest of rice and corn.
RMLMay 2
A work party of 10 people began at 6:00. The women of the community house came at nine with water, and at 11 with gruel (a tray with the ground corn meal and a bucket of water). Work ended at 12:00. The landowner had given food to the people in his house before they worked.
Silvestre Cuevas
There are about five or six people in San Martín who supply 150 work days (tasks). They spend $1,500 for their laborers. Work parties and laborers are used for clearing, planting, and harvesting corn. The farmer burns off his land alone. Poor people, who do not work very much land, don’t have work parties because they are too expensive.
Camilo Jiménez
Work parties and laborers are used to double over the corn (for drying). Some people do not have work parties, nor do they pay laborers. They work alone on their land -- usually it is those who have no money. People in the outlying settlements who have big families do not work with others. Sometimes people speak poorly of those who stick to their own land, “the question of jealousy” (“la cuestión de envidia”).
Silvestre Cuevas, Camilo Jiménez
Silvestre Cuevas, Camilo JiménezPeople make up work parties only from their neighbors, even though they have friends on the other side of the community.
RMLMay 4
The work party in the cornfield of Leonardo Ronquillo had 26 laborers. Amongst them were four elders. The majority was in their 20’s or 30’s, with eight boys. The stew was eaten in the field at 8 o’clock.
Work party; the planting of Leonardo Ronquillo
Silvestre CuevasMay 6
Everyone has a work party three times a year, for clearing, planting, and the time of harvest.
Leonardo RonquilloMay 7
Few people have worked parties for doubling the corn. For weeding in June, many laborers are used. There are people who would rather not accept this system of work parties because they can go on until the end of the season without the possibility of giving a work party-- just helping others-- until it’s too late [for their own].
Silvestre Cuevas
10 work days (tasks) per hectare. The difference between assistance and a work party is that for assistance the farmer only gives his helpers coffee, tortillas, and beans or rice instead of stew. Poor people only use assistance.