Thursday, March 5, 1987/The Battalion/Page 5
>&M ethnic expert studies Indians,
ollects cultural data from Acapulco
By Sarah Cranberry
Reporter
I Two ceremonial masks guard the
|oor to his office. His bookshelves
e sprinkled with remnants of Mex-
an Indians and his books are
lacked on the floor.
Dr. Norman Thomas sits behind a
Rmputer at his desk, surrounded by
^imitive artifacts.
[Thomas is an ethnologist with the
[exas A&M anthropology depart-
I For 38 years, he has been studying
Bur Indian groups in Mexico: the
curve! ■zotzil Maya, the Huastec, the Zo-
w pe, and more recently, the Fame.
iES
atfeg.pnci
I “I study contemporary Indian so-
Jeties, collecting cultural data from
by traveling, living and visiting
lith them,” Thomas says.
I Thomas studied the Fame last
iimmer with A&M archaeologist
B. David Carlson.
■ Nothing has been published in
Biglish about the Pante, Thomas
Bys, but some data has been written
ip Spanish.
“Some newspapers picked up on it
aiid claimed I had found a lost tribe,
Jhich wasn’t true,” Thomas says.
I Thomas says the Mexican govern
ment also knows about the Fame.
Mexico’s organization which handles
lidian affairs — Instituta Nacional
ijidigenista — is trying, along with
eU.S. Bureau oflndian Affairs, to
ften these people’s entrance into
e modern world, he says.
"The Fame were settled by a
kmp of Roman Catholic priests
po set up a series of missions,” he
ys.
“The Fame turned into typical
meso-American Indians,” he says.
Thomas says the Fame still rely
heavily on agriculture.
They live in the mountains north
of Mexico City where their main ag
ricultural crops are corn, beans and
squash.
The poorest of them still gather
wild food because a recent drought
has hurt their corn production, he
says.
The Fame, who were studied by
Thomas in Santa Maria, Mexico, had
to go six or seven miles to get water
from a well, he says. They carried
the water in big plastic bottles either
on their backs or on burros, he says.
“While I was there, that well dried
up and the Fame had to go six or
seven miles in the other direction to
get water from the river,” Thomas
says.
Because of the drought, he says,
young Fame men have been forced
to go north to help supplement their
family income.
“Well over 50 percent of the
young men between the ages of 18
and 35 have come to the United
States as illegal workers,” he says.
The Fame’s chief source of money
comes from making palm-leaf mats
called petates, he says, which they
sell to merchants for about 350 pesos
each.
“There are about 1,020 pesos to
the dollar now,” Thomas says. “A
bag of corn to last a family for a
month costs about 12,000 pesos. It
takes them three days to weave one
petate.”
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Dr. Norman Thomas displays a palm-leaf mat.
Photo by Doug La Rue
&M seeing major drop in hiring of students
By Rachel Cowan
Reporter
As a result of recent budget cuts, Texas A&M
las experienced more than a 50 percent drop in
Judent hiring, an A&M student financial aid ad
ministrator says.
In December and January ol the 1985-1986
■Tool year, A&M hired 2,259 students. During
Bat same period in 1986-1987, only 1,095 stu-
lentemployees were hired.
I The budget cuts have left A&M less money to
■pend on student employees, says Lynn Brown,
Itudent financial aid administrator for schol-
Irshipsand employment.
I Because the government pays 80 percent of
Be wages, the departments want to hire work-
Itudy employees, but the allotted work-study
Binds are being used up.
“With work-study, employers can hire five stu
dents for the price of one employee,” Brown
says.
The College of Engineering, which hires its
own workers, also will spend less money on wages
this fiscal year than last year.
From August 1985 to August 1986, it spent
$501,579 in student wages.
Quilla Toliver, business administrator for the
college, says the projected employment spending
for this fiscal year is $376,908.
The entire budget for the department was cut
from $23,500,505 last year to $22,749,584 this
year.
Brown says the financial aid office can’t accu
rately determine how many students are looking
for work, but that more students are seeking em
ployment this year.
“Because of the tight economy, parents are
struggling to put their children through college,”
Brown says.
She also pointed out that the number of new
students hired doesn’t take into account students
who kept their jobs from the fall semester.
Ed Janosky, manager of Budget and Payroll
Services, says, “It could be that more students are
hanging onto their jobs because of the bad econ
omy.”
Since Texas Employment Commission figures
don’t differentiate between students and non
students, student employment at local businesses
can’t be measured.
Hamp Patterson, a Texas Employment Com
mission representative, says that because stu
dents don’t file for unemployment, they aren’t
represented in unemployment figures.
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