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Show 22 a vagrancy law was passed requiring landless natives to render a minimum of 100 days work each year on "fincas" of their own choosing. Heavy taxes were imposed on idle lands to encourage the farm owner to assign land to the workers. Another measure prohibited the establishment of stores less than 15 kilometers from population centers, the sale of liquor within the fincas and the sale of liquor in glasses to the natives. Construction of new roads is placing transportation costs within the reach of the Indian economy. The new Guatemala legislation supports the author's belief that "the work of saving and incorporating the Indian is in the hands of the legislator and governmental official," and that the problem, being fundamentally economic, is inextricably bound up with that of our continental economy. Orantes, Jose Andres. "America Indigena," America Indigena, Vol. 1 No. 1 (October, 1941), Mexico, D.F., pp. 29-33. English Summary: The author states that present methods for incorporating Indians to the national life and studies of Indians in prehistoric times are not enough to help this downtrodden race which continues to live in the state to which it was reduced by the conquerors. The conscience of many is cleared by comparing pre-conquest civilization with that of the conquerors, using the historical data of mistaken chroniclers who declared that the native Americans were not only backward, but savages. Truth will assert itself in righteous defense of the Indians who held noble philosophical conceptions, which even in our day might serve as norms to adjust the disoriented life of modern pseudo-civilization. Civilized Europe could have realized the conquest without destroying the progress and advancement of native civilization. The Indians might have made the Spaniards welcome in their homes, and loved and respected them, had they recognized the Indians* spiritual values instead of dishonoring and plundering them. The author quotes Indian leaders in Central and South America before and at the time of the conquest in order to portray their sensitiveness and general advancement in philosophy and the arts and sciences. Here was one of the supreme ironies of destiny in which the illiterate stood before the erudite as conqueror. Nicarao vexed the Spaniards with such questions as "What size are the celestial bodies? What sustains them in space? Why is nature imperfect?" Referring to the Spaniards, the old militarist Xicotencatl said, "If the laws authorize the admission of strangers, they also prohibit the reception of those who would undermine the state... Such gods are these descended from the sky! It is impossible that gods are so ambitious that they would leave our country so poor, |