RURAL LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE.

The article presents the author's work on documentation of certain traits of the rural Latin American culture. This documentation is necessarily preliminary. For the reason that modern Latin American communities have not been subject to anthropological study on a large scale and the number of sources is therefore limited. Also, this article is intended more as a demonstration of a type of work which may be carried on intensively for the purpose of analyzing the content and organization of what is postulated as a new and emergent culture throughout Latin America. This study will be limited to the rural phase of culture. And, it is stressed that this paper represents a tentative study that cannot in any way be considered complete. The Latin American community is almost invariably situated about a central plaza. Facing this plaza are the church, the government buildings, and the homes of the more prominent members of the community. The basic land unit in rural communities is a small plot usually having irregular boundaries. These are generally individually owned and also are worked by their owners. The existence of ceremonial kinship is common to most all groups. In some areas it is more highly developed than in others. As far as the religious organizations are concerned, each community has its own group of images representing various saints. Each saint has special powers that cover some particular field of needs. Furthermore, this study is pushed further many elements of acculturation process, culture development, and the psychology of culture.