Shrewd Aboriginals

Is money loaned anywhere without interest, by a system, satisfactory to both the lender and the borrower class? News came last week that the Mexican sociologist Professor Javier Uranga has discovered such a system in operation among the seclusive Yalalteca Indians in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico.

When times are hard tribal custom compels the Yalalteca to form what are known as Goosons. Twenty-five men declare themselves a gooson, and every week for 25 weeks they each drop two pesos in the "gooson pot." The first week the pot is given to him who is voted the most needy. Next week it goes to another man, the next most needy. When the 25 weeks are up each man has paid in and taken out of the gooson 50 pesos, but, in effect, a loan without interest has been made to each, each loan, proportionate in time to the borrowers' need. While the gooson system is disadvantageous to the less needy members in a given year, they count on making this up as the more needy members in other years. Thus the gooson is both a system of loans without interest and a system of insurance.

Strapping cannibals who communicate with each other by "modulated grunts" were reported to dwell on the Island of Tiburon, off the coast of Sonora, Mexico, by the Director of Education, Sonora, last week. Director F. F. Dworak declared that these cannibals, the Seris Indians, have thus far made away with "most of the investigators" who have visited their isle. "The Seris," he continued, "are a people of enormous stature with particularly long legs. They go about unclothed, and prefer their meat or fish either raw or in a partially decomposed condition. We shall attempt to educate the Seris at an early date."