ABSTRACT
It is possible that during the times of their tribal existence, around 900 A.D., perhaps in their country of Mazahuan, Mazahuas of this area lived in a stratified society. It is also possible that in those times the distinctions among social classes existed even within their local communities such as El Nopal. But no memory, no mythology of such inequalities exists today among Mazahuas from El Nopal. Quite to the contrary—they are now not only living within a completely non-stratified society, but also have been quite outspoken about what may be called their rudimentary ideology of equality. The institution of ejido, though claiming to have revived the precolonial pattern of land-tenure, keeps imposing upon the village the individualistic way of thinking in its modern Occidental form. Only one member of the family is officially the ejidatario and has rights to the land he has received.
