Similarly, a senior man in Sakaltutan had five sons. In 1950, three were migrant craftsmen and were already married. The households kept two teams of oxen, so could in a normal year expect at least T.L.1,000 from farming, and somewhere between T.L.1,500 and 3,000 from earnings, if all three sons went away to work for longish periods. This household had fourteen people to feed and support.
In the rare case of a craftsman relying solely on his earnings -to support his wife and young children, without an income from land, these would be no more than sufficient to meet his household needs. In such a case, his wife and his older children, by working for neighbours at the harvest, would normally earn part of the family food supply. Still it is clear that the craftsmen, shopkeepers and others have to be highly successful to compare favourably with a moderate farming household.
The real poor in the village are those who have little or no land or cannot work their land, and who make all or most of their living by unskilled labour. These include the watchmen, the shepherds and several other households. The Sakaltutan watchman was paid in kind, thirty-seven bushels of grain, not much more than enough to feed himself, his wife and his child. He was probably able to make something by doing odd jobs and running errands - he earned in this way from me in 1949-50 - but a total income of T.L.500 (£125, or $350) in a year