ABSTRACT
The term ‘la casa’ means literally house, household, or home. As employed in Los Boquerones the word has several referents. Depending on the context it can mean: (a) the physical structure where humans live, sleep and eat; (b) the physical structure plus the goods contained within it; (c) the physical structure, goods within, and the immediately surrounding area; or (d) the physical structure, goods, surrounding area, and the persons domiciled within. In this final sense la casa is best translated as ‘household group’. In short la casa can refer to an edifice or to the structure plus its human inhabitants. In either case the term must be distinguished from la familia (family). Families may live in houses and therefore be household groups, but at least consciously the people separate the two, as when a man says, ‘I work in order to earn for the house’ or a woman states, ‘My duties are in the home’. In this context both are referring to obligations of residence not the family. The family belongs to the realm of kinship, while the household is a concept about locality.
