The statuses and roles occupied and enacted by the juez in an Otomi Indian pueblo in Hidalgo, Mexico are described and analyzed. The "character" of the knowledge (i.e., the degree of specificity to the problems recognized by the members of the local social system and its immediate applicability to these problems) of the candidates for the office of juez is demonstrated to be of crucial importance to their electoral success. The analysis leads to a reconsideration of current homogeneity constructs in which middlemen are viewed as "marginal men" and to the conclusion that middlemen are central intersects in the complex structure of commonality distributed among the members of a society and called the culture of that society.