Enduring Acequias: Wisdom of the Land, Knowledge of the Water

1: Sacred Water: Origin of Life, Drink of Knowledge

27 1 Sacred Water Origin of Life, Drink of Knowledge • El duende del agua, la llorona loca bailando en el bordo de la acequia. EXPLORING ARID LANDSCAPES AROUND THE WORLD The Middle East: The Yemen Connection THE PRECEDING SECTION WAS MORE autobiographical, and in this section we embark on a journey to look at other community open-air irrigation systems, all of which in one way or another relate to the acequia systems introduced by the Moors into Spain after 711; with Cortes, this system became one with what existed previously. This hybrid mestizo system is what eventually made its way to New Mexico in 1598, following the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, also referred to as the Camino de Agua. This in no way negates the fact that the Native Americans of the American Southwest were also irrigating prior to this date. But that’s another epic journey to still be traveled. CH A P T E R 1 28 The word acequia, based on the research I’ve done, seems to have its roots in Yemen. A saqiya was the cupbearer of water or wine, a courtly and poetic symbol. Saqiya aur pila, “Cupbearer, serve me more.” Sabaean was the language spoken by the Yemenis before Islam, and it seems most of the words related to hydrology came from that language. Here, then, is where our global acequia sojourn begins. The scenery in the Harraz Mountains as seen in photos is breathtaking: cultivated terraces rolling down fertile slopes, with the backdrop of jagged mountains common to all desert environments. On the ridges, villages cling to the peaks. On the carefully constructed terraces, coffee plantations flourish. Here agriculture is practiced more intensively than in other parts of north Yemen. The area is known as the Fertile Mountains because it benefits from bountiful monsoon rains. The terracing, carried out in such a fine and impressive manner, has been so carefully maintained by farmers that the terraces have survived for thousands of years. In addition to coffee, millet, rye, wheat, barley, lentils, and beans have been grown on these multiterraced fields for centuries. Since the word acequia seems to have been born in this type of environment , our journey to understand water and community begins here, for here we see a place where people definitely had the knowledge of the water and the wisdom of the land. Only people with such knowledge and wisdom can survive in this harsh environment. As we embark on our journey we will see other God-forbidden environments where humans have not only survived but thrived and in the process have found the knowledge and wisdom embedded in the landscape, which became their greatest teacher. In the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa there are also underground acequias, called qanats; in Mexico they are called foggeras. An article in Science Daily of July 21, 2008, reports that archaeologists in Yemen found traces of irrigation systems indicating a transition from herding to farming 5,200 years ago. According to Michael Harrower, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, “Agriculture in Yemen appeared relatively late in comparison with other areas of the Middle East, where farming first developed near the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. . . . It’s clear early farmers in Yemen faced Sacred Water 29 unique environmental and social opportunities and challenges. Our findings show farming in southern Yemen required runoff diversion technologies that were adapted to harness monsoon (summer) runoff from the rugged terrain along with new understandings of social landscapes and rights to scarce water resources.” A chronology that accompanies the article “Buscando Nuestros Antepasados Benidorm, Noria . . . Vienen de Yemen y Otras Muchas” in the daily El Mundo of February 16, 2004, gives us an idea as to the etymology of words familiar to those of us studying traditional irrigation and farming. It says that each Yemeni warrior in the Omeya army was accompanied by ten civilians, among them family members and experts in irrigation who carried with them seeds and tools needed to work the land. This was the same model used by Juan de Oñate when he marched north from Zacatecas to Ohkay Owingeh in 1596, accompanied by four hundred families of Indians from Mesoamerica. They served the same function, since they were the farmers. Though the Yemeni warriors brought war, they also brought with them revolutionary systems of irrigation , as well as rice, peaches...