Latest / Tales From Aztlantis / Throwback Thursday: Acequias - a Forgotten History!

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Throwback Thursday: Acequias - a Forgotten History! · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Representation matters.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: But as indigenous Chicano people, we can't just sit back and wait for mainstream media outlets to make it happen for us.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And nor should we.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We started the Tales from Astlantes podcast because we believe that it is imperative for Chicanos, Chicanas, and Chicanex people to produce our own media and tell our own stories.
• 0:27
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• 0:31
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• 0:37
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• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: To start your own podcast and get a$20 Amazon gift card, follow the link in the show notes.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: This lets Buzzsprout know that we sent you and helps support the show.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: BuzzSprout, the easiest way to start a podcast.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on with the show.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: You must excuse me.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: I've grown quite well.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: But you've learned a lesson.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: A lesson in honesty.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Honesty to your symbol, and honesty to others.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think we've learned a good lesson.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: I've always heard that honesty is the best honesty.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to yet another episode of Tales from Ostlantis.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Ruben Ariano Tlacate Kat.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So how are you doing tonight, sir?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I am doing fine.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why thank you for asking?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Happy birthday, by the way.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: When is yours?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: June 13th.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming up.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: June 13th.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I need to mark it on my calendar.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost here, my friend.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna throw a big shindig?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've done some big ones in the past.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We usually throw a very, very large birthday party, and we usually get at least a hundred people, and the cops always show up to shut us down.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, with the with the pandemic and all, if I do it, it'll be way scaled down.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we're gonna do it though.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't you heard?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Pandemic's over.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's fake.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pandemic, bro.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a scandemic.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to be talking about some New Mexican history.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I enjoy bringing up on this show every once in a while, being that my family has deep roots here in the state of New Mexico.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've lived here for any amount of time, you know that acequias, or ditches, most people just know them as ditches, right?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are a big and vibrant part of New Mexican heritage because they have a lot to do with how water is allocated, how water is resourced and distributed and used by asequia communities to grow their food.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So asequias are our life in uh in many parts of New Mexico.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: What about the um ditch witches?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do they relate to this?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: La Llorona?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's yeah, we've got our own little our local version of La Llorona, the Ditch Witch, as the uh the uh white citizens of New Mexico like to call her.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: The ditch witch.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The ditch witch.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I actually haven't heard that in a while.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was a that was big when I was um like in high school, I think.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: They were trying to push that, you know.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Beware of the ditch witch.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like, you mean La Llorona?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why are you trying to what are you doing?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think they finally just gave up because I haven't seen it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't catch on.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank goodness.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hopefully this episode will put that back on the map.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fingers crossed.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Asequias, a forgotten history.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: The asequia is a communal irrigation ditch, and its continued use is a testament to the cultural resiliency of the New Mexican people.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But where does this tradition come from?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, most New Mexicans have a distorted understanding of asequia history and credit its creation solely to Moors and Spaniards.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a recent article in National Geographic frames the origins of New Mexican asequias as follows.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: This communal water system traces its roots to the Spanish conquistadors who brought their traditions to the territory in the 1600s and who themselves borrowed it from the Muslims who invaded Spain in the 8th century.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, the word asequia, pronounced a sequia, stress on the sa is an adaptation of the Arabic as Sicaya?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sakia?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not sure, meaning water carrier.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's asakia, but I don't speak Arabic.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: But is this really true?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as Captain Kirk would say, but that's not the way it happened.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there is way more to the story.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: You see, when the Spanish arrived in Mesoamerica in 1519, they encountered civilizations that were thousands of years old.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: These civilizations gave rise to exquisite works of art, philosophies, monolithic architecture, systems of government, schools, libraries, and of course, highly developed systems of agriculture.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of the hallmarks of Mesoamerican agriculture was a system of irrigation ditches and canals known as apantli or apantle, depending on the variety of Nawat that you speak.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Apantli formed a network of irrigation ditches that were fed by the Hue Apantli or the Great Canal, which was used to distribute water to individual fields or milpas.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now I should mention that irrigation ditches were also in use at this time throughout the Americas.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Hohokam in Arizona built a vast system of irrigation ditches, and the ancestral Puebloans of New Mexico also had developed systems of water governance, for example.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some communities used the Apantli as part of their name, which was expressed visually in Mesoamerican text by a drawing of the cross section of an irrigation ditch along with a phonogrammic symbol.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, you would get these communities that would name themselves, for example, from the Codex Mendoza, we have Awili Sapan, uh Totolapan, and Acokospan.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all from the Codex Mendoza, and the way that the name is written using the Mexica style is the cross section of a ditch, and then you had the other symbols.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, Awilisapan means uh apantle happiness place, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it has like this guy sitting in an apantle holding his hands up, like really happy.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Totolapan is like the bird apantli.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the symbol is of a bird sitting on an apantli.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the pan part of that word comes from pantli, which means banner, and so in effect, they're making uh metaphorical uh analogy to uh a banner that's kind of long.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, something straight.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Straight right.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the apantli, these irrigation networks were straight and rigid.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So apantli is exactly like you said, they they had this connection to something that was straight and rigid.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the best depiction of the vast network of apantli that stretched across Mexico Tenochtitlan is the Uppsala map.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this map, we see just how deeply this agricultural technology was ingrained into the social fabric of a Mesoamerican city-state.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna put the Uppsala map in the show notes so that our listeners can see it for themselves.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, it's a map showing a section, well, it's showing uh Mexico Tenochtitlan, but then it you can also see all of the various irrigation ditches that are running out of it and into it, because remember they had these massive canals, right, that were being brought into the city to bring in drinking water.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, the apantli, the irrigation ditch, massive part of life in Mesoamerica.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: When the Spanish first saw the apantli, they were reminded of the irrigation ditches they had seen used by the Moors, which they knew as asequia.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The rest, as they say, is history.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Spanish simply chose to refer to the apantli with a term that was more familiar to them, and an ancient Mesoamerican technology was rebranded with an Arabic name.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Don't believe me?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's take a look at the entry for apantli in Alonso de Molina's fifteen seventy-one Nahuat Language Dictionary.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Apantli Aseya Vewa.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: The importance of the apantli in Mesoamerican agriculture is made abundantly clear in Book Six of the Florentine Codex.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: This book, which contains the Wewet Latoli, or the ancient word, relates the moral philosophies which guided the lives of citizens of Mexico Tenochtitlan, for example, and especially take care of the ridge of the ditch, plant and sow in the field.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps thou wilt make well the ridges of land, the canals.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, these are all from Book Six of the Florentine Codex.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Later, the Spanish enlisted thousands of Nahuatl speaking Tlascaltecas and Mexicas to colonize New Mexico, and they brought with them this Mesoamerican agricultural technology.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The introduction of the Apantli system into New Mexico is discussed in the book Thinking Like a Watershed.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oñate knew that in order for the new settlement to thrive and survive, water was needed.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: According to Dr.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Tomas Martinez Saldaña, agricultural historian from Mexico City, who has done a lot of work on the role of the Tlaxcalas in the settlement of the northern frontier of New Spain, it was the Tlaxcaltecas who were instrumental in helping lay out the acequia system in what is now New Mexico.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: To be fair, irrigation was also taking place in the southwest, as evidenced by the great canals uncovered near present-day Phoenix.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is by Juan Esteban Arellano.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: You guys related?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I know of, but perhaps distantly.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: As noted in the National Geographic article mentioned at the beginning of this episode, Asequia culture remains a vibrant and important aspect of New Mexican cultural identity, but sadly, its Mesoamerican origins remain largely ignored.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Most historians simply repeat the myth told by National Geographic.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: The asequia is purely an old world invention.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the point of this episode is not to say that asequias are solely an invention of Mesoamerica, nor to discount the Moorish and Spanish contributions to asequia governance.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there already exists a preponderance of information detailing that part of the history.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I simply hope to make the Mesoamerican contributions to asequia development more well known.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you scratch just beneath the surface, the Mesoamerican origins of New Mexico's asequias become visible.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the term apantle is still used by many in northern New Mexico to describe parts of the asequia system.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: The term tapanco, a small temporary dam used to divert streams of water, is also of Mesoamerican origin from the Nahuatl language.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from the Nahuat word tlapantli, which is a heap or a pile.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps my favorite is the term tequio, a word in the Nahuatl language used to describe a traditional indigenous system of communal social organization and labor.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Here in New Mexico, this word is used to describe the communal act of cleaning the acequias.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in northern New Mexico, where they say this this weekend we're having a tequio, it literally means we're all we all have to get together this weekend and we're all gonna help each other clean out the asequia.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of the ancient Castilian Spanish?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll bet you anything there's somebody that thinks that uh tequio is uh like an ancient Castilian word.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I swear, man.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: However you choose to slice it, asequia communities in New Mexico are as much an extension of Mesoamerican institutions as they are of Arabic and Spanish institutions.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Most Chicanas and Chicanos with roots running deep in New Mexico descend from the Mesoamericans who helped settle this state.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if we take the time to look, we can see the imprint left by our our indigenous ancestors all around us.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is in the food we eat, the language we use, the customs we practice, our connection to the land, and the agricultural heritage held dear by so many New Mexicans.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is in us.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: We only need to look.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: The magic was always in you, Curly.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a magic a secchia at all.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know what bugs me about this are um this article by the uh National Geographic by them giving credit to the Moors via the Spanish, in a sense, aren't they also kind of adding a little bit of fuel to that whole black omic myth?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because isn't that one of the things that these people they latch on to these terms like Moor and and and uh what's the other one that's used to describe the pyramids?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um what was the word that the Spanish used?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, mosques.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: They would say that the the the temples were mosques and cues, whatever cues are.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And these people don't understand that the reason why the Spanish used those terms is because they had no frame of reference other than the Moors, whom they were already fighting back in Spain when they were reconquistando Espana, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so they used those very same terms that they were using to describe the Moors back in the old world to describe things that they were witnessing in the in the new world because they had no other way to describe it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, and that's even how they got the word asequia, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they they were familiar with the asequia system, so they saw the Mexicas and the Flaskaltecas and the Totonakos and everybody else that they were encountering using similar systems of irrigation and governance, and they were like, oh, these are just like the asequias that the Moors use, so we'll just call them asequias.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And even then they would call um the bows and arrows, right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They would call them Turkish bows and arrows, and the temples they they referred to as mosques.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were, you know, of a particular shade of of skin color, they were like, oh, they're like uh they're like a Turk, they're like a a Moor.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so they used their frame of reference, and what these pseudo-historians and pseudo-scholars do, they push this distorted, bizarre racial fantasy that no, it these are referencing the Moors, you know, referring to like the the Black Moors and claiming they were the Native Americans.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's like this weird distortion of history.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, when National Geographic does stuff like this, it kind of feeds into that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's that comic book, it's a web comic called Aztec Empire.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a really cool comic book.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a fan of it, but there's one section where Cortez, and I don't know if it's Cortez or if it's just like some random Spanish captain, but he's talking about an indigenous woman, and he's like, I'm gonna have my way with this moor, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to their credit, I reached out to the creators of this comic book, and I was like, you know, people are gonna latch on to that and they're gonna distort it, and they're gonna try to make it seem like the Spaniards were talking about, you know, the Moors, like the Moors Moors, and that they, you know, that the real indigenous people are Moors.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the creators of the comic book actually, because it's a real the thing I like about that comic book is it has citations and endnotes, and so they put a little citation number in that issue when he says that, and at the end in the endnotes, it's it it addresses that and it says, This is you know, they use the word more for the following reasons, and so I thought that was really cool.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to do that, but they at least I got them to to change that.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, you know, and who from Nat Geo, like, they're not gonna know any better, right?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because one of the problems with mainstream academia and archaeology and stuff is you tell people, like, hey, there's this whole group of people out there who think that the Moors, they call themselves Moors, they're African Americans, but they call themselves Moors and they claim that they are the real Native Americans.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you use these words, you know, they latch onto them and they distort them.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But academics and and historians, archaeologists look at that and they're like, what a bunch of idiots.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because like that's nonsense, but they don't address it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, well, this is nonsense.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why would we even give that the time of day to counter that?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And since they're not countering that, what they're doing is they're creating this void that's being filled with pseudoscience and pseudo history and nonsensical bullshit.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because addressing these things isn't gonna get them tenure, isn't gonna advance their careers.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So why I mean you've got a finite amount of time to dedicate to your studies and to your research, so why would you?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: But luckily we have guys like, you know, Ken Fedder um and David Anderson, who are badass archaeologists who make it their point to to counter uh pseudo-archaeologists.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to read some of the whatever they've written.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Ken's book is I don't know if he covers it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Frauds and Mysteries?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have I have I think the third edition of that book.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have the seventh edition.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's the seventh edition?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's uh there's even a a later one, too.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like he he puts out one often because he's constantly updating it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Updating it.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what's great is I I think he does.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know he references the whole black olmec myth.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what chapter it's in?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna be honest with you, man.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I do not I did see it in here.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess I'll find it eventually.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean I've been trying to make my way through this book, but you know.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I like about it is it gives you these little critical thinking exercises at the end of each chapter.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, like for example, he has critical thinking exercise using the deductive approach outlined in chapter two to test these hypotheses.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you work.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Page one ten on my edition.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's chapter six.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, chapter six.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: After the Indians before Columbus.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So good on him.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Good on Ken for that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to definitely read that part because we need to um circle back to that topic because it's becoming problematic.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually writing up an episode uh about it.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be be great to have somebody like Ken on the show, too.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've reached out to him before and he uh said he's interested.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ken, if you're listening.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Please come on the show.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, speaking of Ken, I just watched a uh a great documentary on Amazon called Science Friction.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of that one?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have heard of it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't watched it yet.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh Dunnings, Brian Dunning's documentary.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's good.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is it?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's got uh Ben Radford's in it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um Ken is in it, David Anderson is in it, and basically though it's about how shows like the History Channel will invite legitimate archaeologists and historians on to give their shows credibil uh this veneer of credibility, but then they just edit whatever they say, you know, to make it sound like they're they're backing up the narrative of the show.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Any Chicanos on that show?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, and uh Brian Dunning actually told me because he'd heard about this little little operation that I that I was involved with.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, if he told me if it man, if you were still doing that, if we were still editing, I would have asked you to to participate.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Mmm, okay.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, at least they're trying to reach out, so good.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe next next uh next round.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, speaking of which, this this uh this thing that I'm in comes out tomorrow.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it tomorrow?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow night.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's on the history channel?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not uh I don't know.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's on it's on a channel.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's on a channel?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it the name of the show the name of the channel is a mystery.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: It it it rhymes with mystery.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could say it's a mystery channel.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not sure what I'm allowed to say um outside of the the the bounds of the what I sign before the show comes out.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: But once the show is out, I can uh talk about it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: By the time this episode airs is gonna be after the show comes out.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening to this, the show will have already come out a week before.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to do it as its own episode.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want I want it to be uh Oh yeah, we're not gonna talk about it today.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, we're talking about it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things with asequias that's happening here in New Mexico that's really interesting is so the state of New Mexico just legalized weed.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Legalize it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not against it, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's yeah, of course, weed should be legal.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But but what's happened is all of these like right-wing politicians had already positioned themselves to take advantage of the legalization of weed.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So like you have all these former cops and shit that were jailing people for smoking weed just last year, but they were already investing in and getting because they saw the writing on the walls, right?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, weed's gonna get legalized, we need to be in on the ground floor.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so now you've got this situation where the majority of money that's gonna be made by the people setting up these companies, it's all gonna be attestators and it's all gonna be like former cops and shit.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty whack.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Damn.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the other big thing is it's actually gonna harm, in my opinion.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it won't, you know.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I we'll see.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Time will tell.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that it's gonna harm in a lot of ways traditional asequia communities because this water has to come from somewhere for this weed.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And New Mexico's in a drought, man.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: New Mexico's in a hardcore drought.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the asequias themselves, I have friends in asequia communities who were like, we're already hurting.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's already not enough water going around.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think what happened was everybody was so eager to legalize weed that maybe they didn't uh think it through do like a big big picture analysis of how this was gonna affect um ultimately Chicano indigenous communities you know in New Mexico or uh could get hurt by this.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we were hurt by it when it was illegal, and now we're gonna be hurt by it when it's legal.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: When does it take effect?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: This new law?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's already it's already kicked in.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's already kicked in.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, the uh this month.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think on the 1st, April 1st.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been 18 days.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: So have they commuted people's uh sentences who were thrown in jail and prison for the case?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I don't know, but I would hope that that's something that's under discussion.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go back and commute sentences and stuff.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: That should happen.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Shit.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: How much would that suck if you're doing time right now for selling weed in a state legalized weed?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be pissed.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd be pretty angry.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's an unfortunate consequence.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So what exactly I mean, so you have acequias, you have a traditional system of ditches that existed prior to the arrival of the Mexica and the Tlascaltecas, and then they bring in their version of it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was it how different was it from, for example, the pre-existing Hohokam and the one that was brought in from Central Mexico, like those irrigation systems?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a good question.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a precise answer, but I would think, just from what I've seen of the way that the Hohokam irrigation systems were set up, they were pretty similar.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the general idea being you have your asequia madre, right?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or in Nawat the Way Apantli.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Same concept.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you had your primary asequia that carried the water, and then you had individual asequias coming off of it that were used by individuals or groups of individuals.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody was allotted their portion of water, and it was all distributed equitably, and everybody was responsible for maintaining the asequiya.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think I remember seeing that that what you're describing in action in the documentary from I think it was the 80s called uh Milagro Beanfield War.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: The groundbreaking documentary, ethnographic.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Did they have asequias in that movie?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I haven't seen that movie in forever.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's there's a scene at the end where uh the beanfield uh gets water from somewhere miraculously.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how that's right.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, that movie sucked.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Representing your state, man.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta give it some props.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up, you know, I I didn't have a lot of frame of reference as to New Mexico culture, but that was one, you know, it's like give me an idea what to expect whenever I uh Bless me Ultima.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Bless me ultima.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that wasn't a movie, it was a book.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: It became a movie eventually, what, like 10 years ago or something like that?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that with an all-Puerto Rican cast.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it was?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's weird, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like fucking hell, I swear.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not even gonna get into that.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you know what?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: To be in all honesty, it's been so long since I've seen Milagro being Field War that I should probably give it another shot, like check it out.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with, you know, and I'll I'll just say, and I want this to be its own episode too, sometime in the future.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to get some some Chicanos and Chicanos in working in the film industry on the show.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But as a Chicano who you who used to participate a lot in the film industry, I can tell you, man, those uh those old Chicano movies, most of them, like 80% of them, are just fucking corny.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're just corny, man.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're cheese ball.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, so you have the Milagro Beanfield War.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: What else?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: What else is corny?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh Mi familia.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's like Mi familia, yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's corny to the extreme, man.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can see that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can see that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what else?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was like a whole slew of just you know, Edward James almost involved movies that came out around that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: How do I reach these kids?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fill the hole.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, finger man.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: Fingerman.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: He played a main character in two really good movies, though.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I gotta give him that.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he was in Blade Runner.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Blade Runner, that's a classic.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a badass movie.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: But he was in uh the ballad of Gregorio Cortes.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was also Luis Valdez's production, right?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was dope.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Zutsuit.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: That movie goes hard, man.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love that movie.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: The thing about Zutsuit is it doesn't get the credit that it deserves for for what it was at the time.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and there's there's a show that's gonna go nameless, but it's a nationally syndicated so-called Latino show about Latino things.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: And a few years ago, Latino theaters.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: They did an episode where they talked about um quote unquote Latin theater.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um they focused on the East Coast as usual.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's because it's you know, that's the focus of the show.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like West Side story, stuff like that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and never once did Zutzu get a name drop in that entire episode for being not only quote unquote a Latino, right?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to categorize it as such, um play that was actually exhibited in Broadway.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it did had a whole run in Broadway, right?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Before it was made into a movie.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, seriously?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you're gonna talk about all these other plays, and you're not even gonna mention the one Chicano.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, well, the positives and negatives of that are the pa the negative is they left it out the discussion entirely.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: They erased it.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: The positive is Chicanos didn't get associated with Latinos.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's so so that's so maybe thankfully.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's the silver lining of.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just remember watching that as a kid, uh, my mom being like so hyped that it that it was on VHS and like bringing it home because she had always told me the story because I'm from this bar uh this uh barrio called Dog Patch in Pueblo, Colorado, right?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And she would always talk about this this guy that she went to high school with or was in like a class below her who was a dancer who was in Zootsuit.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and interesting.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if he was like in the stage version or the movie or or whatever, you know.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was young, I I didn't even know what Zutsuit was, but she was so happy, she brought it home, she was stoked, man.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we watched that and it had an effect on me.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, I swole with like pride watching that movie as a kid, you know, like seeing all these Chiganos, and when he uh when the dad is like, you know, when you join the Navy, are you gonna promise me you'll take that damn thing off and you know and throw it away?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he's like, It's Chigano style, dad.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Don't call yourself that.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, haven't I told you not to use that word?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I told you not to use that word.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or when Ormos is like, Don't try to outpachu come, yes.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: I used to go around the house like saying that to my mom and everybody in the family.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try to outpachu come.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's a badass movie.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, it's interesting though that we kind of made our way to Zutsuit in this episode of Asequios.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: The entire episode of the Zutsuit and the story that it's based around the the um the Zutsu riots and the Sleepy Lagoon trial, uh, you know, that's that's usually focused on on California.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: California and Los Angeles wasn't the only place that had Zoots and riots.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just saying that can be an episode at some point.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I mean the Sleepy Lagoon.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, think about this.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Was that part of an Asequia system as well?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: The Sleepy Lagoon.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's interesting that you bring that up because I had just started to read an article about Sleepy Lagoon a couple of days ago, and I I only got the abstract uh read, so I have to finish the article, but it'll be interesting um because I know they do reference like where where the lagoon was uh located because it wasn't called Sleepy Lagoon, like Sleepy Lagoon is the name that the Chicanos gave it.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's because they would go.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, you know what it was?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was a dam because that's where they would go swim, because Mexicans weren't allowed uh in the swimming pools.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they would go swim at this dam and they called it Sleepy Lagoon because there was like a Pachuco song uh that referenced Sleepy Lagoon somewhere.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: So all the Chicanos started calling it Sleepy Lagoon after the song.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I bring that up because some years ago, this is going back quite a few years actually, um, when I was doing some research for I think I don't know if it was my maybe it was my dissertation.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I came across a reference to a creek or something similar to to a creek, maybe like a little uh like a ravine or something, but it was up in like like in the Bay Area, just east of Oakland, somewhere in that area, and it was called Temescal or Temescalis or something like that.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always been curious about where that name came from for the I mean because it's I mean that's very far up north, even for California, for something like that to have the name of Temescal associated with some some natural you know body of water, and and I didn't know if maybe there might be some sort of connection with like an asequia system in that area.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't I wasn't sure if maybe you had ever heard of that or I wanted to run it by you.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've always wanted to ask you, it's never come up before.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually the first time that it's come up in conversation, and so I just wanted to run it by you, see what you thought about that.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't heard of it.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's something that you should look into.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what else can we say about these asequias?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: What are they good for?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I lived down in Peralta, New Mexico, and you came and visited once uh my parents' house.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do remember that there.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had an asequia that ran right along the side of our house.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would have to go out there and open it up to get water because my mom would always grow, you know, she had a big garden, right?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we would use the asequia.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: But we we weren't allowed a whole lot of water, so we used because you're you're like given portions of water that you're allowed to use, depending on the size of land that you have, and there's like all these rules and regulations and stuff, and there's even a an elected individual called uh the Mayardomo, who's like in charge of that specific asequia and setting up the thekyos to have it cleaned and stuff, so it's like this very rigid system of governance, but yeah, during that period of of my life, you know, that was like that was cool opening it up and seeing that water come gushing out and filling up our field, and then I'd go out there and I'd close it, and every year you know, we'd go out there and and have to help clean it.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was very cool, man.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're it's just like you know, when they say water is life, like people understand that in a you know in the sense of like, well, yeah, obviously water is life.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta drink water to live.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're like growing stuff and you're eating what you're growing, it takes on like this whole different different meaning, you know.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you've got an entire community that's doing that and sustaining themselves off of it, then like, yeah, water is life.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And here in New Mexico, we're we've we had just uh a week ago, we had like these three massive fires.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if if they're still even going.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: We had one in the bosque down by Peralta where I used to live.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had one in southern New Mexico and one in uh northern New Mexico, and it's so dry here.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're in the middle of a of a really devastating drought, and through my job, I've worked most of the forests in New Mexico for like months at a time.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I would come back and I would always tell my wife, like, these forests are tinderboxes, like there's just deadfall everywhere.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we were out there doing what's called uh a CFRP, which means a uh collaborative uh fuel reduction program.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: So people, different government agencies were collaborating, and they were gonna go in there and try to clear out all the deadfall.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: They don't try to fuel reduction.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like controlled uh fires to try to get rid of some.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's part of it, but it was either they would do a controlled burn, or they were going to open it up to allow people to go up and collect firewood.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, or like some big corporation was gonna come in and log, right?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there were all of these different reasons for doing a CFRP.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Our job was to go out there and make sure that no cultural resources were gonna be destroyed as a result of these activities.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we'd have to go out there and identify archaeological sites and then write up reports that the best way to preserve these sites, try to protect them.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I saw it firsthand, man, these places were they're tinder boxes, and we're in the middle of this horrible drought.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: So asequias now more than ever are important in New Mexico, and now it's it's just gonna be all about water.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like this this state is hurting.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: What is the historical importance of the acequias to New Mexico?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it just comes down to you have these small communities, mainly in northern New Mexico, where a lot of these asequia communities uh still exist.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: But even here in Albuquerque, there's asequia communities uh within the city itself, right?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: In like the South Valley.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um what's interesting is uh one of them is uh Atrisco, which is Atrisco, which is a Nahuatl name.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was like one of the earliest settlements of New Mexico, colonial settlements, and it has a Nahuatl name.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: But so people, you know, every year they have these uh a blessing of the waters.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: So like communities will come out, there'll be danzantes there, there'll be matachines there, there's the church shows up, the Catholic priests, and there's like this ceremony to bless the waters that year.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's on uh the Saint uh I can't remember his name.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it San Ignacio?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: But he's like the patron of of ditches, basically.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Had no idea there was a patron of ditches, so then what's cool is in Mexico City, you'll find images of him that have been repurposed into images of Tlalo.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's different.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: San Isidro, San Isidro, that's his name.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to get at something here.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: You have the word atrisco, which comes from atlisco, then you have the word tekio, which I mean that's I think that's just the basic now at Techio, right?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Community work.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I I mean I get that the Spanish adopted Asequia for the way apantlis, but I'm curious as to why, of all the words that they're going to uh imp import from the old world to label something, they're gonna go with that one, but everything else is gonna be nahuat, or you know it's weird.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing that I I point out with the word tortilla too, like the most common of our foods.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: All of our other foods retain like a Nahuatl name or an indigenous-based name except for the most ubiquitous form of our food has a Spanish name.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's it trips me out.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with a sequia, right?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, like all of this part of the uh you know, the tapanco, the apantle, the techio, but the word itself is still Spanish.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or or a Spanishized version of an Arabic word.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: So here I see uh I pulled up uh Albuquerque Journal.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Communities in New Mexico still follow centuries old traditions that came from Spain.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whatever.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: With ceremonial blessings for the waterways that give life to crops.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because only s the Spaniards had ceremonies for waterways that gave life to crops.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or only the Spanish could think of Making ditches for water.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: How hard is that?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's pretty basic.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um in the honor of the May 15th feast of San Isidro, patron saint of laborers and farmers.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what he is.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Laborers and farmers.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: So he's the session.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Saint of the Tequio dancing and a blessing of local acequias.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's actually pretty cool to watch because, like I said, uh, you know, all these different groups come out.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Pueblo people come out, matachines, danzantes, and they all participate in this uh this blessing of the asequias.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: But then, of course, you know, Albuquerque Journal story repeats the same bullshit.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Spanish settlers who came to New Mexico 400 years ago brought the tradition of building irrigation waterways.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, because nobody else thought of uh irrigation.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Water.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing is, here in New Mexico, man, it's it's like an uphill battle to convince people that adobe already existed before the Spanish came.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, who said that a second that it didn't.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here in New Mexico, that's what you're taught.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're taught here in New Mexico that the Spaniards brought the technology of adobe.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Brought it from where though?
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: That they learned it from the Moors.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: From the Moors.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Moors didn't even make adobe.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did they?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Yeah, yeah, no, they they did.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: The the ovens, yeah, the hornos, that's that's definitely from from uh Muslims.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh Adobe is an indigenous technology to the Americas.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what they brought, and it's it's funny because it's if you parse it a certain way, they might technically be right because what the Spaniards brought was the use of hay to add so they just to the adobe.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: They added they brought they So they added an ingredient and now they're credited with inventing the entire but go to Pakime in Chihuahua.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: All the houses, at least the old ones that still exist, are all made of adobe.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: I used to watch people make adobe in my dad's hometown.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've seen it done, and I even participated in like the making of it, you know, when I was a little kid.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've made some adobe.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not any good at it.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you, the it wasn't some Spanish thing.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's definitely indigenous.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you look at just Pakime, like I said, it's you have an entire city that's built of adobe.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but but they want to ignore all of that to credit at that.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know why?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because for the most part, mainstream Hispanophile New Mexicans are afraid of the truth.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I say about the truth.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Mmm.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Something about medicine, right?
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: The truth is like medicine, my brother.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't always taste good.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it tastes funky and sometimes it don't.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it's always good for ya.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Tales from Oslantis.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Please check out our website and consider becoming a Patreon supporter at Las Camati.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_04: Sanguisidro Labrador, Sanguis, Didro, Labrador, Sanguisidro Labrador, es la Lot, mi Señor, le canto la alabanza que yo le debía.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_04: A Tlaloc, mi Señor, y a San Isidro Labrador.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_04: Sanguisidro labrador, sanguisidro, labrador, sangue, cidro, labrador, es la Lot, mi Señor, bendice la semilla y bendice la cosecha, bendice el santo fruto de esta buena tierra.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_04: Didro, labrador, sanguíneo, cifro, labrador, sanguínio, cidro, labrador, es la Lot mi Señor, bendicenos con lluvia y bendícenos la siembra, bendicenos la agüita, que corre la diabro, labrador, sanguínio, cibro, labrador, sanguíneo, labrador, es la lot mi señor, sanguícidro, labrador, isidro labrador de esta buena siembra.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_04: Muere es el pantro Sanguisidro, labrador, sanguínio cidro, labrador, sanguínio cidro labrador, es la lock biseñor, sanguícidro, labrador, la lo biseñor, cidro labrador, la lo biseñore canto labanza, la lobbise bebía, la lobiseñor, bendite nos con lluvia, la lobiseñó, bendite nos la siembra, aló mi señor, bendite no la huida, la ló dice corre la semilla, aló mi señor, bendite la semilla, la lo dice, bendite la coreta, la lo dice, bendite el santo fruto, la lo dice la buena tierra, aló, mi señor, mi ciro la labor, sangue siro la bramor, sangue si rola, es la loisten to Tales from Oslantis, a project of the Jimali Institute of Mesoamerican Arts.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy the show, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this by visiting TalesFromOclantis.com and clicking support the podcast.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your continued support will help keep the podcast ad free and independent.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, Demoy Does it.