The importance of water management for the Incas

The importance of water management for the Incas https://noticiasdelaciencia.com/upload/images/11_2018/9514_45656.jpg?27

The importance of water management for the Incas





The Ph.D. Jeanette E. Sherbondy, professor emerita at Washington College in the United States, has dedicated her life to studying the complexity of pre-Hispanic irrigation fabrics. Recently, thanks to the coordination of the Masters in Management of Water Resources of the PUCP, the ethnologist and ethnohistorian presented the book Water, Irrigation and Trees: Ancestors and Power in Cuzco of the Incas, published this year by the Geographic Society of Lima Peru).

 

This work gathers articles where Sherbondy details, through the Andean cosmology, the control exercised by the Incas over their territories sustained thanks to the administration of the means of agricultural production. We talked with her to tell us about that vocation to understand the Andean world through water.

 



"I came to Peru to study the irrigation system in the areas of the sierra between 1975 and 1976. My intention was to do a broad job, not only focused on a small community. For that reason, I chose Cuzco because it had an enormous wealth of historical documents that told what had happened in the last 500 years, "he says.

 

Without a doubt, to get involved with the history of the Incas, is also to understand them through their legends. "What fascinated me most were the Inca myths about their origins. They said that the world had been created in Lake Titicaca. The sun had come out first and the Incas were their children, "he says.

 



 

Jeanette E. Sherbondy, Professor emeritus of Washington College in the United States. (Photo: DICYT)

 

Sherbondy explains that the Incas made an ancestral myth a good political discourse for conquest. In this way, they were based on an ideology to justify their empire. "If God tells us to be here, we're fine," he says. In that context, there were no limits to settle in the richest valley of the sierra. The conquests of the other peoples point this out. "The mountain range can be very arid with certain productive zones, but when you get to Cuzco you realize that it is a huge valley with a lot of flat land and soft hills to make terraces," he adds.

 

Cuzco, the center of the Inca universe, could not be organized randomly. On it there are innumerable investigations and documents. "The ceques were a list of sacred huacas organized in radial lines that came theoretically from the center of Cuzco, which was the Coricancha," he says.

 

But, on that basis, Sherbondy had no intention of working. "I was more focused on channels, irrigation and agriculture," he explains. However, something unthinkable happened when he began to elaborate the doctoral thesis. "When I recognized the names of canals and terraces in the valley, I realized that I had heard those words because they were the names of huacas. Then I noticed that more than a third of these marked water sources or were related to a source in a significant way, "he says. Undoubtedly, the physical organization of Cuzco should have a correlate integrated into the water system.

 

In all this water network, what did the trees represent during the Inca period? Sherbondy says they embody water reservoirs. "If there are large trees, something unusual in the mountains, there must be water. Generally, in the sierra they are short and crooked, and thus survive the arid terrain of the sierra. It is evident that people saw trees as a symbol of the development of the community, "he adds.

 



Until today, with natural phenomena indecipherable to our authorities, the admiration is greater on the knowledge and domain of the climate that the ancient Peruvians had. "We are facing climate change. With more heat, there will be a tremendous shortage of water that will affect Peru enormously, "says the researcher.

 

The ancient inhabitants of the Andean areas also suffered droughts and floods. "But there is a lot of wisdom that has been transmitted among the peasants, who know very well every square meter of land. They know that information as they know their children, "he says. Finally, he criticizes external management models that are not adapted to the territory. (Source: PUCP / DICYT)
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