Enduring Acequias

Wisdom of the Land, Knowledge of the Water

by Juan Estevan Arellano

Querencias Series

Published by: University of New Mexico Press

232 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in, 24 halftones

Paperback
9780826355072 | October 2014

$24.95

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EPUB
9780826355089 | October 2014

$24.95

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Description
Contributors
Acclaim

For generations the Río Embudo watershed in northern New Mexico has been the home of Juan Estevan Arellano and his ancestors. From this unique perspective Arellano explores the ways people use water in dry places around the world. Touching on the Middle East, Europe, Mexico, and South America before circling back to New Mexico, Arellano makes a case for preserving the acequia irrigation system and calls for a future that respects the ecological limitations of the land.

Juan Estevan Arellano, a native of Embudo, New Mexico, is a poet, artist, writer, and agronomist. He is an expert in traditional Spanish/Moorish agriculture and the sustaining of traditional crops originally brought to New Mexico from Europe and Central Mexico.

"Few people are more qualified to talk about New Mexico's acequias than this lifelong Nuevomexicano."--Pasatiempo

"Once again Juan Estevan Arellano unravels the world of agriculture, land, and water."--New Mexico Historical Review

"Only Juan Estevan Arellano could have written about the sacred knowledge of water from the perspective of a nuevomexicano who has spent a lifetime observing and learning from his elders and mentors, people who passed on to him the memory of the land, water, and community. Arellano should be declared a State of New Mexico Historic Treasure."--José A. Rivera, author of La Sociedad: Guardians of Hispanic Culture Along the Rio Grande

"Juan Estevan Arellano is indigenous to his landscape. He is deeply in touch with his querencia, and he has written a handbook for the Río Arriba bioregion that also serves as a perfect guide for everyone who is concerned with understanding a balanced cultural relationship with homeland. Five gold stars to this great thinker!"--Jack Loeffler, coeditor of Thinking Like a Watershed: Voices from the West