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[EN] To better understand the acequias in “Embudo de Picuris,” they have to be analyized from the perspective of the land grants given to the settlers by the Crown of Spain. Many scholars have studied the acequias simply as canals that transport water, without realizing they are an integral part of the landscape, starting with the sierra and ending at the river. They are part of the watershed, that if the landscape is damaged, this will affect how the lower acequias flow. When one looks at the landscape one sees that the acequia is like a belt that separates the commons from the irrigated land. The common lands in the land grants, known in New Mexico as ejidos are made up of sierras, mountains, commons and lots where people build their houses, plazas, and also the utility rooms, pig pens, chicken coops and wood pile. Then runs the acequia that irrigates the most productive pieces of land that are known as altitos where the orchard trees are planted, the jolla where the corn fields and chile are planted, the vegas that can also be used to grow food but they are used more for the domestic animals, and the cienagas or marshlands (including the prados and potreros). Then close to the river are the bosques where one finds the estuaries and quicksand., [ES] Para comprender mejor las acequias del Embudo de Picurís se tienen que analizar como componente vital de las mercedes de tierras otorgadas a los pobladores por la Corona española. Muchos investigadores han estudiado las acequias únicamente como el canal que lleva agua, sin ver que las acequias son una parte íntegra de todo el paisaje, empezando en la sierra y terminando en el río. Son parte de la cuenca, que si se le hace daño a esta parte del paisaje, afecta a las acequias que corren más abajo. Cuando se examina el paisaje de la merced se ve que la acequia es como una faja que divide las tierras comunales de las tierras privadas y de regadío. Las tierras comunes de las mercedes, conocidas en Nuevo México como los ejidos son compuestas de las sierras, montes, dehesas o llanos y los solares donde la gente levanta sus casas donde van también las dispensas, trochiles, gallineros y la leña. Luego corre la acequia que riega las tierras más productivos que son los altitos donde se establecen los huertos de árboles frutales, las jollas donde se siembran las milpas y las huertas, las vegas donde también se puede sembrar pero se usan más para los animales de casa y las ciénagas (aquí también van los prados y los potreros). Luego cerca al río están los bosques donde existen los esteros y resumideros

Inscrites dans la litterature ou dans la tradition orale, les legendes sur l'intervention divine dans les affaires militaires de la conquete et de la reconquete sont tellement courantes dans le contexte de la chretiente que le motif est repertorie dans l'index Aarne-Thomson. Par deux fois, lors des batailles d'Acoma Pueblo en 1599 et de San Acacio en 1853, le projet colonial hispanique au Nouveau-Mexique fut sauve par l'intervention divine de saints : les Indiens defaits a Acoma Pueblo ou battant en retraite a San Acacio faisant le recit d'apparitions de Santiago et de la Vierge dans le premier cas et de San Acacio dans le second. L'A. montre comment ces legendes s'inscrivent dans les strategies politiques et culturelles de legitimation des Nuevo Mexicanos dans leurs rapports avec les Amerindiens a travers le temps et les contextes. Ces evenements, dans l'interpretation coloree de l'histoire, sont representes plutot du point de vue des vainqueurs que des vaincus.

[EN] The acequias of the upper Río Grande are more than just irrigation canals. They also allocate and manage water for the community of landowners in the system. After four centuries of use, the acequias persist into modern times with their founding principles intact: self-government, local autonomy, internal rules for operating procedures, and a strong sense of mutualismo or communal responsibility. They have endured since Spanish colonial settlement, and have maintained continuity of a water culture surviving political-administrative changes under three sovereigns, Spain (1598-1821), Mexico (1821-1848), and the United States (1848- Present). Despite stressors of climate variability, demographic changes, urbanization, and economic modernity, the acequia parciantes hold onto, maintain, and defend their shares of water in the acequia madre. Most of these irrigation works still function as before, zanjas carved out of the land to shape the edges of the semi-arid terrain and extend the riparian zones for multiple uses. Will they survive the pressures to move water to higher economic values such as municipal growth in the urban centers, water shortages among competing users, and the effects of drought evidenced in recent years? Similar to the irrigation communities of medieval Valencia that were modeled after the craft guilds of that era, the acequias of the upper Río Grande have ties to other solidarities, namely, the cofradías and mutualista societies characterized by common attributes: the adoption of written rules and regulations, the election of officers for executive functions, and operating procedures that are self-determined. Mutualism in the acequia culture, coupled with recovery of the Spanish language, could be the key to adaptation when new challenges emerge in future scenarios of unexpected change, [ES] Regadío y sociedad en la cuenca del Alto Río Grande, E.U.A.: La herencia mutualista. Las acequias del alto Río Grande son mucho más que canales de riego. También proporcionan y manejan el agua para la comunidad de terratenientes del sistema. Después de cuatro siglos de uso, las acequias persisten hasta los tiempos modernos con sus principios originales intactos: auto-gobierno, autonomía local, reglas internas para los procedimientos de operación y un fuerte sentido de mutualismo o responsabilidad comunal. Han durado desde la colonización española, sosteniendo una cultura de agua que ha aguantado tres gobiernos, España (1598- 1821), México (1821-1848) y los Estados Unidos (1848 hasta el presente). A pesar de los desafíos de variabilidad del clima, cambios demográficos, urbanización y modernización económica, los parciantes de la acequia conservan, mantienen y defienden sus derechos de agua de la acequia madre. La mayoría de estos sistemas de riego todavía funcionan como siempre, con zanjas excavadas que marcan los límites del terreno semi-árido y extienden las zonas ribereñas para usos múltiples. ¿Sobrevivirán las presiones para asignar el agua para usos de más valor económico como el crecimiento de los centros urbanos, la escasez de agua entre usuarios y los efectos de la creciente sequía de los últimos años? Parecidos a las comunidades de riego de Valencia medieval que se organizaban como los gremios de la época, las acequias del alto Río Grande se vinculan a otras asociaciones como las cofradías y sociedades mutualistas caracterizadas por estos atributos en común: la adopción de reglas y normas escritas, la elección de oficiales para funciones executivas y procedimientos de operación autodeterminados. El mutualismo en la cultura de las acequias, vinculado con la recuperación del idioma castellano, pueden ser la clave de adaptación cuando emergen nuevos desafíos en los futuros escenarios de cambios inesperados.

[EN] During the 18th century conflicts between the Comanches of the southern Plains and the Spanish Mexicans and their Pueblo allies in New Mexico, the valley of Mora was a natural corridor to the settlements of the Río Grande valley for trade and warfare. The walls of Picurís Pueblo on the other side of Jicarilla mountain sheltered native Tiwas as well as their neighbors. When peace came, mestizo settlers headed east to Mora to begin farming and ranching. The land was fertile, but water was scarce, since it naturally flowed west to the Río Grande. As early as 1817, settler José Antonio Olguín approached the elders of Picurís where he had lived for years, for permission to divert some water from one of the Tres Ritos del Río Pueblo over the mountain to the other side. Since then the controversies and competition for water have grown over the years. With adjudication of water rights of Mora approaching, what is the valueof oral history in legal proceedings? How would it be possible to consult living voices to create a legally recognizable source of information? Several examples of this oral and documentary process illustrate the case of the trans-mountain "waterfall acequias" of Mora, including an inconclusive 1882 legal case filed by Picurís Pueblo, declarations of pueblo leaders, local interviews, and a 2008 children's book, Juan the Bear and the Water of Life by the authors of this article. Although there is little possibility for any of these testimonies to complement future legal proceedings, it is important to understand cultural processes of historical validation where the documentary record is so sparse.

The Indo-Hispanic oral tradition of New Mexico is richly populated with tricksters, from old Coyote, whose presence dates to the dawn of human consciousness in North America, to the picaros, those human-faced rogues who arrived with Iberian immigrants in the valley of the Rio Grande. With the eclipse and modification of oral narrative traditions in the latter twentieth century, these quintessential characters have refused to disappear, making their way into the recent Chicano literature of the region and fulfilling their ancient roles as culture heroes and critics. The ranks of the picaros include Old World rascals like Pedro de Ordimalas (also spelled Urdemales) and his folkloric and sociological descendants from the distant Iberian peninsula. The popular consciousness distinguishes between the novelesque, obviously fictitious characters like Pedro, and the sociological picaros, who are actual individuals (or characters closely drawn on them) that manifest or reflect the social prototype of the trickster pariah. There is no evidence of the arrival of literary picaros, such as Lazarillo de Tormes and Periquillo Sarniento, until the late nineteenth century, when books finally came into the hands of New Mexicans in significant quantities. Until the most recent generations, picaros have inhabited the novelesque narratives of the oral tradition. In recent years the folk tale or marchen, as it has existed for centuries, has been obliterated practically overnight after the advent of electronic mass media. Now other oral genres such as belief narratives and jokes dominate the scene. The two-edged sword of humor, forever in the hands of the picaro, is now wielded almost exclusively in jokes, the last refuge of characters like Mano Fashico [Bro' Francis], Don Cacahuate [Sir Peanut], and Pelon [Baldy] (Cordova 9-14, 68-75, Reyna, 65-66, 73). There need be no concern for the survival of the sociological picaros, those maladapted types who have always lurked around the fringes of Hispanic civilization. They have a permanent refuge in mitote y chisme, or gossip and anecdotal narrative. But what has been the fate of those novelesque rogues like Pedro de Ordimalas, whose scurrilous adventures filled the folk tale? Their epistemological role in the culture prevents their definitive departure. Without them and their literary brethren, Hispanic society has too difficult a time in criticizing itself. To function with full power in the collective conscience, picaros have to move beyond jokes and anecdotes. They need a wider, more mythic domain. They are so necessary for the health of the popular imagination that they were certain to reappear at some point in the cultural landscape. In New Mexican letters in recent years, they are surfacing everywhere, now as literary creations. The long career of the picaro in New Mexican traditional culture and his most recent literary masks are the focus of this study. From the emergence of cultures and civilization in Europe and the Americas, the trickster has had the double role of first inventing culture and later revitalizing it, making use of humor and symbolic inversion to illuminate the inevitable contradictions of societies and their institutions. The coyote as trickster and culture hero is a primordial character on the North American scene, where he plays the epic role of bringing fire and technology to humankind. Simultaneously, through his outrageous personal behavior, he has taught Native Americans how to relieve the pressures of an intense social life which values conformity as a basic survival mechanism (Levi-Strauss 224-25, Lopez 84-85). In the beginning, European tricksters were also animals, examples of ingenuity and intelligence like the fox and the crow. But after the Greeks, ethical and moral lessons were taught by mentors who were increasingly anthropomorphic. By Roman times, these tricksters already had human faces (Kerenyi 173-91). These roguish boys and young men emerged in the folklore and literature of romance cultures, most notably in Spain. …

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya appeared in 1972, quickly earning a place in Chicano literary history as its first truly transcendent work of long prose fiction.' The novel has since captured more readers and critical attention than any other single work of Chicano literature and the debate continues concerning the implications of the author's use of what might be termed magical or even mythical realism.2 Was the novel merely an apolitical expression of local color or costumbrismo, New Mexico style? And if so, how did the work fit into the overall social and creative context of chicanismo? As the first best seller novel of Chicano literature, it was impossible to dismiss Ultima's introduction of compelling mythic themes into the disjunctive context of the combative and polemical ethnic literatures of the late sixties. Ultima was serene in the face of this turmoil, full of conflict, yet noncombative, a portrait of the developing consciousness of the young protagonist, Antonio. The metaphysics of this emerging consciousness were so convincingly drawn that no reader doubted that the seeds of social conscience were deeply sown if yet untested in the chief character. Rudolfo Anaya strikes a deep chord in portraying two primordial ways of relating to the earth, the pastoral and the agricultural. Bless Me, Ultima, (BMU), is not a quaint, historical sketch of rural folkways, but rather a dialectical exploration of the contradictions between lifestyles and cultures. At the novel's heart is the process which generates social and historical consciousness. A Marxist-Structuralist perspective defines this process as myth, the collective interpretation and mediation of the contradictions in the historical and ecological experience of a people. In his account of the relationship between a curandera (folk healer) and her young apprentice, Anaya penetrates deeply the mythical conscience of the reader. Despite their enthusiasm for his novel, critics have thus far been unable to define the parameters of this response nor prove the reason for its depth. Contributing elements in the narrative include: the primordial quality of the rivalry of the Luna and Mairez clans, the religious conflicts and rich dream life of the boy Antonio M~rez, and the power of Ultima herself which in the end is nothing more nor less than "the magical strength that resides in the human heart" (BMU, p. 237). From the first reviews to later articles, an increasing body of vague but glowing commentary points to a rich "mythic" or "magical" dimension that underlies the novel.3 To those who prioritize the social relevancy of Chicano literature, this psychic plunge seems disturbing or even reactionary in its irrationality. Despite these claims, there appears to be something exceptional about the emerging consciousness of the boy. It is mystically harmonious with nature, yet also incorporates a dynamic, even dialectical awareness of historical forces, from the colonization by Hispanic farmers and ranchers to the coming of the Anglos and World War II. These seeming contradictions invite a reexamination of the relation of myth and social consciousness, often defined as antithetical, incompatible categories which erode and undermine each other. Since the novel apparently transcends this impasse, we are obliged to consider a critical model comprehensive enough to explain this achievement. A review of commentary on the novel is the first step in this direction. Bless Me, Ultima has undergone extensive