White] THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 99 
governor will formally make the assignment. The land is usually di- 
vided into a number of narrow tracts so that each holder will have ac- 
cess to the irrigation ditch. On one such occasion the governor made 
assignments by having one of the men draw lots. 
Girls do not have any land, as a rule, before marriage. When a 
girl marries, her father, or parents, decide whether to give her land 
and how much. Married women and widows may, and do, own land. 
When they die it will go to their children or to their brothers and sis- 
ters; in no case will the husband inherit. When a man dies his land 
goes to his sons; the eldest son has the right and the responsibility to 
distribute the land, but he is under a moral obligation to be just and 
fair. If a man dies without children, his land will go to his brothers 
and sisters, not to his wife. If anyone should die without heirs—a 
virtual impossibility—land held by him would revert to the community 
for reassignment. There is said to be a great deal of transfer of lands 
by sale and trade as well as by inheritance; one man acquired the land 
of another by assuming the latter’s debts incurred at a store off the 
reservation. The lands held on the south side of the river by the 
heretics, George, Viviano, and Velino Herrera, were taken from them 
by the pueblo and reassigned to others. Their lands on the north 
side were not taken from them, however, although the Council wished 
to do this; the Herrera brothers were allowed to sell them for the value 
of the inprovements they had put upon them. (See Hawley, Pijoan, 
and Elkin, 1943, p. 548, for notes on landholding and inheritance at 
Sia.) 
In 1952 the United Pueblos Agency selected Sia as a pilot area for 
a coordinated program of education for the development of more effi- 
cient utilization of agricultural resources. J have no specific informa- 
tion on the way in which this program was carried out, but one of the 
reports makes some recommendations and supplies some information 
about progress made by Sia farmers. 
First of all, it recommends that the small holdings be consolidated. 
This would make for more efficient utilization of water resources and 
make cultivation of the land more economical. But it would run 
counter to Sia customs of land allocation and inheritance. The re- 
port states that ‘‘manure, green manure crops, and commercial ferti- 
lizers have been used to some extent at Sia.” 
One of the main obstacles to the development of stockraising, the 
report states, has been a lack of water. This has led to localized con- 
centrations of livestock and consequent overgrazing and soil erosion. 
More wells, distributed throughout the range, would improve this 
situation. The Sia have, in collaboration with the Indian Agency, 
bought some registered bulls and rams which have improved their 
