BULL. 30] 



IRRUPIENS IRU^VAITSU 



621 



a width of about 30 ft at the surface. 

 Both the bed and the sides were care- 

 fully tamped and plasjtered with clay to 

 prevent waste through seepage. Re- 

 mains of what are believed to have been 

 wooden head gates have been exposed 

 by excavation. VV here canal depressions 

 have disappeared, owing to cultivation 

 or to sand drift, the canals are still trace- 

 able by the innumerable bowlders and 

 water- worn concretions that line the 

 banks; these, according to Cushing, hav- 

 ing been placed there by the natives 

 as " water-tamers" to direct the streams 

 to the thirsty fields. The irrigation 

 works in the valleys mentioned probably 

 indicate greater engineering skill than 

 any aboriginal remains that have been 

 disi-overed n. of Mexico. Several of the 

 old canal beds have been utilized for 

 miles by modern ditch builders; in one 

 instance a saving of $20,000 to $25,000 

 was effected at the Mormon settlement of 

 Mesa, Maricopa CO., Ariz., by employing 

 an ancient acequia that traversed a vol- 

 canic knoll for 3 m. and which at one 

 point was excavated to a depth of 20 to 

 25 ft in the rock for several hundred feet. 

 The remains of ditches the building of 

 which necessitated overcoming similar 

 though less serious obstacles exist in the 

 valley of the Rio Verde; and on the Has- 

 sayampa, n. w. of Phoenix, a canal from 

 that stream traverses a lava mesa for sev- 

 eral miles and falls abruptly into a valley 

 40 or 50 ft. below, the water in its descent 

 having cut away the rocky mesa walls for 

 several feet. 



Even where the water supply of a 

 pueblo settlement situated several miles 

 from a stream was obtained by means 

 of canals, each house cluster was pro- 

 vided with a reservoir; and in many 

 instances through the 8. W., reservoirs, 

 sometimes covering an area measuring 1 

 m. by 2 m., designed for the storage of 

 rain water, were the sole means of water 

 supply both for domestic purposes and 

 for irrigation. In the valleys of the Rio 

 Grande and its tributaries, in New Mex- 

 ico, ^mall reservoirs were the chief means 

 of supplying water to the ancient villages; 

 and even to-day only the rudest methods 

 of irrigation are employed by the Pueblo 

 tribes. The ancient occupants of Pefias- 

 co Blanco, one of the Chaco canyon 

 group of ancient ruins in thvj Navaho 

 desert in n. w. New Mexico, diverted 

 w-ater from the Chaco by means of a 

 ditch which supplied a reservoir built in 

 sand, and partially prevented seepage by 

 lining its bed with slabs of stones and clay. 



The neighboring pueblos of Una Vida, 

 Pueblo Bonito, Kinklazhin, Kinbineola, 

 and Kinyaah, also were artificiallv pro- 

 vided with water for irrigation. Kinbi- 

 neola, however, exhibits the best example 



of irrigation works of any of the Chaco 

 group ot villages, water having been 

 diverted from the sandy wash to a large 

 natural depression and thence conducted 

 to the fiekis, 2 m. away, by a ditch dug 

 around a mesa and along a series of sand 

 hills on a fairly uniform grade. This 

 ditch was mainly earthwork, but where 

 necessary the lower border was reenforced 

 with retaining walls of stone. Kinyaah 

 is said to have been provided with two 

 large reservoirs and a canal 25 to 30 ft 

 wide and in places 3 to 4 ft deep. 



Hand irrigation is still practised by the 

 Pueblo Indians. The Zuiii women, in 

 order to raise their small crops of onions, 

 chile, etc., are obliged to carry water in 

 jars on their heads, sometimes for several 

 hundred yards; it is then poured on the 

 individual plants with a gourd ladle. At 

 the Middle Mesa villages of the Hopi, 

 garden patches are watered in much the 

 same way, except that here the gardens 

 are within easier reach of the springs and 

 are irrigated by means of a gourd vessel 

 fastened to the end of a long pole. Both 

 the Hopi of to-day and the ancient inhab- 

 itants of the vicinity of the present Solo- 

 monville, on the Gila, constructed reser- 

 voirs on the mesa sides from which ter- 

 raced gardens below were readily irrigated, 

 the reservoirs being supplied by impound- 

 ing storm water. Throughout the S. W. 

 where pueblos occupied the suuimits of 

 mesas, reservoirs were provided, and 

 according to tradition some of these were 

 filled in winter by rolling into them im- 

 mense snowballs. For hundred of years 

 the pueblo of Acoma (q. v.) has derived 

 its entire water supply for domestic pur- 

 poses from a natural depression in the 

 rock which receives the rainfall from the 

 mesa summit. 



Consult Cushing (1), Zuni Breadstuff, 

 1884-85, (2) in Compte-rendu Internat. 

 Cong. Amer., vii, 163, 1890; Fewkes in 

 22d Rep. B. A. E., 1904; Hewettin Records 

 of the Past, iv, no. 9, 1905; Hodge in Am. 

 Anthrop., vi, 323, 1893; Mindeleff in 13th 

 Rep. B. A. E., 1896; Wilson in 13th Rep. 

 U. S. Geol. Surv., ]33, 1893. (p. w. h.) 



Irmpiens. A village on a river of the 

 same name, an affluent of Trinity r., Tex., 

 at which St Denis and his party stopped 

 in 1717. Herds of buffalo were encoun- 

 tered there. The region was in the main 

 occupied by tribes of the Caddoan family, 

 but bordered the country occupied by 

 intrusive tribes of other stocks. Con- 

 sult Derbanne in Margry, Dec, vi, 204, 

 1886; La Harpe in French, Hist. Coll. 

 La., Ill, 48, 1851. Cf. Ervipiames. 



(a. c. f.) 



Iruwaitsu (TruaVtsu, 'Scott valley peo- 

 ple'). One of the 4 divisions of the main 

 body of Shasta, living in Scott valley, Sis- 

 kiyou co., Cal. In 1851 the entire Indian 



