16 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 3 



Six crops of alfalfa were taken from it during the 

 year. It was allowed to stand untouched for about 3 

 months after the last cutting, and was then turned 

 into pasture. Cattle occupied the field during most 

 of 1941 and up to June 1942, when the alfalfa began 

 to tliin out. It was plowed and a crop of corn and 

 lentils put in, which did not do well because of lack of 

 water. In January 1943, it was planted to yuca and 

 corn. In 1944 it was once more in alfalfa. 



IRRIGATION 



The irrigation system is now under control of an 

 official dependency of the Ministerio de Fomento, 

 which maintains a subadministrator in Moche (under 

 the immediate supervision of the Administracion de 

 Aguas del Rio Moche, which has offices in Trujillo). 

 This authority lays down the regulations concerning 

 the time of water flow and the care of the ditches. 

 The "repuhUca," or democratic organization of water 

 users which is said formerly to have handled all mat- 

 ters of irrigation, has thus been superseded. Perhaps 

 as a substitute the Government has permitted the or- 

 ganization of a group known as the Association of 

 Irrigators of Moche (Asociacion de Regantes de 

 Moche) which is suppossed to serve in an advisory 

 capacity to the subadministrator and as a vehicle for 

 making complaints to the higher authorities. The 

 president of this group at present is the proprietor of 

 the Haciendita, which is the largest single water user 

 in the District. Although the Mocheros complain 

 mightily that the Haciendita is favored over the 

 smaller land holdings in the distribution of the water 

 and also that the haciendas farther up the valley are 

 obtaining more than their share of the river flow, 

 nevertheless the natives have been unable to unite on 

 a candidate of their own whereby they might obtain 

 more effective control of the organization. An or- 

 ganization nf younger progressive natives, called 

 Moche en Marcha (Moche in Movement), is at pres- 

 ent strenuously attempting to unite the Mocheros for 

 this and other purposes involving the common wel- 

 fare. 



The irrigation administration is primarily con- 

 cerned witli the distribution of the water, which is 

 most abundant in March and scarcest in October. 

 During the dry season the river water is turned into 

 each trunk ditch only once every 9 days. The prin- 

 ciple of distribution of water to individual land hold- 

 ings or fields is time. Each holding, or, more 

 properly, each side ditch running into a holding is as- 

 signed so many minutes of water during the time that 

 water is running in the main ditch. This time mav 



be changed in theory by appeal to the authorities, but 

 as of any given moment is recorded in the official 

 catastro (property list) and is one of the rights which 

 go with the parcel of land if and when it changes 

 hands. An annual tax is levied upon each parcel of 

 land to support the irrigation service, and this is based 

 upon the amount of water time assigned to the parcel, 

 which in turn is theoretically based upon the area of 

 the parcel of land and a consideration of its needs 

 (e.g., land near the river with considerable under- 

 ground seepage water is not considered to need so 

 much irrigation per unit of area). It is because the 

 areas of the land holdings were previously only im- 

 perfectly known that the Government undertook the 

 precise survey in 1944 which should result in a new 

 catastro, mentioned previously. The time limit on 

 water applies, of course, during the season of scarce 

 water ; in the season of abundance each farmer has as 

 much water as he desires. According to the 1944 

 catastro, the lowest annual water rent paid by a Mo- 

 chero was 26 centavos, and the highest 16.42 soles. 

 (One sole equaled approximately 15.3 cents and ! 

 centavo approximately 1/7 of a cent in terms of 

 United States currency at the time the study was 

 made. ) The water rent goes toward the maintenance 

 of the system of administration. 



In order to operate this system the subadministrator 

 depends upon the services of the farmers themselves, 

 who are assigned to water watching according to a 

 rotating list. The night duty is the most onerous and 

 involves regulating the main gates at the proper in- 

 tervals and patrolling the side-ditch outlets. Night 

 duty rotates to most farmers about once every 2 or 

 2Y2 months and is called mala noche ("bad night," a 

 term which also refers to any night spent without 

 sleep, whatever the reason). It is, of course, the 

 responsibility of the individual farmers to care for 

 their private ditches. Irrigation ditches of all kinds 

 are called accquias. It is said that rich or powerful 

 water users are able to obtain more than their proper 

 share by ( 1 ) bribing or otherwise influencing the sub- 

 administrator to increase their time on the list and 

 (2) by influencing the watchers to allow certain 

 ditches to run longer than the official time. I have no 

 evidence that this is true. 



The principal irrigation ditches are named. For 

 example, there are the ditches named Sun — one of 

 the main trunl^s which taps the river above the Huaca 

 del Sol and probably dates from prehistoric times — 

 Chocchoc, Guere(]ueque, Barranca, Esperanza.' los 

 Muertos, el Muelle, etc. 



