Story 8—
Origin of Irrigation
From then on, old man Siuuhu turned himself into a small child and sat someplace by the seaside. He made a hole there, and he said he was going to bring all the water from the sea and put it in the hole.
[c] Apapgam , the "fathers" in a certain clan or sib.
[d] where in English one says, addressing one's father, "father," "daddy,"
"pop," etc., in Pima the children of a given clan or sib address their fathers by a "daddy" term specific to that clan; e.g., those of the clan called apapgam address their fathers as "ñ-apap " ('my-apap').
[e] Vavgam , the fathers of the vav clan or sib.
He also told that the rains would not come all over the earth very often, only once in a while. And the crops that people raised would be irrigated evermore by rainwater.
The people saw that the rain wasn't coming down often as it used to, so they gathered to plan how they would make canals in order to irrigate their crops. They finally decided they would make a canal right below "Suik" (Red, the little mountain north of Granite Reef Dam).[f] They dug with pointed sticks and used their hands to throw out the dirt.
Being of one mind, they thought they would complete this work, but when they completed it and tried to make water run in it, the water wouldn't run. Seeing this, they got one of the medicine men and asked him to draw water in the canal. He went down and walked there, singing:
There lie the ditches
And among them
I am walking.
And among them I am breathing,
Leading the water.
The water acted like it was going but didn't go. This medicine man couldn't do it. So they got another
[f] S-weg, 'Red', the name of a mountain at that place, which is north of the point where today's highway from Scottsdale to Payson begins to descend to the Verde River.
medicine man, and he went down and stood in the canal and sang:
There lie the ditches
And I stood in the midst,
I'm making the winds blow (dust devils)
I'm making the water go.
The water acted like it was going, but it stopped and turned back to where it started from. This man couldn't do it. So they got another medicine man and told him to try. He sang:
By the side of a river
There lies a canal.
In that canal
The water is making signs of pretty decoration.
This man made the water go, but not enough. They got another medicine man and told him to put some more water in the canal. He went down and stood in the canal and sang:
There lie the canals
And in the midst of those
I stand
Making water-hair snakes.
The water flowed some more, and they had plenty of water in the canal. From there on, the people learned how to build canals in order to irrigate their farms.