Description
Book SynopsisStrength from the Waters is an environmental and social history that frames economic development, environmental concerns, and Indigenous mobilization within the context of a timeless issue: access to water. Between 1927 and 1970 the Mayo people—an Indigenous group in northwestern Mexico—confronted changing access to the largest freshwater source in the region, the Fuerte River.
In
Strength from the Waters James V. Mestaz demonstrates how the Mayo people used newly available opportunities such as irrigation laws, land reform, and cooperatives to maintain their connection to their river system and protect their Indigenous identity. By using irrigation technologies to increase crop production and protect lands from outsiders trying to claim it as fallow, the Mayo of northern Sinaloa simultaneously preserved their identity by continuing to conduct traditional religious rituals that paid homage to the Fuerte River. This shift in approach to both new tec
Trade Review“
Strength from the Waters makes important contributions to modern Mexican history, environmental history, and ethnohistory, especially with its fascinating oral histories of Mayo elders.”—Mikael Wolfe, author of
Watering the Revolution: An Environmental and Technological History of Agrarian Reform in MexicoTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Their Technology, Our Way: Los Goros and Fuerte River Infrastructure, 1927 to 1942
2. Sweetness and Water Power: The SICAE Sugarcane Cooperative and Mayo Struggles for Water, 1944 to 1958
3. When the State Fails the Gods Remain: Independent Mayo Water Control Strategies, 1944 to 1957
4. The Inward Turn: Mayo Hydraulic Labor, Millenarian Movements, and Changing Rituals, 1947 to 1963
5. From Our River to Theirs: The Effects of Hydraulic Development, 1955 to 1970
Epilogue: Remaining Strong
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
