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In spite of popular and New Age mythology
to the contrary, Eivissa has never really been a ‘haven
of peace and tranquillity'. The island has been perpetually
invaded over millennia and internal disputes were common up
until at least the 1950s (although kept hidden as much as
possible from the authorities). In traditional pagès
Eivissenc (Ibicencan peasant) society the sources of minor
and major disputes were often women, land , pigs and water.
More about pigs in a later article (if you are an English
‘frequent visitor to Eivissa' now back in England recovering
from a couple of weeks in the bars and discotheques here and
are reading this, you might say "What do pigs have to
do with Ibiza?" - which just goes to show that you haven't
yet touched the real Eivissa). The traditional Eivissenc courting
ritual, Sa Festeig (more about these in a later article),
still practised in isolated rural areas until the 1950s, was
strictly organized, but often created tensions and disputes
between young unmarried Eivissenc males vying for the attention
and acceptance of an eligible female. The Eivissenc preference
for marrying one's cousin (usually a second cousin), a practice
widespread in Mediterranean societies, had/has land and inheritance
benefits, but the ‘build-up' to it could possibly create
tensions within the extended family. Preferred settlement
patterns were dispersion verging on isolation - since Carthaginian
times - and the present distribution of villages on the island
is a relatively recent innovation dating mostly (but not entirely)
from the Catalan ‘take-over' of the island in the 13th
century AD. But most pagès Eivissencs preferred to
live in their isolated family homesteads as far away - an
as independent from - any form of authority whatsoever. Rural
life was/is hard but pure, the agricultural cycle demanding
fitness, hard labour and a minute attention to the soil and
to water resources. The only permanent river on the island,
that running through Santa Eularia, crossed there by the famous
Roman bridge, has now dried up. The earliest surviving documentary
film, shot on the island in 1934, shows a brief shot of the
river in full - but rather weak - flow. By the 1970s its flow
had been reduced to a meandering dribble, but even that now
seems to be a fading memory.
Each isolated casa pagès (traditional
peasant house) would have its own particular water supply/storage
solution. Some of the oldest would have an aljub (deriving
from the Arabic term for ‘water'- most of these were
made pre-13th century during the time the Moors ruled the
island), an area of sloping ground cleared down to the base
rock and then layered with a Moorish form of conglomerate
‘cement' to channel the water run-off into an underground
storage chamber (the term aljub covers both the water catchment
area and this chamber). The latter, dug deeply into the ground
or rock and sometimes containing a vast terracotta water pot,
was covered with a small stone structure so that it looked
like the opening of a pou (well). The difference between an
aljub and a pou, though, was that the former contained ‘dead'
water (not from a living source in the ground) and the latter
contained ‘live water', direct from an underground source.
Some houses would have both types of water system, plus a
special cistern to take rainwater runoff from the roof. Sometimes
out in the fields would be a stone water tank, a bossa (‘balsa
de irrigacion' in Spanish) containing water channelled in
from a spring or brought up from a well by ancient hydraulic
methods. The bossa as well therefore contained ‘live'
water.
For most English readers, water is just
water: not so for the pagès Eivissencs, who traditionally
distinguish between different types of water. In general,
water from an aljub was used for animals, roof water in the
cistern used for household cooking, washing and drinking and
the water from a bossa used for plant and crop irrigation.
Each type of water was used sparingly and for its particular
purpose. The few foreigners who have had the privilege to
rent a casa pagès from its real pagès owners
may now understand why they might possibly at one time have
been soundly berated by the latter if any water was seen to
be wasted. It is not just a question of wasting precious water,
but also one of using a particular type of water for the wrong
purpose.
In the old days, during times of extended
drought and possible ensuing famine, disputes - sometimes
minor ‘water wars' - could arise, as water supplies of
various types became scarce. If famine was intense - as happened
in some areas of the island during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
- the rural population could be reduced to eating garrovas
(‘algarrovas' in Spanish, the carob bean), normally reserved
for animals, but accepted on the island as a famine food for
humans. High in proteins and good for animals, it sometimes
has the unfortunate side effect of hair loss if eaten extensively
by people. During these hard times the younger sons of the
extended families sometimes had to leave the island to live
and work overseas. A drastic measure, but also one that lowered
population pressure on water and food resources. Memories
of such hard times are part of pagès Eivissenc cultural
background.
There is no doubt that tourism has brought
development and money to this island that had been relatively
isolated for centuries, but it is not surprising that many
elderly pagès from rural areas may not necessarily
be overjoyed to see the proliferation of swimming pools near
the houses of wealthy foreigners or hear of the massive use
of water in the tourism enclaves on the coast or on the island's
one (some say ‘rather parched') golf course (? on an
island where no-one plays golf). Well, unless of course the
water is coming from their source and they are getting paid
for it, but that's another matter. Many feel though that traditional
respect for water has been lost and a few think that some
sort of ‘punishment' is in the pipeline. By 1996 with
the gradual drying out of the island (less rains in the winter
and increasing pressure on the water table from a growing
population plus the annual summer tourism explosion) some
elderly pagès were worried to note that the texture
of the soil in particular areas had begun to change. They
said it was becoming like sand. One old pagès began
that year to gather in extra stocks of garrovas, saying that
he suspected another famine might be coming in five years
- he might have been wrong, but he wasn't far off. If the
island were still like it was when he was young (with no imported
food nor bottled water from the mainland) then he would be
seen as a visionary or as a normal well-prepared household
head.
Pagès Eivissencs concern for water
- both saltwater and freshwater - and land are the norm in
rural agricultural societies still close to their roots. It
is unfortunate that highly educated people who should know
better often deride these kinds of concerns. Traditionally
oriented societies tend to have a more advanced attitude to
protection of natural resources than do industrialized societies.
Our ‘modern' societies now have to employ (or avoid trying
to employ) scientists to advise governments and ourselves
what we should do to protect our endangered natural resources
from our own activities for future generations. Numerous NGOs
are thorns in the sides of governments in our ‘developed'
world, but such should not be the case. Modern governments
in general are too short-sighted and concerned mainly with
staying in office to really seriously be concerned about long-term
environmental issues except as publicity to indicate to potential
voters that they ‘are' concerned. As our ‘modern'
societies live largely divorced from reality - cut off by
technology from the real issues of life - the general public
often only gets glimpses of reality (and usually distorted
at that) through the media. Unfortunately, the quality of
the media available to the general public in the ‘developed'
world today has gradually deteriorated. Any discerning visitor
to the United States soon realizes that one is there rather
out of contact with the rest of the world .As one respected
U.S. journalist acknowledged in a BBC World Service radio
interview broadcast on 28th January 1996, "Americans
have the news and media service they deserve…. meanwhile,
thank God for the BBC". Yes, the BBC is still about as
good as it gets for most people - but for those who really
want to get access to a TV channel that portrays the whole
world as it really is, without certain Euro-American forms
of inherent bias or ‘unconscious' censorship, I can do
no better than advise readers to try and access the Australian
SBS channel. It will be an eye-opener for most people (but
not for those who do live in the real world).
Many of the foreigners who were fortunate
enough to visit Eivissa 40 or 50 years ago - when much of
the island was still basically as it had been for hundreds
of years - went back feeling as if they had been privileged
to peek into an island that was like a giant Mediterranean
agricultural garden. In those days the island was still relatively
lush, the ancient stone walls and terraces kept repaired,
the fields of almond trees, fig trees, carob trees, ancient
olive trees meticulously spic and span. There was almost no
money but, in a way, except in times of extreme drought and
famine, almost no ‘poverty' as most rural pagès
Eivissencs were self-sufficient to the extreme. Most large
Euro-American-International organizations (e.g., the World
Bank, IMF, WTO, UN, EU etc) confuse ‘poverty' with ‘lack
of money'. If one has one's own house and land and is almost
completely self-sufficient in food and other necessities (e.g.
even making ones clothes) then one is a King or Queen in one's
own kingdom, even without money. Most pagès Eivissencs
were like that. Most could not read or write and many could
not speak Spanish (and many elderly Eivissenc cannot to this
day), but that was not necessarily a handicap in a society
where basically only the priests and a small number of other
islanders were literate. Water and the land were respected.
People, in general, were relatively content. They had almost
everything they needed and wanted. Cultural life was ancient,
rich and deep. Of course there were some problems, but every
society has problems (look at the U.S.A., which is the country
that has the world's highest proportion of its population
in prison). But the problems here were smaller and in general
more easily solvable.
Then comes tourism. In just under two generations
it has brought undreamed-of wealth to the island, and in its
wake has brought ‘development', modern education, modern
medical care and has opened the island to the world - or at
least parts of the island. It has also brought environmental
damage, almost destroyed the traditional culture of the island,
and has brought the islands water and agricultural situation
to a crisis point. Interestingly enough, one could also say
that it has brought poverty too: in an island where two generations
ago differences in wealth were not necessarily that great
for the majority of the population, it introduced a ‘wealth
gap' between the 'haves and have-nots' of the new island industry.
Although wealthy Eivissenc are traditionally rather slyly
admired (‘beating the foreigners' at their own game'),
and a money fever has spread over much of the population,
most elderly pagès would now admit that extra money
has not necessarily brought extra happiness or contentment.
It has, they say, brought ‘better' lives for their children
and grandchildren, but some wonder what life for their grandchildren
will really be like: the youngest cannot feel that gripping
sense of semi-shock, shame or horror that some old pagès
may feel when they see large areas of formerly beautifully
cared-for agricultural land no longer being productive or
looked after. Of course, large well-kept rural areas still
exist, but they are getting more fragile. Rumours circulate
of a European woman with a large, as yet non-productive, garden
inland from the central northern coast who is supposedly at
the moment using 70 tons of precious water per day. This vast
overuse of water is said to be drying out the wells belonging
to local inhabitants in a large surrounding area. If the water
goes so does life. What would old pagès think - if
they knew of them - about the ‘water parties' every Tuesday
and Saturday night during the summer at the Es Paradis Terrenal
nightclub in Portmany (San Antonio)?? Will water on Eivissa
eventually become something only useable in large quantities
by the tourism and entertainment industries, the growing towns
and urbanizations, the modern agricultural projects and by
wealthy expatriates? Will the traditional pagès use
of water for home agriculture eventually be forced to dry
up?
The United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights lists access to water as one of these basic
rights. Next week we will look at how certain international
treaties (e.g. WTO), combined with certain international organizations
(e.g. the World Bank) and certain multinational companies
(e.g. Monsanto) seem to be going through the early stages
of steps that might possibly wrest control of water resources
in many areas of the world from its traditional indigenous
owners to ‘more business-oriented institutions'.
* Foraster- ‘foreigner': at a pinch
this term can cover, from the pagès point of view,
not just, say, English or Germans, but also people from the
neighbouring island of Mallorca and the mainland of Spain.
Kirk W Huffman
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