Increasing Scarcity of Water

              INCREASING SCARCITY OF WATER--All of the statements that I have quoted conclusively prove by witnesses who had visited the Pima villages on the Gila and whose testimony is therefore competent, that, from time immemorial these Indians had an adequate supply, of water except in occasional years of extreme drought. They irrigated and cultivated their lands, producing crops more than sufficient for their needs. This was the condition in which the American Government found the Pimas when it extended its jurisdiction over them. It was a duty this Government owed to a dependent people to protect and maintain their water supply. This it has failed to do. I shall now present the testimony of another group of witnesses the greater number of whom will testify to the ever-increasing scarcity of water for the irrigation of the fields of the Pima Indians. F. E. GROSSMAN --The first official mention of a shortage of water for irrigation is found in the report of Capt. F. E. Grossman, who established the agency at Sacaton in 1869. He states that he found the Pimas and Maricopas dissatisfied and complaining bitterly because there had been no settlement of the water question. In his second report (1871) Captain Grossman says: ‘‘The crops of the Indians (wheat and barley), the winter crop, were abundant during the past season, but the corn and melon and pumpkin crops will be a failure, owing to the scarcity of water in the Gila River.’’70 In the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1871 is an extended account of the Pima Indians of Arizona, by Captain Grossman, from which the following is extracted: "Each village elects two or three old men, who decide everything pertaining to the digging of acequias and making of dams, and who also regulate the time during which each landowner may use the water of the acequias for irrigating purposes. Their acequias are often 10 feet deep at the dam, and average from 4 to 6 feet in width, and are continued for miles, until finally the water therein is brought on a level with the ground to be cultivated, when the water is led off by means of smaller ditches all through their fields. Having no instruments for surveying or striking of levels, they still display considerable ingenuity in the selection of proper places for the 'heads of ditches.' ‘‘The Pima men plow the land with oxen and a crooked stick, as is done by the Mexicans; they sow the seed and cut the grain (the latter is done with short sickles). Horses thresh the grain by stamping. The women winnow the grain when threshed by pitching it----------------------------------70. Report of Indian Commissioner, 1871, 359.