Theme A. Ideas of Water

Water culture and environment in an indigenous region from Mexico The indigenous population from the Meseta Purépecha-region allocated in the West-center of Mexico-has had to design during the centuries various strategies for improving the use and management of water. The reason is because in that region, water is a very scarce resource: there are not rivers, lakes or any other important sources, only small springs. Their strategies are based in: a) social and communal water control, that has guaranteed the free access to the population and the resource protection; b) the efficient use and management of water, that has permitted to profit in a way more rational; c) the diversified use and management of water, that has asked the utilization of all available sources, including rain water; and d) the multiple use and management of water, that has permitted to develop different productive and domestic activities and improve the water utilization through recycling and reusing. Although the scarcity does not explain by itself neither the high value of water that the indigenous people (Purepechas) have, nor the logic that support the strategies of use and management. For that is important to deep in the socio-cultural dimension because water has sacred and divine values that are manifested in its myths, festivities and cultural practices. In the Purepecha cosmogony, the human beings are part of nature and their relationship is based i