Communities That Kept the Gift

Abstract

Every Thursday at noon, outside the Apostles' Door of Valencia Cathedral, eight farmers in black smocks sit down on a semicircle of chairs behind a low railing. Tourists gather. A bailiff calls out, in Valencian, the names of the irrigation channels whose users have a complaint to bring. If there is a dispute, it is heard on the spot, aloud, without lawyers or written pleadings, and decided the same morning. The decision cannot be appealed. If there is no dispute, the eight stand up and go home. This is the Water Tribunal of the plain of Valencia. Its eight members are farmers, each elected by the users of one of the irrigation channels that carry water from the river Turia across the market gardens around the city. In 2009 UNESCO inscribed it, together with the Council of Wise Men of the plain of Murcia, on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, describing a tribunal of eight elected administrators representing 11,691 members from nine communities, settling disputes orally, quickly, openly and impartially.