The Igorot employ three methods of irrigation: One, the simplest and
most natural, is to build sementeras along a small stream which is
turned into the upper sementera and passes from one to another, falling
from terrace to terrace until all water is absorbed, evaporated,
or all available or desired land is irrigated. Usually such streams
are diverted from their courses, and they are often carried long
distances out of their natural way. The second method is to divert a
part of a river by means of a stone dam. The third method is still more
artificial than the preceding -- the water is lifted by direct human
power from below the sementera and poured to run over the surface.
The first method is the most common, since the mountains in Igorot land
are full of small, usually perpetual, streams. There are practically no
streams within reach of suitable pueblo sites which are not exhausted
by the Igorot agriculturist. Everywhere small streams are carefully
guarded and turned wherever there is a square yard of earth that may
be made into a rice sementera. Small streams in some cases have been
wound for miles around the sides of a mountain, passing deep gullies
and rivers in wooden troughs or tubes.
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