Water, Our Wealth
With TEDʻs Climate Countdown just around the corner, the subject of ethnomimicry seizes my attention, indigenous systems of knowledge masterfully applied for centuries to protect and conserve our natural resources.
As an anthropologist, native cultures are among the most insightful environmentalists, ecologists, and conservationists in my decades-long research. Ethnomimicry, the innovation of structures and systems modeled on native technologies and processes, offers an invaluable perspective in addressing environmental issues.
It starts with values. Water, for example, in my native Hawaiian tongue, is “wai.” When emphasized, “wai wai” means wealth. Most cultures throughout the world share this fundamental value of water representing wealth. They respect this resource as valuable and sacred.
Jane Withers is the curator of “Water Futures.” Itʻs a brilliant multi-faceted project that responds to the urgent issues around the drinking water crisis by encouraging an imaginative and human-centric design approach to promoting and improving drinking water awareness worldwide. In the book “Water Futures: Where Will Water Come From” which Withers curated, she writes, “Although we have gained the convenience of water on tap, we have drained it of meaning and the cultural significance that historically helped us value water, protect it and use it responsibly.”
Water crisis is a global threat. Professor and climate activist Ashley Dawson writes in the Washington Post, “A person can survive only about three to five days without access to water. What about a city? This is not a hypothetical question: The thirsty city threatens to be the most dire social crisis of the 20th century.”
(Excerpts from Where Will The Water Come From, Water Futures)
“Steps to Water: Professor Morna Livingston”
“From the fifth to 19th centuries, the people of western India built stone cisterns to collect water of the monsoon rains and keep it accessible for the remaining dry months. of the year. These magnificent structures, known as stepwells or stepped ponds, are much more than utilitarian reservoirs. Stepwells were an integral part of western Indian communities as sites for drinking, washing, and bathing, as well as for colorful festivals and sacred rituals.
By reflecting on their current use, preservation, and place in Indian communities, Professor Morna Livingston, led a conversation examining how we might harness this knowledge to create accessible reservoirs of drinking water and better integrate ancient rituals into our current landscaping projects. Ooze Architects picked up this very thread in their proposal for Chennai, India, “1000 Water Tanks,” to suggest a system of aquifers and residential tanks to thereby restore the ancient city-once rich in water resources-to its former bounty.” In rediscovering vernacular water architecture, perhaps we can also revive some of the sacredness and respect for this sacred resource.”
The following excerpt from Where Will Water Come From is a demonstration of ethnomimicry by Ooze Architects.
“Chennai: City of 1,000 Tanks”
“Chennaiʻs historic Temple Tank system, which was used to recharge the aquifer and served as a barometer for the cityʻs underground resource, had long been abandoned. City of 1,000 Tanks is reviving and reinterpreting Chennaiʻs water heritage by integrating it into modern, urban plans. Oozeʻs project uses blue-green infrastructure-or, a combination of hydrological functions and landscape design-of tanks and cleansing channels to collect and cleanse stormwater before entering the ground”.
A sobering statistic predicts 40% of the worldʻs population will live in areas facing water scarcity by 2035. Itʻs expected that water will become more valuable than oil.
The indigenous perspective of water as wealth has never been more critical.
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