The Feixes of Ibiza

Abstract

FOR nearly eight centuries large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were dominated by Arabs and Moors, and numerous examples of both their material and their nonmaterial culture still remain in this meeting place of East and West. A rich vocabulary of Arabicisms was added the Spanish and Portuguese languages. For example, the words in Spanish dealing with irrigation are almost all of Arabic origin: azud (irrigation water wheel), acequia (irrigation ditch), aijibe (cistern), alberca (reservoir), alfarda (tax paid for irrigation of lands), and so on. The Moors were famous for their intensive cultivation of small plots; hence the popular expression to work hard like a Moor. Certain parts of the peninsula referred as arid by Christian writers are considered fertile soil by Arabian writers. The Moors devised specialized techniques for intensified farming in areas having slight rainfall, and they were no less ingenious in reclaiming land having too much water. No part of the cultural legacy left Spain by the Moors is more ingenious, or apparently less well known, than the system of agriculture practiced on reclaimed lands (feixes) bordering the harbor of Ibiza. Ibiza, a settlement of IO,OOO inhabitants, is the capital city and chief port of the island of the same name, the third in size of the Balearic Islands. Ibiza, the adjacent smaller island of Formentera, and several rocks and islets are known collectively as the Pityusas. At its closest point the island of Ibiza lies scarcely ioo kilometers southeast of Valencia. The island was reconquered from the Moors in I235 by Catalans. Consequently, the people resemble those of Catalunia and Valencia both culturally and linguistically, but seven centuries have also given rise peculiar local variants, which make the island stand out as a distinct cultural unit. Moorish influence is strikingly apparent in the city itself, where flat-roofed, whitewashed houses cling the sides of a hill