Water Witching: an unusual phenomenon

Note: Debra wrote this column as a tribute to her dad, Bob Wyly, a pioneer Friona resident and local farmer, on Father’s Day. If you have a water witching story, please jot it down and share it with us; I think that could be rather interesting, since I have heard several of them already…DBracken

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3 “Witching for Water” Loblolly Book, 1983
My dad, James Allen ‘Bob’ Wyly doesn’t remember exactly when he first found water by ‘water witching,’ the action of a person using a rod, stick or other device to locate underground water. He thinks he probably first started when he was about 20 years old, which would have been around 1941, on his mother’s place northwest of Friona. He learned from watching someone who was ‘witching’ for a well there. He usually uses a forked willow twig or branch. While holding onto each side of the forks, the stick will pull downward when he walks across a water formation.
Dad and his uncle, E. M. Jack, partnered together on a well drilling venture in which Bob found water by ‘witching’. Neighbors and family would call him up to help find water on their farms. He helped on the Nova Purdy place, the Matthew farm and the Fred Perry farm to name a few.
Unable to explain it but enjoying the adventure of it all, Bob has even been surprised himself sometimes at the pull of the earth that he would experience on that forked stick. Bob remembers that his oldest brother, Wilson Wyly, teasingly called him a ‘sand-witch’! saying that he could for sure find sand. But as Wilson would also say, “Bob could always find a water formation.”
One time he remembered that he and his friends called a lady from around Lubbock named Lucy Lester. They told her just how the land lay and where other wells in the area were located. Over the phone, she told them exactly where to drive a stake in the ground. Within 12 feet of that stake, Bob found water. On another place that same lady told them to look for a small circle of red dirt on the ground in line with a well on the next place. Sure enough, there was a good water source there also! That has always been a fascinating story to us kids also.
Just this year in 2006, some friends of ours, Colby and Jessica Patterson, asked Bob to come to their new property west of Amarillo to help them find a good well. Although Bob won’t take the credit, they say he did find some good water for them. At 85, he has not lost his touch.
Whether it be from talent, special ability or just strange phenomenon, Bob Wyly has had ‘luck’ upon many such occasions. When asked about his success and failure rates, he just laughed and said, “Oh I’d guess about 50% of the time I found water.”
Note: Witching, dowsing, divining or doodle bugging (as it is called when used to locate oil) has been used to locate hidden treasure, metal or buried objects (and even people) since ancient times. It has been in existence, some say, since Moses used a rod to find water. The witching wands or sticks used are green willow, peach or cherry limbs, but most say willow; the rods used are metal— coat hangers, welding rods, etc.; and pendulums which may have wood and metal are especially for ‘map witching’. Everything has been used “from whalebone to pliers” in this living Texas folk tradition according to “The Loblolly Book” by Texas Monthy Press, c. 1983. NASA made plans to water witch from space using NASA’s Aqua Satellite. Pendulums have been used to find lost graves. It is estimated that 80 to 90% of the world’s oil was found by accident when someone was looking for water. In Vietnam, the U S military wanted to use this method to find the enemy’s extensive underground tunnel systems. The term ‘witch’ may have originated from Colonial America where they used the witch hazel shrubs to make the divining rods. Pictures of dowsers have been found in ancient caves in Europe and dowsing was done in China 4,000 years ago.
Some say walk with palms up, some say palms down; if a stick is used it points downward. If L rods are used, they will cross and/or pull down. Dowsing equipment is manufactured and sold today. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “ I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient mysticism. According to my conviction, this is unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.”
Note: I was visiting with Colby and Jessica Patterson over the weekend and also visited their new lot and saw the well for myself. Most of the wells in the area are producing 4 or 5 gallons per minute and some of them have dried up; some are even saline. One good well produces 12 gallons per minute, but the well Colby and Jessica had dug where Bob found the spot produces 40 gallons per minute of good water. At lunch today, Bob said he felt lucky to find a spot that produced 10 gallons per minute.
Louise Carroll George, an author from Dumas, whom some of you may remember from last year’s Friends of the Library Author Program and who wrote “Some of heroes are ladies” : women, ages 85 to 101, tell about life in the Texas Panhandle, will be interviewing Bob for her new book, “The Real Good Ole Boys”. Watch for it... DB