Sonoran Desert: Plants and People

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Sonoran Desert Plants and People
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Sonoran Desert Background

• Extends across Arizona, California
• and Mexico
• Characterized by extreme heat
• and low rainfall
• Mountains surround most of the desert
• Termed an arborescent desert

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Sonoran Vegetation

• Variety of vegetation
• Important edible plants
• Mesquite, agaves and columnar cacti
• Plants have greatly shaped the cultures within
  the Sonoran Desert
• Acting as food, cures and characters (in tribal
  legends)
• Plants have coevolved with
• insects, mammals (rodents,
• bats, birds) over thousands
• of years
• Aboriginal people
• domesticated some plants
• (Ex. Devils claw)

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Papago Background (Before the arrival of the
Spaniard)

• Seminomatic because of their limited access to
  water
• Migration between a summer and winter settlement
• Crops harvested in the fall and dried (natural
  vegetation)
• Gathered wild fruits and nuts
• No domesticated animals
• Lived in balance with the land

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Native Plants and Sonoran Cultures

• 2500 known plant species
• 425 wild edible plants
• Folklore attached to plants
• Oodham Jimsonweed
• Diet today does not compose
• of strictly wild plants

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Organpipe Cactus

• Wild edible plant
• Viigita
• Long-nosed bats cross pollination and seed
  dispersal
• Provides fruit and wine
• During drought seeds provide protein and oil
• Folklore lightning

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Amaranth Greens

• Meat of the poor
• 100 g of Amaranth Contains
• 3x more calories
• 18x more vitamin A
• 13x more vitamin C
• 20x more calcium
• 7x more iron
• Than 100g of lettuce
• Historically, essential food for Papago
• Many Papago (in California, Mexico and Arizona)
  still use the plant today

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Tepary Beans

• Believed that Papago comes from Papavi Kuadam
  Tepary eaters
• Record of beans in cultural remains from
  pre-pottery times
• Women would gather the bean pods early in the
  morning before the pods would burst
• 1900 Oodhan began to share their knowledge of
  the plant with other indigenous people
• 1930s harvesting and consumption of the
• tepary beans began to decrease among
• the Papago
• World War two government programs
• provided Papago families with beans
• These beans are much lower in nutritional
• values than the tepary beans (Diabetes)

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Chilepin

• Greatest protection against evil
• Wild chilepin or bird pepper
• Referred to by the Papago as Iitoi kookol
• Eating chiles causes us to sweat
• Evaporation on the surface of skin makes us feel
  cool
• In arid regions, shade is rare, gives a sensation
  of coolness
• Red colour suggested that this is to attract
  birds which dispense the seeds
• Birds can tolerate the taste, other animals can
  not
• Used to wean babies
• Popularity of chilepin as a spice is increasing
  greater level of harvesting, decreasing abundance

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Desert Gourds

• Cucurbitacins foul smelling chemical
• found in wild gourds
• Deters animals from eating
• Exception Luperini beetles
• Feast on young gourds
• Keep populations under control and thus eliminate
  competition for resource among adult and
  developing gourds
• Indigenous people use the roots, seeds and leaves
  for medicinal purposes
• Gourds carved into baskets (this practice has
  been traced back to before pottery)
• Luperini beetles are a huge agricultural pest on
  corn

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Desert Agriculture

• North American
• Tends to reduce biodiversity
• Based on humid-adapted crops
• Short term productivity
• Degrades soil
• Indigenous
• When compared to other plots
• has a greater level of
• biodiversity
• Tends to use native desert plants
• One mans weed is another mans vegetable, a
  Papago might say. And he might be both men at the
  same time

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Edible wild plants impact on biodiversity

• Traditional ecological knowledge
• Communication and exchange of knowledge
• Worldview
• Practices and strategies for sustainable living
• Understanding of ecological knowledge impacts
  harvesting of wild plants
• Environmental modification

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Oodham Community Food System
 

• Goals of the OCFS
• Empower community members to reduce the high
• incidence of adult-onset diabetes within the
• Tohono O'odham Nation
• Contribute to the revitalization of the O'odham
  Himdag - the Desert People's Way.
• Stimulate sustainable and culturally-appropriate
  economic development through food system
  development.
• Oodham have the highest rate of adult diabetes
  in the world
• Why?
• Destruction of the traditional food system and
  diet
• Traditional foods (including tepary beans, cactus
  buds and amaranth greens) have been shown to
  reduce the effect of diabetes

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References

• Gathering the Desert. Gary Nabhan. The University
  of Arizona Press, Tuscon, Arizona, 1997
• The Sonoran Desert Its Geography, Economy and
  People. Roger Sunbier. The University of Arizona
  Press, Tuscon, Arizona, 1968.
• An Overview of the Sonoran Desert Ecosystem.
  http//www.nature.nps.gov/im/units/sodn/sonorandes
  ert.htm
• Boyce Thompson Arboretum. arboretum.ag.arizona.edu
  / edibleplants.html
• Conservation and Native Peoples Kwapa and Tohono
  Oodham Community Mapping. http//www.sonoran.org/
  programs/sonoran_desert/si_sdep_culture.html
• Reviving Native Foods, Health, and Culture the
  Tohono Oodham Community Food System.
  www.oxfamamerica.org/. ../art4144.html
• Sonoran Desert Ecology. http//instruct.uwo.ca/bio
  logy/320y/jefes.html
• Sonoran Desert Research Station.
  www.srnr.arizona.edu/nbs/
• Using Native Desert Seeds. http//www.omick.net/na
  tive_foods/native_foods.htm

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Questions?