How Indians Used Desert Plants

The deserts of the Southwest contain a multitude of plant species that have sustained human life for thousands of years. Plants provided most of the food resources as well as the raw materials for medicines, tools, shelter, and even ceremonial objects. Indeed, the knowledge held by Indians regarding their botanical environment was, by necessity, vast. Native Americans were not simply gatherers of fruits, seeds, and other resources provided by wild plants. Every cultural group used various techniques to store and preserve food plants, often for periods lasting several months or even longer. Some tribes also practiced various forms of agriculture- from simple scattering of seeds at sites of likely germination to intensive irrigation and modification of desert landscapes. Many groups were known to carefully select seeds from the best stock to improve yield, taste and nutrition of future crops. All this was going on long before Europeans arrived in America. One of the often overlooked aspects of the harvesting of food resources in hunting and gathering societies is the contribution of women. For decades academic and popular literature portrayed men as important, if not the primary suppliers of food for the family and village. Yet numerous recent studies have shown that in hunting and gathering economies women provide the bulk of the food resources through the collecting of leaves, roots, fruits and seeds...often more than ninety percent of all the food consumed! There is every reason to believe this was the case with most Indian groups living in the Southwest deserts. Today, commercial agricultural products have replaced native plants in Indian diets. Valuable information regarding desert plants, that passed from one generation to the next, is no longer necessary to sustain life and is therefore in danger of being lost. As society moves onward, it risks leaving behind the often untold knowledge of the desert's first people.