BY CARRIE CALISAY CANNON
Mesas, canyons, and badlands — these are part of the charm and beauty of the region known as the Colorado Plateau, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah within the Four Corners region.
Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument has great potential to contribute to protecting some of the Colorado Plateau’s most fascinating plants, plants of deep cultural importance to many local tribes of the region. It also lies within a region of the world that is botanically distinctive and rare, a home for plants that have become highly specialized to the Colorado Plateau’s distinct climate, geology, and topography. In fact, the Colorado Plateau is home to one of the highest levels of plant endemism in the United States, with one out of every 10 plant species being found nowhere else in the world.
Kaibab plains cactus. REBOU, WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Endemic species are those that are found only in a very specific habitat or region, meaning they literally grow nowhere else on the planet. One such plant is the Kaibab plains cactus, known only to occur on the eastern slopes of the Kaibab Plateau and portions of House Rock and Coyote valleys. This Colorado Plateau endemic is only found within an exceptionally narrow habitat range of open areas of the ponderosa pine and piñon and juniper forest, and also in shrubland and chaparral habitats. This tiny cactus is not only endemic to the Colorado Plateau with an extremely limited range, it also retracts into the ground during the dry portions of summer and winter to protect itself from harsh conditions, further contributing to its elusive nature. The cacti will reemerge during the plentiful rains of the monsoon season with flowering times restricted to a narrow window in early spring.
Plants like the Kaibab plains cactus are a rare beauty unto themselves, and protecting landscapes where they grow can be crucial to their continued existence.
To the culturally affiliated tribes, the region is a familiar place where the many cherished plants have a name, a story, and a use, knowledge that has been carefully observed, fine-tuned, and handed down throughout the generations, bringing strength and resilience to the people who know this region as an extension of home.
Piñon and juniper forests have and continue to be significant resource-gathering areas for the Hualapai and surrounding tribes of the Colorado Plateau. Harvesting materials like piñon nuts and piñon sap has taken place throughout the years as a time-honored tradition.
"I remember growing up harvesting the nuts in the fall with my paternal grandparents from Havasupai," says Hualapai tribal member Jorigine Paya. "We traveled up the canyon on horseback and mule to the forests on top. It was a big family affair with grandparents, parents, and aunties. We would all camp out for about a week."
Paya grew up doing this year after year, and in turn began teaching this practice at the bilingual elementary school on the Hualapai Reservation during the 1970s and 80s. Now Paya continues to teach the next generation of harvesters through the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project on the reservation.
LEFT: Running Wolf Havatone making pinon butter on the grinding stone. RIGHT: Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project elder Jorigine Paya instructing youth on making dough for bread on hot coals to spread pinon butter on. CARRIE CALISAY CANNON
Piñon nut harvests vary with the ebb and flow of the seasons. Good bumper crops occur every three to seven years with mediocre crops in-between, but on average one can expect a good crop about once every four years.
In days gone by, the people knew when to expect a good year; they were tuned in to the subtleties of the specific microregions. They looked to the skies in the early autumn, and if the piñon jays flocked to one place in abundance, it was an indication of a good crop of nuts.
There are two methods for harvesting. In September the fresh green cones are carefully harvested before fully opening so that the majority of the nuts can be retained. The right timing is crucial. The green cones must be mature enough so that the nuts within will not burn up when roasted.
Green piñon cones. BLAKE MCCORD
A knocking pole can be used to reach them, or a young child can climb the tree to rain down the cones, which are then roasted in a shallow earthen pit to release the nuts. They don’t sell knocking poles at Walmart; IKEA, Lowe’s, and Home Depot don’t have them either. Paya recalls that in preparation for the harvest, her uncle crafted the needed tools for the harvest and roast. Knocking poles can be crafted from the limbs of ash trees by lashing an L-shaped limb to the end of a large stick, which helps to dislodge the cones from the limbs.
The other method is to harvest the nuts that have fallen to the ground in October from the remaining cones that have opened and released their yield. Nuts are eaten fresh, roasted, ground into nut butter, or added as a thickener in deer stew. It is an age-old tradition practiced still to this day by individual families and among the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project, which continues harvesting outings and cooking classes using the traditionally harvested plants.
Plants such as Indian rice grass, tansy mustard, deer grass, chia, panic grass, narrow spiked dropseed, sacaton grass, amaranth, and pickleweed were all important edible seed sources during the summer months.
Indian rice grass. THOMAS MEINZEN
Specialized seed beaters and harvesting and storage baskets were all crafted, needed tools and vessels for the harvest. Depending on the seed plant being harvested, some seeds were beaten into baskets with seed beaters woven from sumac or willow plants; other grasses were cut by hand below the seedhead with the shoulder blade bone of desert bighorn sheep from the canyons.
These seeds were nutritional staples that could be eaten and stored for use in winter months. Over a thousand pounds could be harvested and stored in a given season and were still being wild-harvested in the early part of the last century. Shivwits Paiute tribal member Shanan Anderson’s grandmother, born in 1915, grew up still harvesting the wild seed plants as her ancestors had done before her.
Seed beater, used to harvest wild seeds, Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute). NATIONAL MUSUEM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Heavy cattle grazing in the region combined with other colonial stressors caused an end to such food-harvesting traditions that were once a tribal mainstay. In contemporary times some of these native grass species are found most abundantly in protected areas where they have not been wiped out by overgrazing and replaced by non-native species.
The unique landscape and biodiversity in plant species have influenced tribal lifeways for millennia. The area’s plants have provided the materials necessary for shelter, food, medicine, clothing, and even transporting water.
The story of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument would not be complete without including the peoples who have called this land home since the beginning of time. In order to understand their history, one needs to understand the plants that grow here. Remembering this plant knowledge and having a place to preserve the species is essential, as the plants and tribal peoples are inextricably linked.
Carrie Calisay Cannon is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe and an ethnobotanist employed by the Hualapai Tribe, for whom she has worked for the last 18 years.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocate contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.
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