Traditional Western Apache mescal gathering as recorded by historical photographs and museum collections

摘要

And Coyote proceeded to teach Western Apaches how to harvest and trim the different kinds of mescal with stone knives, how to dig a roasting pit and gather wood, stones, leaves and grasses, how to ritually start the fire, how many days to cook the mescal, how to make brush drying racks and sotol forming trays, how to pound up the cooked mescal, and how to spread it into sheets (nahilgane), and let the sheets dry for two days. So Anna Price recounted in the 1930s (Goodwin 1939:56-58). She was a member of the Eastern White Mountain Band, and a daughter of Chief Diablo. Highly respected, extremely knowledgeable about traditional Western Apache lifeways, and equivalent to a head-woman, she was around 100 years old when she died in 1937. Known and reported variously as mescal, mezcal, agave, century plant, maguey, American aloe, ikaz and nadah, the plants being considered here were all species that belong to the genus Agave (from the Greek Agauos, admirable or noble). The species most frequently usedby Western Apaches were A. parryi, A. palmeri, and A. couesii (Castetter et al. 1938:33); A. couesii is now considered to be a subspecies of A. parryi. Agave is probably the best term to use to avoid confusions with mescal beans and mescal liquor, but infact, "mescal" has been the term used consistently by Apaches when speaking in English, and by most ethnographic accounts, and that is what will be used here. The harvesting and pit-roasting of mescal (Figure 1, p. 5) has always been an integral part ofWestern Apache culture, and of their linguistic and geographical neighbors the Chiricahuas and Mescaleros. ("Mescalero" itself - "people of the mescal" is the name applied to them by early Spanish explorers because of their use of this plant.) It formedan important part of their diet, and was especially important because it could be relied upon when other food sources had been exhausted. The best time of year to harvest mescal is the spring, as the plant reaches its final maturity and sugars are concentrated in the head/heart of the plant and the base of the newly forming flower stalk. But if necessary, mescal could be harvested and cooked on the spot at any time of year. It could also be relied upon, because the manner in which Apaches dried cookedmescal into cakes or sheets allowed for its storage for a year, or perhaps as much as six years (Buskirk 1986:172). And dried sheets were a valued item when trading with Navajos and Zunis (Goodwin 1942:72-82). Information on Western Apache mescal harvesting, roasting and processing recorded by military officers, ethnologists and botanists can be found in a variety of published sources. Although these are not the actual original fieldnotes of these individuals, most of these can be considered primary documents in that they are observations made by their authors. These include, but are doubtless not limited to, Bourke (1891:130; in Woodward 1943:40), Buskirk (1986:169-174), Curtis (1907:15-19), Gallagher (1977:46-52), Hrdlicka (1908:257-258), Palmer (1890:168-169), Reagan (1930:293). Buskirk (1986) is a published version of his 1949 Master's thesis; likewise, Gallagher (1977) is her 1972 Master's thesis. Reagan (1929) is more commonly cited, but the data on mescal is identical with that presented in Reagan (1930) which is more readily available. For an overview of the prehistoric and historic use of mescal by tribes throughout the Southwest, Castetter et al. (1938) is essential reading; their information on mescal use by Apaches is primarily drawn fromMescaleros and Chiricahuas, as is that presented by Castetter (193 5:10-14) and Castetter and Opler (1936:35-38), but many practices are similar or identical to those of Western Apaches. Gifford (1940:11,12, 93-94,114-115) gives comparative informationon Apachean and Puebloan groups in the Southwest. It should be remembered that the hearts of various yucca and sotol species were baked and processed in essentially the same ways as mescal by the variou