Many Tohono O'odham continue to harvest, gather and plant in the Sonoran Desert just as they always have.
And now there is a sense of urgency to pass the traditional ways on to a new generation.
Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by Desert Program Partners.
A group of concerned viewers making a financial commitment to the education about and preservation of our desert areas.
♪ music ♪ In the Sonoran Desert no people have survived and flourished like the Tohono O'odham.
They've been desert dwellers since time immemorial in a land with no rivers and hardly even any trickles.
Key to their survival has been the gathering of wild food and fiber and passing on traditional knowledge to their children.
The land they now occupy is much smaller than at the time of first contact with Europeans.
It crosses the international border with Mexico.
It is also prime habitat for the saguaro cactus which fruits at the hottest time of year, July.
Selso Villegas has invited me to join him on a collecting trip with his grandsons.
In order to get the fruit off the saguaro, because they're high, we need to use saguaro ribs.
This is one of the most important times in the O'odham calendar.
This season right now is the Ha: añ Bahidaj month.
It's collecting the fruit.
We believe that there is a cycle and the cycle starts now because we collect the fruit.
We make syrup and jam and we do make a wine from it.
But it's the ceremonial wine that we use to ask for rain to come.
Somebody's been here.
Somebody has been collecting saguaros from this area.
And I would imagine, because if you look around, there's saguaros all over everywhere and they're pretty ripe.
This is a very old one.
I don't know how old it is but it's been here for awhile.
This is the way the O'odham make.
It's called the kuipud.
It's the stick that pulls down the saguaro fruit, which is the irony, it's the cycle.
We're talking in terms of cycle.
We use fruit to pull down fruit from the saguaro.
It's a continual, never ending cycle.
I used to come with my mom, my grandmother, my father and my grandfather.
My grandmother, she was always telling us about the cycle, about the plants, sort of what I'm doing now to my grandchildren.
It's my knowledge of the desert and I'm passing it on to all of my grandchildren.
And hopefully they pass it on to their grandchildren and then it keeps on going.
We didn't have wire.
We had to use some of the guts of an animal or leather to tie these things.
We don't do that no more.
Cause we don't prepare leather no more.
So we got modern.
We use wire.
I use wire.
And why am I putting it back where I found it, Nacheto?
Because it's somebody else.
Where does it belong?
Right there.
And if it's not yours it belongs wherever you found it, right?
Yep.
And that goes with all the animals and anything you find in the desert.
It's yours, you can use it, but you got to put it back.
Isn't that kind of like borrowing without asking?
There you go.
That's what it's all about.
Putting the saguaro ribs together is probably the easiest thing to do.
And what you need to do is put 'em about maybe a two foot overlap and then tie them with wire.
Look here Mark and Nacheto, I will show you a little trick.
This is a trick that I was taught from my dad.
A secret?
A secret.
It's not a secret no more.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this file and I'm going to cut into it half way, make a notch, and then I get my crossbar and I do the same thing.
And there you go.
It fits.
And it'll give you a better fit.
It doesn't matter what you do now, you can go this way, you can go this way, that's my favorite.
You can go underneath.
You can make a little, you can do this way, you can come across and then you end up right here.
You end up back together, see?
And that's, when you get this, and that becomes your tie down.
And then if you pull on it it's pretty snug.
And we're gonna start, we're gonna put some posts together so that we can go do what we came for.
These are the notches that will hold the wire in place so it won't slip as much as I use it.
That's it.
Now we're ready to go get fruit.
Go try it out, Mark, see if you can handle it.
Okay, let's try this one.
Who's gonna catch?
I am.
Not that one, Mark.
The other one.
No, no, to your right.
Right.
See that big one?
Here it comes.
All right.
Oh.
That was loud.
It bounced out.
That was a bouncer.
It's not your fault.
Here guys, this is the first one we caught today that we're gonna eat so we're gonna have to share this one.
Here goes.
This is what it's all about.
Because we know it's a cycle.
We know that we're back here next year, we'll back here again and we collect the fruit and then we wait for the rain to come.
The rain comes.
Why do we need the rain?
Because there's a fire on the mountain.
Good.
So every year we've got to hope and pray that the water will come cause the birds like it, the lesser long nose bats like it, insects like it, ants like it, but O'odham's like it.
So we throw it back to the ground to complete the cycle.
Now it goes back, starts all over again.
The first one you open, you're gonna eat it, you share, you eat it and then you give some back to the earth because the earth will bring it back up again and you'll be back here again.
And it's a continuous cycle forever.
Grandpa, can I try?
Okay, try Michael.
No, keep on going higher.
Right there.
Oh, right there, right there.
Are you all right?
Here it comes.
We're gonna try to keep it in.
There he comes.
Good shot, almost got it Nacheto.
Grandpa, can I try?
Hey, score one for Sergio.
Yes, you can try.
This one has ants on it.
Even if I just eat one saguaro fruit, just one's enough for me to complete my cycle.
But like I said, I have, my mom says, where's hers and I have to go and get it.
Saguaros and their fruits grow at the lowest and hottest elevation.
The best plants for fiber with which to weave baskets grow somewhat higher where it is also cooler.
Regina Siquieros has been sharing her knowledge for decades.
♪ singing in O'odham ♪ We're taught from the beginning that we need to respect the land and everything on it and you address.
That's the reason that I sing before I do any collecting to acknowledge our maker and to acknowledge what we're given.
And we pick so that we don't kill the plants.
Those, you try to pick those and the ones that are like really straight.
You kind of try to stay away from the ones that are real curly [O'odham word].
But the ones that are white with moho, with the bear grass, you can pick it all year round but in the summer a lot of the bugs are out and so they eat, they chew on them and you can't really find really good ones.
Like now there's a lot of good ones.
Those are good, the ones you have right there.
And we've always said [O'odham words] which means the O'odham way of life is our strength.
But it carries on to where any native population, their way of life is their strength just like your way of life is your strength, if you utilize it.
Well, you have to wear long sleeves here, too.
Cause when you go in you have to go in like from the bottom so you don't.
And we had to learn this because we were always.
Are you like weaving your hand under there?
Yeah.
So that way you don't get cut.
We start picking yucca about May through September, maybe early October, depending on the weather.
Cause once it gets cold they won't be good anymore.
The bear grass, we call it moho, are the ones that are inside the coils and then we use the devil's claw for our design, that's the black.
And we also use the wild banana plant root, if you ever see the red design.
[O'odham words] What we're trying to help our children to do is to learn about it and then utilize it, live it, because that's what made us strong.
We survived this many generations and our stories and our songs survived this many generations.
[O'odham music] Living at different locations at different times of year was part of the O'odham way of life.
Much of the movement between places has to do with water.
The most reliable surface water can be found near the mountains, like on the slopes of Baboquivari Peak.
For the O'odham it is a most special place.
This is a nice area so I'm glad I'm up here.
Water just changes a place, you know, it makes it, it does something for the spirit.
My grandmother, she said in the summertime the sun walked towards the earth and it gets hot.
The cloud and the rain get mad at each other and will not cool the earth.
The wind gets mad and starts blowing hot air.
The animals will start arguing among themselves.
Cottontail and the snake will not share their home.
The chichara will scream its head off and then the humans get mad.
They get overheated and they get thirsty but the O'odham understand.
They've been thirsty and overheated.
It's just part of being in the desert.
And again she said nobody, nothing cannot live without water.
And so people that settled here before we came, before my generation, they picked out areas where the primary water was there and then they hunted and then they start making baskets and then they start having recreation.
And then we eventually became farmers and moved down to the fields.
The O'odham, like most desert people, we really have evolved with the water and that's where we're at right now.
Water is our main purpose.
The represos are our Spanish term for charcos.
Charcos are stalk palms.
When the Spanish came to the O'odham land, they brought well technology.
We learned from them how to build wells.
But it was more of a forced labor.
Windmills are an example of a mechanized device that changed the O'odham, the way the O'odham's live.
But when the Indian Service came out here in the 1930s, when they came, they set up and they put in a lot of windmills because windmills can produce a larger amount of water than trying to draw it by hand.
They changed the life of some of the villages out in the fields.
Our semi-permanent villages became permanent.
People started moving down from the hills, from the mountains into the valleys.
It's the center of our universe and it would be in our O'odham belief that we do, we would settle around the center of the universe and that the Creator would provide us the most important element and it would be water.
So it makes sense that we would live in a mountain area around, centered around our sacred peak and drink water that comes from the mountain area where we're at.
Baboquivari's not the only sacred peak.
There's other peaks on the nation and it just seems to be the same pattern.
♪ O'odham music ♪ In the summertime thunderstorms spill out from the mountains into the valleys and flats, sometimes causing flash flooding.
The O'odham are masters at timing their planting to make use of the floods.
Jefford Francisco continues traditional desert farming.
.come in here.
It's coming from that way too.
And what I want to do.
So this is actually sheet flooding in here, isn't it?
Yeah, sheet floodings, yeah.
It's always been like that over there.
Yeah.
See how it's flat?
Used to be like that all the way across.
My son did a lot of this.
He comes out here and he does it after the rain.
They like walking in the rain.
Yeah, well, I do too.
Do you know anybody who lives in the desert who doesn't like walking in the rain?
Yeah.
When you have a garden, you've got to do that.
Yeah.
Spend a lot of time.
I remember my grandfather used to come out and plant.
I always remember when I went with him, he went and just made, kind of did the same thing here, wait for the water, for the floods to come in.
May 500 or 600 years ago if they could get a crop here, why no reason why you couldn't.
Yeah.
It's still going on.
So my plans next year is to make a berm from that angle.
I like to see other families do the same thing, just do a small garden.
Maybe one or two, four plants and get an idea how it feels to work a garden.
You've got to chop the weeds, you've got to just maintenance it, something to remind you about traditional, how our ancestors used to walk around and do the same thing.
Work the fields, plant, know when the rains are going to come.
That's nice texture soil.
See, it's more drier here than it is over here.
Pray for the rains and we do rain dances.
That's traditional.
That's still going on and we start getting rain.
Other ones that I never tried.
I always want to stick to the O'odham squash.
I have better luck with that one.
Well, it seems to be doing real well.
If it's too dry, you know it's really dry, we haven't gotten any rain, you start watering.
But you've to always remember.
Well, one of the things that we have to do is we have to talk to the plants when we plant them.
We tell them, we're here to plant you.
As we work the ground, we're telling the ground, there's a reason why I'm tearing you up.
There's a lot of the traditionals that I think it's just built in everybody.
Well, I'm sure your dad and granddad knew and they knew where the good soil was.
And they found out before everybody else does.
When I look at the saguaro cactus, they're done, the fruits are done, that's the timing right there when to start getting out in the garden, start working on it, start getting it ready.
Oh, they call that purslane.
You eat it?
Yeah.
Is this one open?
It's spinach.
I think it's wild spinach.
Sometimes you don't need to really work.
You just kind of let nature take over itself, repair the land and let the weeds grow.
A lot that we call weeds but I don't call these weeds.
They're good for wildlife as well, rabbits and birds and other things.
And when they die it brings the nutrients back into the ground.
That's what I see.
And people say, "Well, why are you doing this, it's going to do more work."
I said, "That's the plan, that's the thing farming, gardening, it's work.
It's not, it's meant to be."
I don't know how far it goes down.
I do know here, on this side it's softer than over there.
Yeah.
But you notice over there that when we did it it was still kind of dry.
It's kind of getting dry here.
The Tohono O'odham gardeners have to work in the full sun.
Basket weavers have the advantage of working in the shade in warm and cool months.
Regina knows well that wild plant material is not just for utilitarian purposes, but for artistic creation as well.
This is the red, the roots of the wild banana plant and that's how it looks.
And that's the color it.
And it's natural.
It won't fade.
Same way with the black, the devil's claw, that won't fade.
Then of course we have the white, that's the takwi.
And the moho, it'll be real green when it's fresh but also when it gets old, it'll kind of turn like yellowish.
But when you make baskets it's really a good feeling, it's just a time to be in your own little world, when I make them by myself.
But when I'm with others, like when I sit with my mom and my sisters, it's really a lot of fun.
We just spend a lot of time talking.
So I always tell people that buy my baskets that it's not just a basket.
It's part of me that you're taking with you and I'm going to be a part of your life from here on out.
Just because of that, because a lot of my feelings, a lot of my thoughts and a lot of my own memories go into this.
It's more than just a basket.
It's always told to us that it's something that was given to us.
That in our stories it's told that it was a means of survival, not like it is today where you sell your baskets.
But when you harvest your plants that you use them to store stuff so you made the baskets.
And it wasn't until not too long ago when people started selling them for money.
We have, like our rain ceremony is probably the most important and it's considered the most important because out here on the desert we don't get much rain.
And we need to call for rain, we need to pray for rain.
It goes along with our cactus fruit, the saguaro cactus fruit gathering.
And then we make it into syrup and eventually make it into, ferment it into a drink.
And with that came the baskets, the wine baskets they call them.
We use those baskets to serve the sacred wine or the fermented drink to everybody at the ceremony.
And that's what brings the rain every year.
And the men were the main ones that went out and now more so the women go out because a lot of the men aren't around.
This is my mom's basket, Matilda.
And this is what we call the Man in the Maze and that's very significant for us as O'odham people.
I know that the Pimas have something similar, there's a little difference I think.
If you follow the white path, it'll take you and it'll keep going and going and going.
And it's just like any maze that you see where it ends up at the center.
But what this symbolizes for us is our journey in life and we get to the middle here.
Formerly Tohono O'odham education began in the open desert.
Today it's inside a classroom.
We're going to talk about natural resources, water, things that are because of your age that are going to affect you in the future.
What we're trying to tell you is the transfer of information to you guys.
Because it's good for you as O'odham people and around your village to know where the historical water sites are because if we ever run out of water in the future, you'll know where nature puts water.
Spaniards, they made us slave, learn how to build wells.
They had technology because after the Spaniards came, a lot of wells started being developed on the nation.
But I think that O'odhams always knew how to live in the desert with a minimal amount of rain or water.
Tohono O'odham, desert people, O'odham, people, the Sonoran Desert, the cycle, the rain, all of that stuff, if you're an O'odham, there's no way you're gonna get out of it.
You're hooked to the land.
You need to know that, because everybody has their maze.
We all talk about the cycle, we all talk about, in terms of four, all of this stuff.
But the reality is that without water we cannot live out there.
And we have to understand that it's the most important thing for us as desert people, because we always say that.
There's books written about the desert O'odham, desert people.
But if our children and our grandchildren don't know the history of water or where it came from or where it's coming from now, then I think we need to make them understand and help them to learn.
♪ O'odham music ♪ As pressure from development on the outside increases on Tohono O'odham lands and on the Tohono O'odham themselves, the importance of passing traditional knowledge from one generation to another is more important than ever.
The holiest place in all of Mexico is also the departure point for one of North America's most important royal highways.
Along its sixteen hundred mile coarse, there's plenty of history.
And modern culture is celebrated in ancient cities.
Join us next time on the Desert Speaks.
Our dad always told us whenever we'd go someplace, including picking, like a positive outlook on life, positive thoughts, a happy heart and go and come back that way.
So we'll not get frustrated cause it takes patience and not get mad.
So everybody has a real positive attitude.
Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by Desert Program Partners.
A group of concerned viewers making a financial commitment to the education about and preservation of our desert areas.