flavor, and is exceedingly wholesome. Moreover, it grows in considerable quantity through the mountain ranges of the Coahuillas, and in the early summer ollas stored with these seeds stand in every home, and throughout the cooler hours of the day and evening there is ever a woman grinding at her mill. Beside the salvia, several others plants yield seeds that attract the Indian woman and keep her busy through the months of May and June with her yi-kow-a-pish and chi-pat-mal. Some of these seeds are very beautiful, and possess a real fascination for the eye and touch. The seeds of the Lasthenia glabrata (Lindb.), called by the Coahuillas ák-lo-kal, in mass resemble iron filings, being of a dark color and fine elongated shape. They are prepared by being pounded up into a very fine flour, which is eaten dry. But the most beautiful little seed of all is that of the small crucifer called "pepper grass, "Sisimbrium canescens, Coahuilla ás-il, a tiny reddishbrown seed, round, and flat in shape. It is ground up, cooked in a large quantity of water, and eaten with a little salt. The Atriplex lentiformus, Watson, one of the "salty sages,'' is found in the Coahuilla valley and on the slopes of the Sierras. Its seeds somewhat resemble the chia. They are prepared for food by grinding and cooking with salt and water. It is called ká-sil. The dry flats and valleys of the Coahuilla mountains are frequently closely planted with wormwood, the Artemisia tridentata, Nutt. Its feathery foliage whitens the landscape, and for long distances its pungent odor dominates over every other fragrance. The seeds ripen late in the fall, and are gathered by the Coahuillas and pounded up for pinole. The plant and seed are named by the Coahuillas wik-wut. Among the fruits most important to the Indian inhabitants of the Southwest stand those of the cactus family. There are over fifty species in the United States and a majority of these are found in California. The Mexican prickly pear or "tuna" (Opuntia tuna, Mill) is said by Dr. Havard to have been brought to the Pacific coast from Mexico, where it had been cultivated from time immemorial. It was planted in hedges about the missions and ranch-houses, where it thrives still in picturesque clusters and is now thoroughly naturalized. Its fruit is the well-known "Indian fig." While it has not been planted anywhere on the reservations of the Coahuillas, they sometimes obtain the fruit from other Indians of the valleys. The cactus plant is called by the Coahuillas na-vit and the little bud-like fruit na-vit-yu-lu-ku or "the little heads of the cactus." There are numerous species of cactus throughout the mountains down to the desert level. About a dozen yield fruit products utilized by the Coahuillas. In most cases it is the ripened fruit or "fig" that is eaten. In several cases it is the abundant seeds, in others, the buds and succulent joints of stalk. Except in a few instances I can do no more in the way of identification of these species than to give a description of the plant and state its uses and Indian name. The Opuntia basilaris is an especially valuable cactus plant of the Coahuillas. It is one of the small varieties and has a tender slate-colored stem in flat joints. The young fruit in early summer is full of sweetness. These buds are collected in baskets, being easily broken off with a stick. The short, sparse spines are wholly brushed off with a bunch of grass or a handful of brush twigs. The buds are then cooked or steamed with hot stones in a pit for twelve hours or more. This cactus is called má-nal. Mr. Coville describes exactly the same use of this plant by the Panamints. This cooked cactus is, he says, called nä-vo. I would call attention to the similarity of this word to the general Coahuilla word for cactus fruit, na-vit. No vocabulary of the Panamints has ever been published, but they are undoubtedly of the same great stock as the Coahuillas and such verbal similarities are to be expected. Mu-tal is another of the opuntia, with flat, ugly jointed stems, growing low and spreading over the ground in the most arid stretches of the valleys. The flat joints, the size of one's palm, are crowded along their edges with buds as big as the last joint of a man's thumb. They are gathered in large quantities, brushed, and dried. They are often stored for subsequent use, and when needed for food are prepared by boiling in water with a little salt and lard. Very frequently also the fruit is allowed to ripen for its seeds. The figs, after being dried, are spread out on a hard, smooth, dirt floor and then the woman sits down beside the pile of cactus heads and with a flail, made from the leaf stem of the desert palm, thoroughly threshes out the seeds. These are then winnowed from the chaff and stored for winter use. Along through the winter, as needed for food, they are pounded into meal and cooked into an atole. These seeds are called wi-al and they are obtained from several species of cactus besides the mu-tal. There are two cacti growing along the slopes of Torres mountain that in growth and structure much resemble the Opuntia tuna. I have not seen them in bloom and know nothing of their flowers. Both yield luscious fruit in large quantities. Ti-nup-em might readily be mistaken for a neglected and stunted growth of the cultivated tuna. Na-u-tem is not so thrifty and grows low on the ground. Its flat stems have exceptionally long spines, two to three inches. The a-yu-vi-vi is a very small cactus, only about four inches high and covered with little hooked spines. It has a very small, sparse fruit. The cho-kal is a very furry cactus, with round jointed stems two to three feet high. It is light brown in color and grows in communities, sometimes covering a rocky cañon side for a half mile to the exclusion of almost everything else. It throws off extremely disagreeable balls of spines which fasten in a horse's fetlocks and give instant trouble. Its fruit, which I have never seen, is said to be very good. U-a-chim is one of the cylindrical or barrel-shaped cacti, light colored and furry. It has an edible fruit. Ko-pash is the famed "nigger head," the Echinocactus cylindricis. It appears above the sand simply as a round fluted globe, a little larger than a man's head. It is covered with spines and bears a small edible fig. But its chief value does not lie in its fruit, but in its succulent and thirst-relieving interior. No plant could be more admirably contrived as a reservoir, and the thick tough rind and protective spines enclose an interior that is full of water. This plant is often resorted to by thirsty travelers and, according to the stories told over the desert, frequently saves life. A review of the food supply of these Indians forces in upon us some general reflections or conclusions. First, it seems certain that the diet was a much more diversified one than fell to the lot of most North American Indians. Roaming from the desert, through the mountains to the coast plains, they drew upon three quite dissimilar botanical zones. There was no single staple, on the production of which depended the chances of sufficiency or want. Any one of several much used products might be gathered in sufficient quantities to carry the entire tribe through a year of subsistence. There was really an abundant supply of wild food, far more than adequate, at nearly all times of the year, for the needs of the several thousand Indian inhabitants of former times, although hardly a score of white families will find a living here after all the Indians are gone. And the secret of this anomaly lies in the fact that the Indian drew his stores of food from hillsides and cañons, where the white man looks for nothing and can produce nothing. The territory is a very large one, perhaps 4,000 square miles of cañons and mountains, rough plains, and sandy deserts. In all of it, as we have seen, there are few spots of beauty; only the valleys of pines, the wonderful cañons of palms, and the green potreros about the springs; while over most broods the hot, throbbing silence of the desert. And yet this habitat, dreary and forbidding as it appears to most, is after all a generous one. It bears some of the most remarkable food plants of any continent. Nature did not pour out her gifts lavishly here, but the patient toiler and wise seeker she rewarded well. The main staples of diet were, indeed, furnished in most lavish abundance. Let us notice a few instances. The crops of legumens, that annually fall from the splendid mesquite groves of the Cabeson or the New river country, could not be wholly utilized by a population that numbered a hundred thousand souls. I have seen the mesquite beans fallen so heavily beneath the trees in the vicinity of Martinez as to carpet the sand for miles. Centals could be gathered about every tree. Hundreds of horses and cattle that ranged the valley, to say nothing of the busy women that had crowded their granaries full, effected no visible diminution of the supply. In the splendid moonlight, after the heat of the day, from all directions there would come the busy thud of pestle in wooden mortar, as the women worked leisurely at the mills, while jest and laughter broke the continuity of their toil. Every bush or tree was dropping fatness. The desert seemed the very land of plenty, where the manna fell at each man's door. Or, consider the agave. The various portions of a single plant might keep a family in food for a week. It is a splendid food, delicious, nourishing, and when roasted seemingly superior to deterioration. The lower levels of the cañons of the San Jacinto range or the sides of the Coyote valley could annually feed an army with agave. The "chamish"’ or "yslay" (Prunus Andersonii) in certain parts of the mountains grows very abundantly and yields splendidly. A single cañon often contains enough to supply an entire village with meal of pounded pits. Within the habitat of the Coahuillas scores of such cañons could be found. The road from Coahuilla valley down to Ahuanga creek descends along the bottom of a gorge. The sides of this cañon are covered with Yucca Mohavensis. In July or early August these palm-like trees, for so they almost are, are all crowded with stalks hung with heavy pods, more fruit drying in the sun than the entire tribe could devour. The groves of oaks and pines in the higher valleys of San Jacinto; the abundant crops of chia and other seed plants; the elder berry, so greatly enjoyed, that frequently families will live for weeks on little else; all of these can be found in inexhaustible quantities. Another fact very favorable to the Indians is the long season over which the gathering of these staples is distributed. The harvest time opens in April, with the budding out of agave and yucca stalks, and from this time until late fall there is no month without its especial product. The chia and other seed plants are ready for the fan in May and June, the wild plums in June and July, the mesquite and sambucus in August, and the piñons and acorns from September on. to hoard food. For only about four months of winter was it necessary 23. TERRACE AGRICULTURE IN THE PHILIPPINES' By A. E. JENKS In all of Igorot culture the most apparent and strikingly noteworthy fact is its agriculture. In agriculture the Igorot has reached his highest development. On agriculture hangs his claim to the rank of barbarianwithout it he would be a savage. Igorot agriculture is unique in Luzon, and, so far as known, throughout the Archipelago, in its mountain terraces and irrigation. There are three possible explanations of the origin of Philippine rice terraces. First, that they (and those of other islands peopled by primitive and modern Malayans, and those of Japan and China) are indigenous -the product of the mountain lands of each isolated area; second, that most of them are due to cultural influences from one center, or possibly more than one center, to the north of Luzon-as influences from China or Japan spreading southward from island to island; third, that they, especially all those of the islands-excluding only China-are due to influences originating south of the Philippines, spreading northward from island to island. Terracing may be indigenous to many isolated areas where it is found, and doubtless is to some; it is found more or less marked wherever irrigation is or was practised in ancient or modern agriculture. However, it is believed not to be an original production of the Philippines. Certain it is that it is not a Negrito art, nor does it belong to the Moro or to the so-called Christian people. Different sections of China have rice terraces, and as early as the thirteenth century Chinese merchants traded with the Philippines, yet there is no record that they traded north of Manila-where terracing is alone found. Besides, the Chinese record of the early commerce with the Islands-written by Chao Jukua about 1250 it is claimed-specifically states that the natives of the Islands were the merchants, taking the goods from the shore and trading them even to other islands; the Chinese did not pass inland. Even though the Chinaman brought phases of his culture to the Islands, it would not have been agriculture, since he did not practice it here. Moreover, whatever culture he did leave would not be found in the mountains three or four days inland, while the people with whom he traded were without the art. The same arguments hold 1 Pages 88-93 of A. E. Jenks, "The Bontoc Igorot," Philippine Islands Ethnological Survey Publications, volume 1, 1905. The Bontoc Igorot live in the interior of the northern part of the Island of Luzon. |