The lower country
Apache homelands run from mountain forest down into desert grassland and low basins. The southern parts of that range, in southern Arizona, southern New Mexico and the borderlands of northern Mexico, include areas where mesquite, agave, cactus and a number of desert shrubs grow. Groups such as the Chiricahua and some Western Apache bands are described in the literature as using these lowland plants, as do accounts of the Mescalero range, though what any particular band relied on depended on where it lived and the year.
This article concentrates on mesquite and a few other desert plants. Agave and cactus fruits are covered in their own articles.
Mesquite
Mesquite is a thorny tree or large shrub of washes and flats. In summer it produces long, pale pods containing sweet pulp around hard seeds. The pods are the main food. They are best gathered when dry and ripe, often in early to mid summer after the first heat, though timing varies with rain.
Published accounts describe several steps.
- Gathering. Pods were collected from the tree or picked up from the ground, usually avoiding those that had been affected by insects or moisture.
- Drying. Pods were dried so that they could be stored.
- Pounding or grinding. The pods were pounded or ground into a coarse meal. Much of the sweetness lies in the pulp, so seeds were often removed or crushed depending on the method.
- Eating. The meal could be mixed with water to make a sweet drink or gruel, or shaped into cakes that were dried for later.
Mesquite meal can be stored for some time, which gave it value as a reserve food. Nutritionally, mesquite flour is known to be a fairly sweet, high-fiber food, but this article avoids detailed nutritional claims.
Mesquite pods are also eaten by wildlife and livestock, and the trees were used for wood. Mesquite wood burns hot and long and is dense, so it was used for fuel and for some tools and implements. Gum from the tree is mentioned in some sources for other uses, but details are limited.
Other desert plants
A number of other desert plants appear in sources on southern groups. Not all of them applied to every group, so the list below is deliberately general.
- Cholla buds. The flower buds of certain cholla cacti are described in the wider Southwestern literature as a food that was cooked, often by pit roasting, and dried. Their use among Apache groups is mentioned in some accounts, though it is better documented for neighboring desert peoples.
- Prickly pear pads and fruit. Both are covered more fully in the article on saguaro and prickly pear.
- Wild greens and seeds. After rains, annual plants appear quickly and some were gathered as greens. Grass seeds and seeds of various weedy plants were also collected.
- Wild berries and fruits. Hackberry, wild grape and other fruits are mentioned for places where they grew near streams or springs.
- Sotol and related plants. The heart of sotol, a desert plant with a rosette of long leaves, is reported in some sources to have been roasted much as agave was. Reports of its use come from several Southwestern areas, but care is needed in attributing it to any one group.
The seasonal pattern
Desert foods ripen in a different order than mountain foods. Saguaro fruit and mesquite pods come with summer heat, while acorns and piñon nuts come with autumn in the highlands. This allowed some groups to move between zones, which is part of the Apache seasonal round discussed in the broader literature. A family might harvest in the lowlands in summer, move to higher elevations for later harvests, and pass the cold months in sheltered places. The details vary, and scholars caution against treating a single diagram of the year as true for every band.
The role of water
Desert gathering was tied to water. Springs, washes and seasonal streams drew people to particular places, and the summer rain pattern, the Southwest monsoon, helped decide when pods and fruit were ready. In dry years, harvests could be small. People relied on knowing alternatives, on trading with neighbors, and on stored foods.
What has changed
Today many of the lowland mesquite stands near rivers and washes have been cleared, grazed, dammed, or covered by development, and groundwater use has changed some stream flows. In some places mesquite has spread into grasslands, in others it has declined. These are different histories in different places. Apache land loss and the creation of reservations that excluded many former gathering sites also changed who can reach these plants.
Interest in mesquite as a food has also grown outside Native communities, and mesquite flour is sold by some commercial producers. Such products have no inherent connection to Apache nations, and the foods described here should not be assumed to be interchangeable with them. As always, gathering on tribal land requires permission, and current information about programs or events is best found on each nation’s official website.