the tree of life

Mesquite: The Tree of Life

By Danny August

There is a very old Yaqui legend about a mesquite tree. I heard it from the lips of an elder, sitting in the shade of such a tree on the Yaqui Nation early one hot season.

The story is about Yomumuli, a young girl who one day hears a large lone mesquite tree talking. She alone understands what the tree is saying, and translates it for her people. It tells them the right way to live. It also foretells the coming of a steel road with a giant iron snake running along it, vomiting black smoke; and of a huge metal bird that shakes the ground when it flies. “You must decide what to do,” says the tree. “For those who cannot stand such suffering and noise, you have the choice of leaving.”

So the people divided in two and those who could not stand such a future walked away. Some turned into ants and lived under the hills. Others walked into the sea and became whales. These ones still live under the hills and in the sea. Whenever they can, they help the humans who stayed behind. The ants show them how to get along with each other, and the whales come close to their boats when danger is near and warn them.
Like the Yoéme (Yaqui), many cultures around the world consider the tree a symbol of life. No wonder: trees provide many of the things that enable us to live. Take mesquite, one of our common Sonoran desert trees.

Mesquite beans are plentiful when they appear each hot season, with hundreds to a thousand or more on each tree. It is said that back in the day a scout could travel on foot from the Rio Grande to the Pacific ocean eating nothing but mesquite beans. Since they are abundant and relatively easy to gather and preserve, they were a staple winter food for the native people that lived where the tree grows, including the Tohono O’odham (The Desert People).

The beans can be eaten directly off the tree when they ripen and are still juicy, or after they harden and fall. They can then be ground into flour on a mano and metate (grinding stones) or commercial milling grinders. The flour can be made into atole, a sweet, nutty-tasting thick drink or thin gruel. First brown the flour in a skillet, then slowly add water, stirring until you achieve a consistency you like. Since mesquite flour contains no gluten, if you want to make bread with it you must add wheat or some other kind of glutinous flour. Another very tasty food derived from mesquite is honey made from the pollen.

Mesquite makes excellent firewood, since it burns hot, completely, and does not throw sparks. You can even fire pottery with it. The smoke from mesquite gives chiles and meat a legendary taste, the flavor of the southwest (vegetarians try tempeh or portabello mushrooms). The smoke also relieves joint pain. Just let the smoke penetrate the ailing body part. A small coal from a mesquite woodfire placed in your pipe is a great way to light your smoking mixture, and adds a little something of its own.

A traditional Native American treatment for wounds is the sap of trees. This remedy is intuitive, since a tree’s antiseptic pitch is what seals and protects its own wounds. Mesquite is no exception. First clean and sterilize the area. Then coat it with mesquite sap.

The roots of mesquite, when pounded and the fibers separated out and twisted makes cordage strong enough for hunting bowstrings.

Mesquite wood is very hard and very dense, since, like many other desert plants it grows very slowly. Traditionally, its hardness made it a serviceable digging stick. For this reason it also makes very resonant musical instruments, like guiros and claves. Native Australians use similar hardwood sticks that they clap together to accompany didgeridoo players, singers and dancers. Once I made a pair of clapsticks from mesquite, which I was playing at Winter Count, an annual native arts rendezvous in southern Arizona. As I played, a Totonoc elder approached me, and taking the sticks he demonstrated how hunters among his people use to those sticks to call in the quail. I then realized that the sound of the mesquite sticks mimics very closely the cluck of the “desert chicken.”

Maybe you have seen the beautiful, lustrous ironwood sculptures of desert animals and plants made by the Kunkaak (Seri) indians, who live in the southern Sonoran desert on the coast of the Sea of Cortez. The ironwood tree is a close relative of mesquite, and another member of the acacia family. Like ironwood, when carved and polished, mesquite makes fine sculptures, it too taking a high luster and yielding beautiful colors, from pale yellows to sunset reds to chocolate browns.

Although our Sonoran desert is the lushest of the five U.S. deserts, because it receives the most rain overall, it is still an austere ecosystem which must endure long droughts. Mesquite and other leguminous trees are the pillars of this ecosystem. The shedding of their beans and the nitrogen-fixing of their roots add crucial nutrients to an otherwise relatively poor soil. Their beans feed many critters in addition to human ones. Birds find shelter in them, and packrats build their nests underneath them. Mesquites also gives baby plants a chance to grow, when otherwise the burning sun would not allow it. Many times you can see saguaros growing right up through their branches, the two embracing like lovers.

Mesquite sustains us. Its gifts to us include food, shelter, medicine, tools, and musical instruments. But perhaps the most sobering way a mesquite tree can make the difference between life and death lies in its shade. In the mind-bendingly hot months of the Sonoran desert, this shade could be the only thing for miles around that will keep the scorching sun from turning you into a stiff carcass, like the ones of unlucky frogs who don’t make it back underground in time after the monsoons end.

If you sit under a mesquite tree, and let your mind become quiet, you may reach the mood of a child. Then, if you are very fortunate, like Yomomuli, the tree may talk to you. If you are more fortunate yet, it may tell you the right way to live.

For it knows. With its roots penetrating deep into mother earth, and its branches reaching high into father sky, truly, it is the tree of life.

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Danny August directs the native arts program at Terrasante Village near Tucson, Arizona. His website is http://sites.google.com/site/controlledfollyproductions/




Mesquite: The Tree of Life By Danny August There is a very old Yaqui legend about a mesquite tree. I heard it from the lips of an elder, sitting in the shade of such a tree on the Yaqui Nation early one hot season. The story is about Yomumuli, a young girl who one day hears a large lone mesquite tree talking. She alone understands what the tree is saying, and translates it for her people. It tells them the right way to live. It also foretells the coming of a steel road with a giant iron snake running along it, vomiting black smoke; and of a huge metal bird that shakes the ground when it flies. “You must decide what to do,” says the tree. “For those who cannot stand such suffering and noise, you have the choice of leaving.” So the people divided in two and those who could not stand such a future walked away. Some turned into ants and lived under the hills. Others walked into the sea and became whales. These ones still live under the hills and in the sea. Whenever they can, they help the humans who stayed behind. The ants show them how to get along with each other, and the whales come close to their boats when danger is near and warn them. Like the Yoéme (Yaqui), many cultures around the world consider the tree a symbol of life. No wonder: trees provide many of the things that enable us to live. Take mesquite, one of our common Sonoran desert trees. Mesquite beans are plentiful when they appear each hot season, with hundreds to a thousand or more on each tree. It is said that back in the day a scout could travel on foot from the Rio Grande to the Pacific ocean eating nothing but mesquite beans. Since they are abundant and relatively easy to gather and preserve, they were a staple winter food for the native people that lived where the tree grows, including the Tohono O’odham (The Desert People). The beans can be eaten directly off the tree when they ripen and are still juicy, or after they harden and fall. They can then be ground into flour on a mano and metate (grinding stones) or commercial milling grinders. The flour can be made into atole, a sweet, nutty-tasting thick drink or thin gruel. First brown the flour in a skillet, then slowly add water, stirring until you achieve a consistency you like. Since mesquite flour contains no gluten, if you want to make bread with it you must add wheat or some other kind of glutinous flour. Another very tasty food derived from mesquite is honey made from the pollen. Mesquite makes excellent firewood, since it burns hot, completely, and does not throw sparks. You can even fire pottery with it. The smoke from mesquite gives chiles and meat a legendary taste, the flavor of the southwest (vegetarians try tempeh or portabello mushrooms). The smoke also relieves joint pain. Just let the smoke penetrate the ailing body part. A small coal from a mesquite woodfire placed in your pipe is a great way to light your smoking mixture, and adds a little something of its own. A traditional Native American treatment for wounds is the sap of trees. This remedy is intuitive, since a tree’s antiseptic pitch is what seals and protects its own wounds. Mesquite is no exception. First clean and sterilize the area. Then coat it with mesquite sap. The roots of mesquite, when pounded and the fibers separated out and twisted makes cordage strong enough for hunting bowstrings. Mesquite wood is very hard and very dense, since, like many other desert plants it grows very slowly. Traditionally, its hardness made it a serviceable digging stick. For this reason it also makes very resonant musical instruments, like guiros and claves. Native Australians use similar hardwood sticks that they clap together to accompany didgeridoo players, singers and dancers. Once I made a pair of clapsticks from mesquite, which I was playing at Winter Count, an annual native arts rendezvous in southern Arizona. As I played, a Totonoc elder approached me, and taking the sticks he demonstrated how hunters among his people use to those sticks to call in the quail. I then realized that the sound of the mesquite sticks mimics very closely the cluck of the “desert chicken.” Maybe you have seen the beautiful, lustrous ironwood sculptures of desert animals and plants made by the Kunkaak (Seri) indians, who live in the southern Sonoran desert on the coast of the Sea of Cortez. The ironwood tree is a close relative of mesquite, and another member of the acacia family. Like ironwood, when carved and polished, mesquite makes fine sculptures, it too taking a high luster and yielding beautiful colors, from pale yellows to sunset reds to chocolate browns. Although our Sonoran desert is the lushest of the five U.S. deserts, because it receives the most rain overall, it is still an austere ecosystem which must endure long droughts. Mesquite and other leguminous trees are the pillars of this ecosystem. The shedding of their beans and the nitrogen-fixing of their roots add crucial nutrients to an otherwise relatively poor soil. Their beans feed many critters in addition to human ones. Birds find shelter in them, and packrats build their nests underneath them. Mesquites also gives baby plants a chance to grow, when otherwise the burning sun would not allow it. Many times you can see saguaros growing right up through their branches, the two embracing like lovers. Mesquite sustains us. Its gifts to us include food, shelter, medicine, tools, and musical instruments. But perhaps the most sobering way a mesquite tree can make the difference between life and death lies in its shade. In the mind-bendingly hot months of the Sonoran desert, this shade could be the only thing for miles around that will keep the scorching sun from turning you into a stiff carcass, like the ones of unlucky frogs who don’t make it back underground in time after the monsoons end. If you sit under a mesquite tree, and let your mind become quiet, you may reach the mood of a child. Then, if you are very fortunate, like Yomomuli, the tree may talk to you. If you are more fortunate yet, it may tell you the right way to live. For it knows. With its roots penetrating deep into mother earth, and its branches reaching high into father sky, truly, it is the tree of life. <<+>> <<+>> <<+>> Danny August directs the native arts program at Terrasante Village near Tucson, Arizona. His website is http://sites.google.com/site/controlledfollyproductions/