4 U.S. Southwest and West

The West and Southwest include an amazing range of environments, from desert to mountain to coastal regions. In each region were native peoples who had adapted their lifestyle to the natural world around them. Some tribes were nomadic and survived in lands that couldn’t support agriculture by hunting and gathering. Other tribes lived in villages and farmed successfully with irrigated fields—some for more than 1,000 years.

In the Great Basin region, which includes Wyoming, Nevada, and parts of Idaho, food was scarce. There was no staple food, and the tribes living in this region survived by eating a wide range of wild foods. Whenever possible, they hunted deer, antelope, mountain sheep, rabbits, rodents, and reptiles. They fished mountain streams and collected everything edible, including insects, roots, berries, seeds, nuts, mesquite beans, and agave plants.

One important food source was pine nuts. These nuts were gathered from piñon trees, which are found in the dry mesas, canyons, and foothills of the Great Basin and Southwest regions. These rich, oily nuts have a lot of protein. They were eaten raw, roasted, parched, or boiled in many different recipes. Today, the Paiute tribe of Nevada celebrates a Pine Nut Festival, paying tribute to this important traditional food.

In California, most tribes had more natural resources from which to draw their supply of food. They did not grow their food. Instead, coastal tribes fished and collected shellfish, such as abalones. They gathered wild food, such as seeds, birds’ eggs, fruits, nuts, roots, berries, yucca, and sage. They also hunted elk, deer, birds, reptiles, rodents, and insects. For many tribes in California, acorns were the staple food. More than 60 species of oak are native to this region, so acorns were like corn for these tribes. Acorns are rich in oils and carbohydrates, which made them an important source of nutrition.

To harvest acorns, men climbed oak trees to shake the nuts down. Women collected them and processed the acorns for eating. They pounded the acorns into meal. First, however, the bitter tannic acid, which is bad for the human digestive system, was leached out with water. The nuts were given several soakings lasting at least half a day. The acorn flour was then boiled into gruel or baked into bread. Acorns took the place of corn for California tribes that depended on wild foods.

In the desert and mountain regions of the Southwest, native tribes also gathered wild foods, but they depended on agriculture for at least part of their food supply. The ancestors of the Pueblo tribes, known as the Anasazi, adapted the crops of ancient Mexico to their desert homeland. Corn, squash, beans, chili peppers, and gourds have been grown in the Southwest for more than 2,000 years.

Some Native American tribes collected birds’ eggs whenever they could find them. Eggs are a good source of protein.

Women of the Moquis tribe of Arizona prepare food inside their house in this drawing. Many of the foods used in traditional Southwestern cooking, such as corn, beans, and peppers, have been grown in the region for thousands of years.

Because of the wisdom of their ancestors, the Pueblo tribes were excellent farmers. They carefully placed their community fields near water sources and used sophisticated methods of irrigation. They also shared their knowledge of agriculture with Apache and Navajo peoples when those tribes arrived in this region in the 14th century.

In addition to growing food, these tribes hunted antelope, deer, elk, and rabbit. They gathered a variety of wild foods, including pine nuts, berries, the fruit of cacti and yucca, juniper berries, mesquite beans, wild onions, wild herbs, and honey. Like other native peoples, they gathered seasonings and made teas and healing tonics from these wild foods.

Because agriculture was so difficult in the desert, the spiritual and cultural life of these tribes was closely tied to their supply of food. Much of their spiritual life focused on the growth of corn, the staple food in this region. To the Hopi, corn pollen is sacred. The four colors of Hopi corn represent the four sacred directions in their spiritual world. Corn is sacred for the Navajo people, too. When a Navajo couple marries, the bride’s grandmother gives the bride and groom a basket of cornmeal. The couple exchanges a bit of meal, receiving from each other the blessings of the spirit world through the corn.

Unlike the tribes in the eastern part of the United States, for Indians in the Southwest, tending the fields was men’s work. Much of the women’s day went into food preparation. They ground corn into meal using a mano, a handheld stone, and a metate, a stone grinding basin. Many traditional recipes are based on corn preparations. For example, the Pueblo tribes enjoyed blue cornmeal mush, a major staple that is still eaten as a breakfast cereal, soup, or side dish at dinner. From their diverse food supply, the women created cuisines that were both delicious and healthful.

The tribes of the West and Southwest experienced contact with Europeans first through the Spanish, who arrived in their homelands during the 16th and 17th centuries. Although this cultural confrontation was sometimes violent, for many tribes, it was an opportunity to expand their range of agriculture. These tribes gained fruit trees, oats, and wheat, as well as sheep, goats, horses, and cattle.

With these additional food sources, the cuisine of the region changed, and traditional recipes incorporated the new ingredients.

A traditional food of the Great Basin tribes was roasted grasshoppers. Native peoples caught these insects by driving them into trenches with fire. They were eaten like peanuts.

The Navajo became great sheepherders, and by the 19th century, mutton stew had become an important part of the Navajo diet. The Pueblo people began to grow fruit orchards. From these orchards emerged a favorite dessert called pastelitos. These small turnovers were filled with dried fruits from orchards, such as peaches, and baked in a horno, a beehive-shaped oven.

The second wave of contact came with the white settlers from the eastern United States in the 19th century. After years of war and treaties, the tribes of this region were forced to live on reservations. This did not greatly affect the lifestyle of the Pueblo people, whose reservations were the same as their traditional homelands and villages. Although their lands were more restricted, they continued to grow their traditional crops and the foods they acquired from the Spanish. As a result, Pueblo peoples today still prepare and eat many of the traditional foods their ancestors ate, in addition to modern foods.

This period had a far greater impact on other tribes, like the Navajo and the Apache. As with many other tribes, being placed on reservations dramatically changed the diet of these semi-nomadic tribes. For some, land for raising crops and livestock was so limited that they became dependent on reservation foods, such as flour, lard, cheese, and sugar. Many others managed to adapt their traditional lifestyle to these changes, combining traditional foods with new foods. §

Cacao pods, shown here, are where chocolate comes from. The Aztecs of Mexico added chocolate to sauces and drinks, but it was unsweetened.