The fruit is eaten without preparation when it ripens. It is of a crimson color and contains many black seeds about the size of those of the fig, which fruit it resembles in taste. By a process of boiling and fermentation an intoxicating liquor is obtained from the fresh fruit which has been more highly esteemed than the nutritious food and has rendered this new-year a season of debauchery.[1]
The fruit is dried and preserved in balls 15 or more centimeters in diameter (fig. 3). From either the fresh or dried fruit sirup is extracted by boiling it "all day." The residue is ground on the metate into an oily paste which is eaten without further preparation. The seeds may be separated from the pulp at the time of drying the fruit and may be eaten raw or ground on the the metate and treated as any meal—put into water to form a pinole or combined with other meal to bake into bread.
Haʼvalt, Yucca bacatta. The fruit is boiled, dried, ground on the mealing-stone, and boiled with flour. It is also eaten raw as a cathartic. The stems are reduced to pulp and used as soap. Y. elata is also used as soap.
Hoʽny, Zea Mays. Corn, the most important crop of the Pueblo tribes, has, in recent years at least, been of less value to the Pimas than wheat. The numerous varieties are all prepared in about the same manner. As the husked corn is brought in by the women, it is piled on a thin layer of brush and roasted by burning the latter, after which it is cut from the cob, dried, and stored away for future use.
- ↑ "I arrived at the Pimas Gileños, accompanied by the governor of the Coco-Maricopas. There was great rejoicement, for there had spread thus far the report that they (the Moquis) had me killed. The governor of the Pimas told me that all the relatives were well content, and wishing to make a feast, all the pueblos together. I agreed to this, but on condition that it should be apart from me, foreseeing in this what would come to pass. In a little while I heard that they were singing 'a heap' (de monion); this was stopped presently, but was followed by a great uproar of discordant voices, and shouting, in which they said, 'We are good! We are happy! We know God! We are the fellows to fight the Apaches! We are glad the old man (as they call me) has come, and not been killed!' Thia extravagant shouting (exorbitante griteria), a thing foreign to the seriousness of the Pimas, I knew came from drinking, which produced various effects. Some came and took me by the hand, saluting me. One said, 'I am padre de Pedro.' Another said to me, 'Thou hast to baptize a child.' Another, 'This is thy home—betake not thyself to see the king, nor to Tucson.' Others made the sign of the cross, partly in Spanish, so that though I felt very angry at such general drunkenneas, there did not fail me some gusto to hear the good expressions into which they burst, even when deprived of reason. The next day I complained of these excesses to the governor, who told me that it only happened a few times and in the season of saguaro, and adding that it made his people vomit yellow and kept them in good health. What most pleased me was to see that no woman got drunk; instead of which saw many of them leading by the bridle the horse upon which her husband was mounted, gathering up at the same time the clothes and beads that the men scattered about, in order that none should be lost." (Garcés's Diary, 438.) "The three pitahaya months," says Father Salva-Tierra [describing the saguaro harvest in California], "resemble the carnival in some parts of Europe, when the men are in great measure stupified or mad. The natives here also throw aside what reason they have, giving themselves up to feastings, dancings, entertainments of the neighboring rancherias, buffooneries, and comedies, such as they are; and in these, whole nights are spent to the high diversion of the audience. The actors are selected for their talent of imitation; and they execute their parts admirably well." (Venegas, History of California, I, 82.) "The gathering of this fruit may be considered as the harvest of the native inhabitants. They can eat es much of it as they please, and with some this food agrees so well that they become corpulent during that period, and for this reason I was sometimes unable to recognize at first sight individuals otherwise perfectly familiar to me, who visited me after having fed three or four weeks on these pitahayas." (Jacob Baegert, The Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Californian Peninsula, in Smithsonian Report, 1863, 363.)
