How to Prepare Prickly Pear: Native cactus fruit harvesting method.

Описание: Following historical Indigenous methods, in this video, I make a pair of juniper wood tongs and a grass brush to forage cactus fruits with only Paleolithic technology.

Among the Apache, Cahuilla, Northern Cheyenne, Comanche, Diné, Hopi, Jemez, Karankawa, Kiowa, Seri, Tohono O'odham, and other American Indians, prickly pear fruits were historically gathered with wooden tongs and the spines were rubbed off by a grass brush, rolling on the ground with a branch, or rubbing with buckskin.

Note that the Indigenous peoples mentioned are still living cultures and when I use past tense it is to describe practices in a historical context.

This video is for educational or entertainment purposes. It describes historical species' uses and my reckless attempts to replicate them. Some of these species may have toxic or dangerous properties. To be safe, DO NOT try anything I say or do. Foragers should be 100% certain of the ID of anything consumed.

REFERENCES
Barrows, David Prescott. 1967. The ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California.
Bourke, John Gregory. 1895. Folk-foods of the Rio Grande Valley of northern Mexico.
Castetter, Edward F. and M. E. Opler. 1936. The ethnobiology of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache.
Castetter, Edward F. and Ruth M. Underhill. 1935. The ethnobiology of the Papago Indians.
Cook, Sarah Louise. 1930. The ethnobotany of Jemez Indians.
Elmore, Francis H. 1943. Ethnobotany of the Navajo.
Felger, Richard Stephen, and Mary Beck Moser. 1985. People of the desert and sea: ethnobotany of the Seri Indians.
Gatschet, Albert S. 1891. The Karankawa Indians: the coast people of Texas.
Hart, Jeffrey A. 1981. The ethnobotany of the Northern Cheyenne Indians of Montana.
Kavanagh, Thomas W. (ed.). 2008. Comanche ethnography.
Palmer, Edward. 1871. Food products of the North American Indians.
Vestal, Paul A. and Richard Evans Schultes. 1939. Economic botany of the Kiowa Indians.
Whiting, Alfred F. 1939. Ethnobotany of the Hopi.

#foraging #pricklypear #plants #nature #survival