![]() Most of the materials used are vesicular basalt, granite, sandstone, conglomerates and other stone indigenous to the local area. Metates can be slabbed (flat and thin), have basins, or troughed. Both the Metate and Mano are made in different shapes and forms and from different stone materials. In combination they operate as a mill for grinding seeds and beans to make flour. Metate, also Spanish, adapted from an Aztec word "matlatl". Reinhard.Ĭopyright © 1979.A Metate (also known as grinding stone, milling stone, and hand mill) is the larger stationary bottom stone on which the mano is operated. The Hohokam were completely dependent on their immediate environment for all the necessities of life.Įxcerpted from the book, ' Hohokam Indians of the Tucson Basin' by Linda M. Materials for houses, ramadas, clothing, containers, ritual paraphernalia, and tools also came from the rivers, deserts, and mountains. Native plants and animals were not used solely for food by the Hohokam. The meat could also be cut into strips with knife-like flakes and dried in the sun. When one flake became dull, it was discarded and another was made.Īfter returning to the village, meat was portioned for roasting by using heavy stone choppers to cut joints and tendons. ![]() In a few seconds, the sharp fragments were knocked from a larger rock and were ready to use. The Hohokams skinned and gutted larger animals at the site of the kill, using sharp flakes of rock as knives. Small animals, such as lizards, mice, and ground squirrels, could be eaten raw or could be spitted and cooked without gutting. Preparation of an animal for eating depended on the size and type of creature killed. Such a drive could have yielded enough food for a whole village during the late winter starvation time, when little of the stored plant foods remained. Groups of people, walking slowly in a line towards the net, beat the bushes and shouted, to crowd the animals before them. They drove rabbits and other small animals into nets strung across drainages. During certain seasons, Indians conducted communal rabbit hunts. Birds, mice, lizards, and snakes could have been trapped or shot with arrows. Villagers hunted larger animals with bows and arrows. Not particular in their culinary habits, the Hohokam also added tortoises, lizards, and snakes to their diet. Deer and rabbit were the most important meat sources, but the Indians also killed and ate mountain sheep, antelope, and rodents, including mice and ground squirrels.ĭove, quail, duck, and geese were among the birds hunted, and Indians who lived along larger rivers also ate fish. ![]() They had no domestic animals except the dog, so most meat was obtained by hunting. The Hohokam supplemented their primarily plant-food diet with meat. Berries and acorns collected in the mountains may have been used later as additives in otherwise bland stews and breads. The Indians roasted the agave crowns in pits to make a succulent meal. There, they harvested agave crowns, acorns, manzanita berries, and other small fruits. ![]() The Hohokam went on gathering expeditions to the mountains. The Hohokams returned to their villages only with those products that were to be saved for later use. Other cactus fruits that were not eaten raw were dried and stored. The Hohokam cooked down saguaro fruit into syrup and made cakes from the dried seed. After removing the needles, cholla buds and prickly pear pads were baked slowly in pits. The Hohokam probably prepared cactus in much the same way as the Pimas and Papagos do. They ate, dried, and cooked the plants at the camps. When collecting cactus fruits then, as now, groups of people camped in the cactus groves. In June, July, and August, they gathered fruits of the saguaro, cholla, prickly pear, and barrel cactus. The villagers also collected foods in the desert foothills, as do the Pimas and Papagos today. This important resource could have been made into broths, stews, and breads. Villagers stored the bean pods in baskets and jars or mashed them into flour, using a mortar and pestle. The Hohokam collected mesquite beans from the trees that grew along the river banks. In drought years, the Indians depended heavily on wild plants and animals. The Tucson Basin Hohokam constantly supplemented their agricultural diet with native foods. Hunting and gathering practices of the HohokamĪUTHOR: Linda M.
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