Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1898 — THE GIANT CACTUS. [ARTICLE]

THE GIANT CACTUS.

Mexicans and Indiana Make Many Uses of the Ugly Plant. Southern New Mexico and Arizona and southwestern Texas embrace a region totally unlike any other section of the United States. This portion of our country bears evidence of Its Mexican origin In Its swarthy population and its low-built “adobe” bouses, while its bleak mountains hiding treasures of precious metal and its sandy deserts, among whose greasewood and mesquite bushes live the poisonous tarantula, the venomous rattlesnake and the stinging scorpion, seem but part and parcel of Our Sister republic on the south. That which strikes the traveler most forcibly, however, in journeying through the sandy wastes, is the wonderful luxuriance of the cactus family which appears to grow everywhere—the lowly eholla (choy’yah), the reedlike oCalilia (okah-lee’-yah) and that unsightly giant, the great sahuara (sah-wah’-rah). The dryer the sand and the hotter the sun the better the castus seems to flourish. On some mountainsides the chollas grow so thick one cannot pass through them, so fierce arc the sharp spines of the cholla “balls.” Curved at their ends like fish-hooks, these little spines pierce leather and fasten upon the skiu of the foot, causing the most intense pain. Tlough and repulsive as these various kinds of cactus are, however, yet a use has been found for most of them. After treating the stems of some of the smaller varieties, furniture is manufactured from them—chairs, tables and other small articles; the tall, graceful stems of the ocalilla are gathered and woven into fences, while the weird, uncouth sahuara is put to a number of uses which will require a more detailed description. The sahurara, easily the king of the cactus family, is peculiar to Arizona, its fluted columns with its gaunt, up-ward-growing arms, covering the deserts, in seme places, like a veritable forest. It is often twenty feet in height and its heart is a watery pulp protected by long parallel strips of tough, fibrous Wood reaching from base to top, the whole covered with a thick, green skin Which successfully turns the sun’s rays and prevents the evaporation of the water within. Where the sahuara gets this water is a mystery since it grows in the dryest of places where rains come, if they come at all, at almost yearly intervals. This water, however, is of no use to man as many a poor prospector has found to his sorrow. It is estringent and bitter, serving only to increase thirst The Indians of the country—Apaches, Plmas, Papagoes, Maripocas—use the straight, flexible poles which form the skeleton of the sahuara in the construction of their huts. Like the “prickly pear,” the giant cactus also bears a fruit which grows on the very tips of the parent stalk and its branches. This fruit is nearly the size and shape of a hen’s egg. When ripe it is of a scarlet hue and splits open into four lobes, disclosing a pulpy mass about the consistency of a fig and filled with minute black seeds. The Mexicans and Indians are passionately fond of this fruit—and so are the birds. The former, if so fortunate as to get ahead of their feathered rivals, take long poles and knock the fruit from the top of the stalk. The Indian squaws dry it and prepare it into a dish resembling fig-paste. But there is a use to which the squaws put the fruit which is not so commendable. It is pressed in wide, shallow baskets and the juice collected in pottery ollas (o’-yahs), vessels of native manufacture. The ollas are then stored in a small room where a fire is kept burning until the appearance of a white froth on the surface of the liquid. It is then a strong drink called “tlzwin,” for which the Indians show a deplorable fondness. In former years the government always expected trouble from its red proteges in “tiz-win-tlme,” and extraordinary precautions were taken to hold the savages in check during those particular periods.