How did Southwest Tribal people protect and store their food before the days of refrigeration?
They had several strategies to safeguard food against mold, insects and rodents. Many stored food in underground pits, temporary brush shelters and stone and mud structures in cliff walls known as “granaries."
In the Tucson area, archaeologists have encountered storage pit walls that were intentionally fire-hardened from the inside, converting clay-rich soils into a pottery-like structure. Ancestral Puebloan, Hohokam and other cultures used pithouses as well as elevated, rodent-proof stone or mud-and-stick granaries in cliff alcoves, such as the legendary Nankoweap granaries of the Grand Canyon. Baskets and bags likely were used for temporary storage inside houses.
Tribal groups often stored food after drying or cooking it. Edible seeds were stored in covered baskets sealed with creosote gum and pottery shard lids. The hearts of mescal agave and other plants were boiled and pounded into dried slabs. They also dried animal meat and the pulp of pumpkin and squash.
The Mojaves along the Colorado River stored corn in huge granaries woven from arrowweed branches and mesquite beans and in plant-lined underground pits. O’odham groups built structures to shade large sumac basketry granaries.
Interestingly, both sumac and arroweed have natural insecticide properties, suggesting their intentional use in granary construction.
This Earth Note was written by Carrie Calisay Cannon and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
