A FRAMEWORK FOR THE EXPLORATION OF
TEXAS NATIVE AMERICAN PAST
III - TEXAS IN CONTEXT - MAIZE
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The Chihuahua desert - Barrier or Gateway? |
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Figure 11 - The Chihuahua Desert |
5. THE CHIHUAHUA DESERT AND THE MAIZE REVOLUTION
Another marginal borderland that influences Texas is also its main connection with the south. The Chihuahua desert could easily be considered a barrier to the flow of people because of its harsh conditions. In fact, much as it happens today, it is the gateway from the central mountains and highland plateau of Mexico, and from the lowlands of the Pacific coast. Although a desert, it is crossed by several major tributaries of the Rio Grande system. The Pecos flows from the plains on the Texas side, and the Conchos, the Florido, the Salado and the San Juan flow from the southern Sierra Madre.
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Figure 12 - From Teosinte to corn |
These rivers are the routes that introduced maize or Indian corn from earlier groups that settled in the fertile soils of Mesoamerica. Corn was a man-made variety of a small grass called “teosinte”, a weed that produced seeds similar to sesame. It was genetically modified by a slow selective process. Some 7,000 years ago, early farmers in what is today southern Mexico and Central America, developed this new crop. It allowed the cultural evolution from hunting and gathering to farming. Farming leads to permanence and material accumulation, to a process we call civilization. Although it was a slow process, this food technology spread throughout the continent.
Maize, combined with beans and squash, became the most important source of food security for humans in North America, and the origin of the great Mesoamerican civilizations: Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Mayan, Toltec and Aztec. It is also the basis of the agricultural societies that developed 4,000 years later in the American Southwest, and all the way up and across the Mississippi River Basin. Corn, beans and squash, the aboriginal trinity, 1,000 years ago became the common staple even in the northeast, where the people of the forests shared this knowledge with the starving Europeans in the XVII century. Corn is this continent’s gift to the world.
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Figure 13 - Some varieties of Indian Corn, maize |
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Figure 13 - Mogollon pottery Casas Grandes Chihuahua |
The
Chihuahua desert was initially the natural gateway from the Great Plains to the
south. The trail later known as the Santa Fe Trail connects the plains with the
Rio Grande. The animal herds established
it. Something similar happens again at the tip of the plains when one reaches
the Pecos. The evident cut in the
mountains created by the Rio Grande leads to a natural gateway we now know as
El Paso. This was the main route traced by the ancient beasts and the earlier human
migrations from the plains to the south.
It was also the
route followed much later from the south to the north. Corn, beans, squash, exotic birds, metals,
shells, building technologies, pottery, and cloth weaving flowed north. Turquoise and
opals flowed south. It is no accident that the Spaniards followed the same routes
on their way north to explore their new possessions after conquering the Aztec
empire.
The western part of Texas is the eastern borderland of the ancient
Mogollon people of northern Mexico. It is also the southern tip of the later
Pueblo people. It is the meeting place where the people of the plains, the
people of the mountains, and the people of the desert converged.
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15 - Turquoise rock |
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17 - Anasazi turquoise beads - a form of money |
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16 - Turquoise stones from New Mexico |
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18 - Turquoise covered Aztec Masks at British Museum - Turquoise from New Mexico mountains |
Key words: Texas
4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones,
cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico
and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest,
Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins,
archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.
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