Free
There are nearly 300 mescal agave species in the world, native to the Southwest United States and Mexico. The agave plant has been used by Native peoples for numerous utilitarian items. Mescal is served as a valuable food source still being harvested and prepared to this day by many Indigenous groups. For millennia people have pit roasted the heart of the plant, yielding a nutritious food staple rich in calcium and zinc. This talk includes the life history of mescal, and the multitude of Tribal uses of this intriguing plant and their long relationship with this plant, from centuries ago to the modern era.
In collaboration with Mission Garden
PRESENTERS
Jorigine Paya -
A member of the Hualapai Tribe, Jorigine Paya has been actively working with Hualapai tribal youth in cultural heritage preservation, language revitalization, and traditional arts and crafts. She also teaches singing and dancing. She has been employed with the Peach Springs Elementary School District for 35 years. Upon her retirement at the school she began working for the Hualapai Department of Cultural Resources as a language program manager where she also participates as an elder instructor of the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project. Jorigine is also a title holder for Elder-Pai and Pai Woman for the Yuman-Pai Affiliated Tribes where she represents her community.
Carrie Calisay Cannon -
Cannon is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, and also of Oglala Lakota, and German ancestry. She has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology and an M.S. in Resource Management. If you wish to connect with Carrie you will need a fast horse, by weekday she fills her days as a fulltime Ethnobotanist with the Hualapai Indian Tribe of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, by weekend she is a lapidary and silversmith artist who enjoys chasing the beautiful as she creates Native southwestern turquoise jewelry.
