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67 5 Bounty among the Saguaro she was stepping in my footprints. At first, I didn’t realize what she was doing. I was trying not to stumble on the uneven, rocky Sonoran Desert soil as I wound my way around the creosote and brittle bushes, trying not to get my legs punctured by cholla cactus. I was leading a project director for an East Coast film crew through the desert near the Gila River south of Phoenix, Arizona. I was hired by the company to help preview a site where it was hoping to film a group of Native artists creating “on the spot art” in the Sonoran Desert. I glanced back to check on her when I noticed what she was doing. I stopped, smiled, and asked in a teasing way, “Why are you stepping in my steps?” I simultaneously held back a laugh and felt sympathy at her response. She admitted that she was deathly afraid of snakes and assumed that I, who was a Native person and desert dweller, knew where the snakes were and that I would be able to avoid any. By following my tracks, she was hoping that, by default, she would also avoid the snakes. There was probably some logic to her assumptions. I have been traversing desert lands on foot for nearly all my life. Is it possible that one develops a sort of anti-snake radar as a result of being among them for so long? Probably not, but it is possible to communicate in other ways with desert life that is neither scalable or measurable and that can lead today ’s desert dwelling descendants to maintain and revive patterns of resilient stewardship among the Saguaro. 68 eating the landscape Saguaro are an indicator species for the Sonoran Desert, a hot and arid region that stretches south from just north of Phoenix and all the way down into northwest Mexico to the state of Sinaloa. The Sonoran Desert ends to the east where it meets the Chihuahuan Desert just before the border of Arizona and New Mexico. Its western boundary meets the Colorado River and the Sea of Cortez, although some scholars and mapmakers include Baja, California, as part of the Sonoran Desert. Nevertheless, it is one of the largest desert regions in the world, covering nearly 120,000 square miles. Cold weather refugees from the northern climes, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, often flock to the Sonoran Desert in their huge motor homes during the winter. In the summer, these “snow bunnies” pack up their lawn chairs and bird feeders and head back north. Except for those that live full time in the Sonoran Desert, the region is generally avoided during the summer. The average annual rainfall there is less than 10 inches, which arrives mostly in the winter months and during the annual monsoon season that begins in July. Temperatures reach up to 120 degrees during the hottest month of June. Figure 5.1 Sonoran desert landscape; southwest of Tucson, Arizona. Bounty among the Saguaro 69 The Sonoran Desert is home to about 60 species of mammals, 350 different bird species, and 20 species of amphibians, 100 plus reptile species, 30 native fish, and more than 2,000 native plants. The Sonoran Desert includes plants from the agave family, palm family, cactus family, and legume family, to name a few. The flora and fauna that thrive in the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert have evolved specialized adaptations to survive arid conditions. People coevolved with this desert as well. At the time of European contact, over 25 distinct indigenous cultures thrived in the Sonoran Desert. The desert is still the homeland for 14 Native cultures, including the Tohono O’odham, Akimel O’odham, Hia-Ced O’od­ ham, Seri, Maricopa Apache, Tonto Apache, Yavapai, Mohave, Pima, Cocopah, Quechuan, Yaqui, Mayo, and Opata. When most people consider deserts, they think of vast, harsh, desolate places devoid of life. Therefore, few people realize that the Sonoran Desert offers a bounty of diversity stewarded for centuries by these 14 Native cultures. Earlier, it was noted how Cabeza de Vaca commented about the bounty of the landscape when he and his lost companions stumbled their way into the Sonoran Desert region. Of special interest was where they noted several varieties of what they called calabasas, which were no doubt different kinds of locally raised squashes. They partook of the colorful mix of corn offered them by their Native hosts...

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