Ethnobotany in Cactus and Succulents ... 2/2

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CACTI

Cacti played in important rule in the survival of ancient peoples in the Americas, because of the harsh, dry lands it was an excellent source of food (esp. fruits), fibre, building material etc etc.. Along with this they quite often played a religious part as well e.g. Peyote, a medicinal role, or legendary role e.g. the Mexican Flag with it's design of an eagle perched on an Opuntia, as foretold to the peoples of where they should build their new city/empire.

• Opuntia - Fruits (tuna - especially O. ficus-indica) are eaten, as are pads once spines scrapped or burnt off. Their use is recorded way back into history and has become mythical.
  Pads of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia species) were cleaned of their spines, split in half, warmed and used to treat rheumatism, asthma, earaches, and haemorrhoids. Pads could also be used as a poultice for insect bites, snakebites, burns, rashes, sunburn and minor abrasions. The juice of the prickly pear was used for minor rashes, sunburn, and windburn.
  The Hopi used roots of cholla cactus (Opuntia species) to treat diarrhoea, and Navajos used cholla to treat arthritis.
  Early settlers in west Texas, cultivated large prickly pear cactus fences around their homesteads to fend off wild animals. Opuntia, which can survive drought, is a useful food for cattle, sheep and goats especially the specially hybridisedspineless forms.
  Cochineal, an insect that produces a red dye, was a very important industry before the advent of synthetic dyes, and was "cultivated" on the opuntias, the plants and insects were also were brought back to Europe for this purpose.
  Because of Opuntias importance it is found around the world, due to human intervention, like Sicily, Canary Islands and throughout the Mediterranean, Africa and Australia (where is now considered a pest/noxious weed).
• Carnegiea gigantea (saguaro) - Provides homes for wildlife like woodpeckers. The fruit is a food source for Indians and seeds ground up provided a flour. The skeleton of the plant can be used for building and the cactus ribs were used as splints for broken bones.
  It was such importance to some tribes that they based their annual calendar around the life and seasonal cycle of the saguaro.
• Lophophora williamsonii (peyote) - has a chemical similar to LSD called mescaline. Members of the Native American Church are permitted to use peyote in religion under the US constitution.
• Trichocereus pachanoi (San Pedro) - like peyote above, contains chemicals of a hallucinary nature.
  Both of the above (plus other cacti containing hallucigens) played an important part in (religious) ceremonies dating back many thousands of years (maybe 6-7,000 years) and are represented in many drawings, statues, carvings etc. of a religious/sacramental nature.
• Fish hooks were made by ancient peoples from the spines of cacti.
• Fruits of Pachycereus, Opuntias, Carnegia, Stenocereus, Mytrillocactus, Echinocereus, Ferrocactus, Hylocereus, and Mammillaria are/were all eaten.

A searchable database on Native American Uses of plants . Type in Saguaro, Opuntia, Agave etc to get links to articles on uses of these plants.