FOOD PLANTS OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 59 



stones. Fire is kept up in the pit until the stones are thoroughly 

 heated ; the mescal heads are then placed in the hole and covered over 

 with grass and earth and left to roast for a day or two. Mescal heads 

 thus cooked consist of fibrous, molasses-colored layers, sweet and deli- 

 cious to the taste and wonderfully nutritious. Pieces will keep for 

 many years. The agave is called a-mul, the sections of the stalk, 

 u-a-sil, which are also roasted and, though fibrous, are sweet and 

 good, 1 and the short leaves about the head, ya-mil. The yellow blos- 

 soms, amu-sal-em, are boiled and dried for preservation, and then 

 boiled anew when ready to be eaten. The fibers from the leaves of 

 the agave, amu-pa-la, are exceedingly important in manufactures and 

 their uses have been noticed above. 



The Yucca Mohavensis (Coahuilla hu-nu-vuf] grows abundantly on 

 various hillsides and sandy canons of the southern exposure of the 

 San Jacinto range, as well as near the summits of the canons on the 

 desert slopes. The species is quite different in appearance from the 

 Yucca Whipplei, Torn, which grows so abundantly nearer the coast and 

 in the vicinity of Pasadena, and is known as the "Spanish bayonet" or 

 quijotes. In the Yucca Mohavensis the clusters of spines are very 

 dense about its foot, and its short, thick stump or caudex rises to a 

 height sometimes of six feet from the ground. Its flower stalk or 

 scape is short and thick", but clustered with the delicate waxy flowers 

 of the yucca kind. The fruit, nin-yil, appears as plump, sticky, green 

 pods, three to five inches long with big, black seeds filling the center 

 in four rows. These are picked when green and roasted among the 

 coals. They have a sweet, not unpleasant taste, slightly suggestive of 

 roasted green apples. When ripe, the pods are eaten uncooked and 

 are sweet and pleasant, though slightly puckering to the taste. 



The Yucca Whipplei grows but sparsely in the territory ranged by 

 the Coahuillas. Its stalk, called pa-nu-ul, is cut before flowering when 

 full of sap, and roasted in sections in a fire pit for one night. The 

 dates or seed bags, wa-wal, are also eaten, as well as the flowers, which 

 when in bloom are picked and cooked in water in an olla. Growing 

 with a clump of agave and yuccas, on the north slope of Torres moun- 

 tain, I had once pointed out to me a different variety of yucca, 

 probably an unnamed species, which the Coahuillas call ku-ku-ul. It 

 is small with slender spines. The head and stalk are roasted and 

 eaten. 



i MR. C. F. LUMMIS has described roasted mescal stalk as tasting like "jute strings and molasses." 

 " The Apache Warrior," in the Land of Poco Tiempo.} 



