RESEARCH

UN ALMANAQUE DE ESPINAS Text for the portfolio of plants of the Ethnobotanical Garden, Etchings by students of the Rufino Tamayo Workshop. ALEJANDRO DE ÁVILA BLOMBERG 03.01.02 "México, con su nopal y su serpiente; México florido y espinudo, seco y huracanado, violento de dibujo y de color, violento de erupción y creación, me cubrió con su sortilegio y su luz sorpresivo." "Mexico, Flowery and Thorny" is the title of the seventh chapter of "Confieso que he vivido," where Pablo Neruda narrates his experiences in our country. His memoirs and poems repeatedly allude to the thorns of this land, both the botanical and human ones. Mexican plants are bristling, very sharp. They are covered in spines and thorns, with edges and teeth. This is how the nopal and the maguey defend themselves, but also the palms and the pochotes, the guapillas and the huizaches. Ultimately, the thorns evoke the dead: the plants live heavily armed to protect themselves from animals that no longer exist. Large sloths and armadillos, mastodons, gomphotheres, and other giants with strange names disappeared forever when the first people arrived. The plants remained in peace. Only the thorns remember those vegetarian beasts. With nopales, magueyes, and other thorny plants, we are creating a garden in Oaxaca. Infused with the heightened nationalism that Neruda already perceived in the forties, we have excluded all foreign species: the garden only allows Oaxacan plants. There is no need for outside species as the state boasts the most diverse flora in the country. The very name of Oaxaca references a plant. Called "Lula" in Zapotec, "Nunduva" in Mixtec, "Huaxacac" in Nahuatl, the city is always associated with the huaje tree, which bears white flowers, red pods, and edible green seeds. Like many other native plants, the huaje has undergone human selection. Chosen from generation to generation, the thickened seeds have lost the bitterness of their wild relatives. In fact, the oldest remains of plant domestication known throughout the Americas come from Oaxaca. Pumpkin seeds dating back ten thousand years were found in the Guilá Naquitz cave, just forty kilometers from the city. Three thousand years later, the earliest evidence of corn that we know of was charred in the same cave. The indigenous glyph representing Oaxaca, a human mask adorned with huaje pods, embodies this ancient relationship between people and plants. Transformed into the head of a creole princess from which a lily blooms, the glyph and the connection endure as the official emblem of the city. The Oaxaca Ethnobotanical Garden aims to showcase the live complexity of this relationship. The garden occupies the backyard of the former Dominican convent. The inner walls of the cells, whitewashed with prickly pear cactus sap and polished smoothly, now reflect a hundred shades of green. But the connection between the plants and the monks goes beyond mere decoration: the convent was built on the economic foundation of the cochineal nopal fields. The insect bred in the cacti of Oaxaca dyed the whole world red for three centuries. It was exported to silk factories in China, carpet weavers in Persia, and lacquer and paint workshops in Florence and Paris. Women painted their lips with it, and it was used to color treats for children. It generated immense wealth for the Spanish crown and its merchant subjects, making Oaxaca the third city of New Spain and providing abundant alms to its religious orders. Echoing ancient sacrifices, the blood of the nopal, as cochineal is called in Nahuatl, sustained the grandeur of Santo Domingo Grande. In reality, it was the labor of indigenous workers that built it, as cochineal was the result of the hard work of cactus cultivators and, before them, the product of the curiosity and patience of those who domesticated the nopal and tamed the pest that kills it. Like an imprint of the human hand, the nopales lost their thorns, and the insects gained weight. In the garden, we cultivate wild, thorny, and rigid cacti alongside cultivated, smooth, and tender nopales. The domesticated species, "so maidenly and delicate" in the words of a colonial observer, contrasts with the aggressiveness of its wild counterparts. By planting them together in juxtaposition, we highlight the human inheritance of plants while also emphasizing another theme of the garden: intellectual property rights and equity. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, a French adventurer managed to bypass the colonial authorities that restricted foreign access to Oaxaca. Thiéry de Menonville smuggled nopales with fine cochineal, which he took to Haiti. Spain eventually lost its monopoly, and Oaxaca ceased to be the center of production. In the 21st century, as the global market demands cochineal again because synthetic red dyes are carcinogenic, Peru and the Canary Islands supply the majority of the demand. The communities that domesticated the insect and its host plant centuries ago receive no compensation today. Barbasco, another plant from Oaxaca, offers a more recent example related to the same issue. On October 15, 2001, the fiftieth anniversary of the synthesis of contraceptives was celebrated, which were developed by Syntex laboratories in Mexico City. The creators of the pill started from diosgenin, a chemical compound abundant in the tubers of Dioscorea composita from the Chinantla region. The researchers did not stumble upon this species by chance; they were guided by indigenous knowledge of plants: barbasco is traditionally used for fishing. The substances derived from the crushed roots, which modify the surface tension of water and suffocate fish, are used to make steroids. Pharmaceutical companies gained enormous profits from cortisone and sex hormones derived from the Oaxacan plant, products that revolutionized medical practice and curbed population growth worldwide. However, the Chinantec communities have not received even a mention of recognition in the literature for their intellectual contribution. The dioscorea, an unarmed plant, must be a thorn in the conscience of scientists. La contribución of the indigenous peoples is not limited to food and remedies. Oaxaca is notable for its entheogens, plants and fungi that open perception. In the mist-covered mountains of the northern part of the state, the shamanic knowledge of psilocybin and other surprising chemical compounds was first documented. The "sacred mushroom ceremony," popularized through the magazine "LIFE," deeply moved urban audiences and sparked the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. The "father of ethnobotany," Richard Evans Schultes, had conducted his doctoral research in northern Oaxaca before working for several decades in the Amazon. After a lifetime of gathering information about sacred plants worldwide, he concluded that Oaxaca is the region with the greatest diversity of species. From this observation, we can infer that it is the area where these plants hold the highest cultural value. A particularly interesting case is the leaves of Maria Pastora, Salvia divinorum, the most potent entheogen studied thus far. It has only been found in the Sierra Mazateca, where it grows under cultivation and does not appear to exist in the wild. The plant maintains an intimate relationship with an ethnic group seeking to reclaim their territory and genetic resources. The Garden promotes the recognition of indigenous rights over natural resources and also spreads a message of respect for the plants themselves. Many of the species we cultivate are endangered. Wild populations are decreasing day by day due to human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, fires, and other forms of vegetation destruction. In several ironic cases, it is the appreciation for plants that leads to their demise, as greed for rare and beautiful species has created an infamous trade in looted plants from the countryside. Cacti, with their monumental forms and spiny textures, fetch particularly high prices. Among the cardones, biznagas, and other Mexican cacti, the ghosts of mammoths wander once again, warning of the threat hanging over the plants with which they once coexisted. Once again, death looms at the hands of humans. The conservation message does not close the book of the Garden. The prints in this portfolio, numbering twelve like an almanac, reflect the taste of a group of young people. They took care in drawing the plant each one chose. They did not know its name or its use; they simply saw something in it. Beyond the role of plants in satisfying our material needs, beyond the concerns they provoke in our consciousness, we can read in them a profound allegory of human life, which perhaps motivated the students of the Rufino Tamayo Workshop to exert themselves in this task, and which Neruda expressed in his "Serenade to Mexico." " ... somos la misma planta y no se tocan sino nuestras raíces." We express our gratitude for the support provided by the Government of the State of Oaxaca, PRO-OAX, Fomento Social Banamex, and the INAH/CONACULTA in the creation of the Oaxaca Ethnobotanical Garden. Sources: * Neruda, Pablo. (1974). Confieso que he vivido. Memorias. Seix Barral, S.A., Barcelona. * Janzen, Daniel H., and Paul S. Martin. (1981). Neotropical anachronisms: The fruits the gomphotheres ate. Science, 215: 19-27. * Flannery, Kent V. (ed.). (1986). Guilá Naquitz; Archaic foraging and early agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Academic Press, Orlando. * Smith, Bruce D. (1997). The initial domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 years ago. Science, 276: 932-934. * Piperno, Dolores R., and Kent V. Flannery. (2001). The earliest archaeological maize (Zea mays L.) from highland Mexico: New accelerator mass spectrometry dates and their implications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 98(4): 2101-2103. * Benz, Bruce. (2001). Archaeological evidence of teosinte domestication from Guilá Naquitz, Oaxaca. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 98(4): 2104-2106. * González, Rogelio, and Julio Calva. (2000). Evolución gráfica del glifo de Oaxaca. Identidades, No. 1: 10-11. Instituto Estatal de Educación Pública de Oaxaca y Gobierno del Estado. * Esparza, Manuel. (1996). Santo Domingo Grande, hechura y reflejo de nuestra sociedad. Patronato Pro-Defensa y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural de Oaxaca (PRO-OAX), A.C., y Fundación Rodolfo Morales, Oaxaca. * Donkin, R.A. (1977). Spanish red; an ethnogeographical study of cochineal and the Opuntia cactus. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 67, Part 5. Philadelphia. * Chimal, Carlos. (2001). Perfil: Carl Djerassi. Letras Libres, Julio: 76-78. México, D.F. * Schultes, Richard Evans, and Albert Hofmann. (1982). Plantas de los dioses; orígenes del uso de los alucinógenos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, D.F. * Ott, Jonathan. (2000). Pharmacotheon: drogas enteogénicas, sus fuentes vegetales y su historia. Segunda edición. La Liebre de Marzo, Barcelona. * Davis, Wade. (1997). One river; explorations and discoveries in the Amazon rain forest. Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, Nueva York. * Neruda, Pablo. (1957). Obras 11. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires. (La Serenata de México forma parte de El Cazador de Raíces, sección cuarta del Memorial de Isla Negra). These sources cover a range of topics related to Oaxaca's plants, culture, history, and ethnobotanical knowledge.