by Robert Bryce
Before
the trek, we
gathered in the small, two-room schoolhouse in Candelaria. Scooter Cheatham,
the leader of the adventure, told us that he always models his wilderness treks
after ancient cultures. For our five-day excursion in the West Texas desert, we
would re-trace the footsteps of the Jumano Indians, a nomadic tribe that
inhabited the Rio Grande region from about 1200, A.D. through the 1600s.
Cheatham told us that Jumano women usually wore ponchos made from animal skins.
The men were nude, except for ribbons which they wore on their penises.
Fortunately, we didn’t recreate every aspect of Jumano culture.
Thus, armed with invaluable knowledge of the pre- Columbian dress code, I,
along with 15 other people, followed Cheatham around the West Texas desert,
looking for edible cacti, flowers, cattails, and whatever else might be
available.
I knew when Cheatham, the
botanist/artist/photographer/architect/jack-of-all-trades, told me about the
trip that I would do without the creature comforts. But thankfully, I was not
as uncomfortable as Jeffrey Sacks, a gay, Jewish real estate appraiser from the
Bronx who had never slept on the ground. Sacks spent the entire trip wondering
aloud, “Why am I here?” a thought which occurred to me more than once. But when
Cheatham told me about the Hunter-Gatherer Trek, I knew I had to go. And when I
got a magazine assignment to write about the adventure, it made the trip even
more appealing.
So there we were, on the first full day of the trek, in the middle of the
sprawling Chambers Ranch. On empty stomachs, we followed Cheatham on an early
morning death march through the creosote bush and scrub, until we came upon a
bush covered with small red berries, each about the size of a pea. “These are
good,” Cheatham said as he popped one in his mouth and then immediately plunged
onward. I ate one. There was barely enough foodstuff to chew. The berries were
like avocados: The seed was far bigger than the fruit. The bush was fairly
full, but even if I had eaten every single berry, it wouldn’t have made a
mouthful of edible substance. To Cheatham, it didn’t matter. He gave the
impression that food was for sissies and that those who wanted to waste time
eating the berries on the bush simply wouldn’t have made it back in the days of
the nomadic Jumano.
Not all of our five days in the desert were so extreme. And truth be told,
parts of the trip were glorious. The meteor showers in mid-August in the West
Texas sky were stunning. We ate lots of prickly pear cactus fruits and we found
a few other edible plants.
Learning about plants was intriguing. But more than an education in plants,
the trip became an education in one man’s single-mindedness. Simply put,
Cheatham is a hard-head. When he makes up his mind to do something, he, by God,
does it. Consider this: He began working on his first and only book project in
1971. Imagine. Richard Nixon was in the White House when Cheatham decided to
produce a book on the plants of Texas. Now, five presidents later, after years
of expectation and promises, Cheatham’s magnum opus — the first volume of
The Useful Wild Plants of Texas in the Southeastern and Southwestern United
States, the Southern Plains, and Northern Mexico, by Cheatham and Marshall
C. Johnston with Lynn Marshall — is finally available in print.
It’s a hefty tome — 568 pages long, packed with photos — and it contains
virtually everything you ever wanted to know about plants in Texas, from
Abronia to Arundo. And that’s just the start of the A’s. Cheatham expects that
the second and third volumes, which will cover the rest of the A’s and into the
D’s, will be out in about 18 months. The rest of the 12-volume encyclopedia,
Cheatham says, will be finished “about the turn of the century.”
If the rest of the volumes are as good as the first, Cheatham and his able
cohort, Lynn Marshall, who has been working on the project since 1977, will
have reason to be proud. (Johnston, a retired UT professor, has not been
actively involved in the book project since the 1980s.) Each plant is
discussed extensively, with full sections devoted to the plant’s food and
medicinal value. For instance, the 34-page section on agave contains every bit
of agave arcana one could ever wish to know. It gives historical details on all
nine species of the plant which occur in Texas, including this tidbit: “In
Baker Cave in West Texas, many split and knotted leaves, fiber quids, sandals,
baskets and articles woven of agave leaves were found in levels dating between
4000, B.C. and A.D. 1000.” The book also details the method for cooking agave
in a stone-lined pit (which we did on the trek). It lists the plant’s medicinal
benefits, including its use as a treatment for syphilis and as a menstrual
stimulant.
The book is truly a marvel, containing 304 color photos, 268 color
distribution maps, 267 species, 86 genera and 42 families. It is a
Peterson’s Guide on steroids. And although it’s unlikely amateur
botanists will lug the weighty volume around in their backpacks, Cheatham says
the idea behind the book is to “popularize botany. It has remained an esoteric
subject for too long.”
Cheatham and Marshall have spent years cataloguing, photographing, and writing
about the more than 5,000 plants that are found in Texas. And because Texas has
10 different bioregions, the plants found here can also be found as far south
as Argentina and as far north as British Columbia. “It’s the rainforest in your
own backyard,” Cheatham says.
The book is available only through an organization called the Useful Wild
Plants of Texas. It costs $125, but if you join the group for $25, you can get
the book for $95; call Useful Wild Plants at 928-4441. Marshall and Cheatham
will hold a book signing at Zilker Botanical Gardens, on November 19, 3-7pm.
Texas Environmental Almanac Another long-awaited tome has finally been published. The Texas Center for
Policy Studies compiled and wrote this 371-page book, which is packed with
interesting facts on air quality, water quality, endangered species, and energy
and waste. Yours truly wrote the section on energy. If you want a copy of the
almanac, TCPS is requesting $7 for postage and handling. Call 474-0811.
Freeport Update:
* Last week, UT Chancellor William (Dollar Bill) Cunningham sent a statement tothe Daily Texan (he won’t interview with them either) which said, “If
you are going to ask `Am I going to resign from the [Freeport] board?’ the
answer is no.”
* Cunningham may be embarrassed by the Freeport flap. But UT President Robert
Berdahl is in a no-win situation. His sentiments may lie with the faculty which
oppose Cunningham and Freeport. His paycheck, however, comes from the Board of
Regents.
* Two sources have confirmed that James Woolsey, the man who headed the Central
Intelligence Agency whilst Aldrich Ames was giving the Russians some of
America’s most sensitive secrets, is indeed representing Freeport-McMoRan in
their arbitration case with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. So,
Freeport has an inept spy representing them. Is that good or bad?
* Black is White. Truth is Fiction. On August 25, Thomas Egan, a Freeport VP,
wrote a letter to The Nation, which began, “All truthful people know
that to tell a lie, knowing it is a lie, is reprehensible.” So, was Egan
telling the truth in his April 21 letter to Lori Udall of the International
Rivers Network? Egan said of Freeport’s Indonesian mine, “Our security
personnel do not assist the military as alleged in the [Australian counsel for
Overseas Aid] report.” Or was Egan telling the truth in his October 12
letter to me? Regarding the mine, Egan wrote, “We provide other support
including food, transportation and shelter to military personnel involved in
routine security detail, upon request.”
In his August letter to The Nation, Egan concluded, “All those who have
any concern about their reputation for honesty know that to carelessly repeat a
lie, having taken no trouble to discover the truth, is wrong and indefensible.”
George Orwell would be proud.
* Did anyone else notice the similarities between the situation in Nigeria with
Royal Dutch/Shell and that in Indonesia with Freeport-McMoRan? Last week, the
Nigerian government hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental
activists who had opposed Shell’s oil exploration activities in the Niger River
delta. Shell was asked to intercede on Saro-Wiwa’s behalf, but declined.
The New York Times quoted the company as saying, “It is not for a
commercial organization like Shell to interfere in the legal processes of a
sovereign state such as Nigeria.” After reports of murder and torture at the
Freeport mine in Irian Jaya, Freeport spokesman Bill Collier said, “we don’t
comment on allegations about the Indonesian government.”
* Finally, Bernard Rapoport, the chairman of the UT Board of Regents, gave this
reply to the local daily when asked if he had any concerns about Cunningham’s
job with Freeport: “How can I tell somebody else what to do?” Let’s see:
Rapaport and the board hired Cunningham, pay him more than a quarter of a
million dollars per year, and yet they can’t tell him what to do. Hmmm. n
This article appears in November 17 • 1995 and November 17 • 1995 (Cover).