Saguaro National Park

The audiovisual presentation about saguaro cacti at the Saguaro National Park  Tucson Mountain District visitor center characterized these 50-foot creatures as gentle giants and our ancestors.   With hands outstretched and  silhouettes of what looked like a whole community of mobilized people, saguaro cacti are said to be so named from a mispronunciation of a Papago word.  

The Papago word may have been Subaipuri, who knew? 

From 1691 to 1767, friars of the Catholic religious order called company of Jesus, more commonly known as Jesuits, established and operated Catholic missions in what is now Arizona and Sonora. It must have been that day when one  Padre Pio,  while visiting a village, noticed one odd-looking plant, that to him was almost blasphemous and sacrilegious, an index  finger flipped to the heavens!  So he asked an indio, "Como se llama esa planta?"

The local,  a Tohono O'odham who did not speak Spanish must have thought that  the foreigner was asking  who was in charge of the village so he told this  Padre Pio about his Subaipuri chieftain who was conferring with other village elders at the time.  The  Subaipuri people are ancestors to both Tohono O'odham or Papago , the desert people and Akimel O'odham or Pima, the river people. The Subaipuri people  lived in what is now the Sonoran Desert, along the major rivers of Southern Arizona, such as the Gila River.  Had the Tohono O'odham man understood what Padre Pio was asking about, he would have told the friar that the magnificent cactus treated with reverence  in the village is known as Ha:san. 
Nobody really knew and I made the story up just so you know.

"It's so war row not sag war row!"
I have been mispronouncing the mispronounced Papago word.
"How about Subaru just like your Forester?"
"Ambot nimo oi!"

Vi who has been living in Phoenix for the last 35 years does not remember the last time she visited the Tuscon Mountain District  of the Saguaro National Park. It must have been a long time ago she said, like thirty years ago. But she is familiar with these giant cacti, they are the esteemed neighbors showcased at the Desert Botanical Garden not very far from her house.

"Does he not look familiar?"
"Saba diha!"

The young saguaro who I instantly  took for a male  reminds me of a Native American legend about the origin of saguaro cacti  and the palo verde plant. The following legend is legit and I did not have to make this shit up.

Once upon a time, an old Indian woman had two grandchildren. Every day, she ground wheat and corn between the grinding stones to make porridge for them. One day, as she put the water-olla on the fire outside the house to heat the water, she told the children not to quarrel because they might upset the olla. But the children began to quarrel. They upset the olla and spilled water and their grandmother spanked them.

The children were angry and ran away. They ran far away over the mountains. The grandmother heard them whistling and ran after them and followed them from place to place but she could not catch up with them. At last the older boy said, "I will turn into a saguaro so that I shall live forever and bear fruit every summer."

The younger brother said, "Then I will turn into a palo verde and stand there forever. These mountains are so bare and have nothing on them but rocks. I will make them green."

The old woman heard the cactus whistling and recognized the voice of her grandson. So she went up to it and tried to take the prickly thing into her arms, but the thorns killed her.

The film presentation at the visitor center AV room dramatically concluded when the  floor-to-ceiling curtain that used to be the projector screen revealed a window that showcases a lush mountainside. The ocotillos actually swayed to the tune of the whistling of the saguaro cacti while the palo verde trees stood by  for their turn to take  part in either dancing or whistling.

"Look, a crested saguaro!"
"What the fuck is a crested saguaro?"

Vi told me about the special saguaros which may have been like congenital disorders such as  benign tumors or adenoma in the pituitary gland to humans. The crested saguaro in the picture has been compared to a convoluted brain, something intricately twisted.

A fully grown saguaro, can grow more than a ton. With an intricate root system, saguaro cacti, whether normal or crested, could weigh a ton when  fully grown. Normal saguaros grow very slowly at first, an inch or so during their first 6 to 8 years. They reach a full height of 40 to 50 feet when they are 150 years old. The tallest may reach up to 75 feet and the oldest is about 200 years old. Baby saguaros have  the best chance of survival when sheltered by mesquite, ironwood or palo verde trees.  The present day Tohono O'odham who are known to be the descendants of the Hohokam continue to gather the saguaro fruit just as their ancestors did.  The age-old practice has recently been enhanced by an NPS finalized in 2015 which allows the gathering of certain plants or plant parts  such as that of a saguaro by federally recognized Native American Tribes for traditional purposes. 

In the Tohono O'odham culture, the saguaro is considered a sacred plant. Saguaro ribs taken from a dead saguaro are used to gather fruits. The  Tohono O'odham calendar is said to be based on the cycles of the saguaro. The cycle culminates into wine-making ceremonies  as well as jellies and candies from saguaro fruits

According to the Tohono O'odham Nation website, O'odham tribes inhabited vast areas of the southwest. These included portions of Sonora, Mexico, areas of Central Arizona that included areas north of Phoenix,  the Gulf of California in the west and areas along the San Pedro River near Tucson in the east. In 1853, the treaty of La Mesilla which was also known as the Gadsden Purchase divided the Tohono O'odham Nation in half between the United States of America and Mexico. The present-day Tohono O'odham Reservation is an enclave surrounded by  lands formerly inhabited O'odham ancestors, the Hohokam and crossed by seventy-five miles of the US-Mexican border at the south. The O'odham reservation is bordered by Gila Bend on the north and Ajo to the west. 

The Tucson Mountain District of the Saguaro National Monument which was established in 1961 is likely at the eastern edge of the Tohono O'odham Reservation. The monument which featured petroglyphs, marks left behind by Hohokam people thousands of years ago, was later designated as a national park in 1994. 

https://www.firstpeople.us/Legends/OriginoftheSaguaro

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles

https://www.nacla.org

https://www.nps.gov/sagu/learn/nature