Knife For Gathering Tunas (Gaucho)
date: label: Accession Date
content: 29 Mar 1899
name: label: Collector
content: Dr. Edward Palmer
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Blade set in end of an agave stalk and secured by lashing with string of lechuguilla. The top of the joint of the tuna (nopal or prickly pear cactus) bearing the fruit is dexteriously cut off and the point of the knife thrust in the piece and is brought to the ground without hurting the fruit. A woman brushes off the spines with a bunch of grass and twist the tunas off, holding the piece with her foot." The knife was included in the NMNH Constitution Ave. Lobby Case exhibit featuring the ethnobotanical collections of Dr. Edward Palmer, Dec. 2006 - Jan. 2008. See also NMNH Department of Botany Edward Palmer collections web exhibit page on this artifact: http://botany.si.edu/colls/palmer/narrative_page.cfm?Narr=4&locality= . Identified there: Opuntia streptacantha, a species of prickly pear cactus, grows up to fifteen feet tall and produces edible and delicious fruits known as tunas, which grow from the tips of the cactus pads. Since this particular cactus produces sharp spines, harvesters used various tools to safely remove the prickly pears. Hand-made knives, called ganchos (which means "hook" in Spanish) were one tool employed to collect tunas. The knife blade is made of steel and the handle made from the flower stalk of Sotol (Dasylirion sp.), whose leaves are also used to make fibers. After cutting the fruit from the plant with the knife and letting the severed portion drop to the ground, the harvester held the cactus pad in place with his or her foot, scraped the glochids (fine, downy spines) from the fruit, and twisted the fruit off by hand. Cutting the pad does not damage the plant and actually stimulates growth. In fact, two pads will grow from the cut (Anderson, 2005:141).
label: Record Last Modified
content: 4 Dec 2014
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: San Luis Potosi, Mexico, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 034808
label: USNM Number
content: E201127-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Knife