If your interested in this sort of thing and want a look into how native americans truly lived a great book to read is "The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca", originally "La relación y comentarios" a report by De Vaca written in 1542 about this failed Expedition starting in 1527. 1527 to 1536 would not be that far removed from the 1400s as far as native american customs go and this would be the first first hand book ever written about it. What amazed me is how varied regional customs, food, language, superstitions, etc. was. You can't paint the way people lived during that time with a broad brush, but for the most part the common denominators are you often starved, got cold alot, got attacked everywhere you went, and feared all sorts of superstitions that ruled your life. It would not have been a fun time and place to live in. When you did it eat, it was mostly what was available seasonal by area. Like nothing but cactus and cactus fruit for weeks or months, or blackberries for a month, oysters, among other things talked about in the book. And the bow was obviously well into use during 1527. A really interesting book if you have not read it.

https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/~breilly2/odyssey/Cabeza_de_Vaca.pdf

From the book, imagine getting to eat mesquite beans prepared this way.

This mezquiquez is a fruit which, while on the tree, is very bitter and like
the carob bean. It is eaten with earth and then becomes sweet and very palatable. The way
they prepare it is to dig a hole in the ground, of the depth it suits them, and after the fruit
is put in that hole, with a piece of wood, the thickness of a leg and one and a half fathoms
long they pound it to a meal, and to the earth that mixes with it in the hole they add
several handfuls and pound again for a while. After that they empty it into a vessel, like a
small, round basket, and pour in enough water to cover it fully, so that there is water on
top. Then the one who has done the pounding tastes it, and if it appears to him not sweet
enough he calls for more earth to add, and this he does until it suits his taste. Then all
squat around and every one reaches out with his hand and takes as much as he can. The
seeds and peelings they set apart on hides, and the one who has done the pounding throws
them back into the vessel, pouring water over them again. They squeeze out the juice and
water, and the husks and seeds they again put on hides, repeating the operation three or
four times at every pounding. Those who take part in that banquet, which is for them a
great occasion, get very big bellies from the earth and water they swallow.

Wonder what it would have been like in the San Diego, CA area, hard to beat the year round weather there.

Meziquiquez. I'm looking at the original text and when translated Meziquiquez is in reference to what de Vaca called stinging flour. The process they describe sounds more like the method for preparing acorns by grinding and leeching in water to remove the tannins. Mesquite beans can be eaten raw or ground up and when ripe have a high sugar content, no need for leeching. One of the early Native Americans who helped establish the southwest through trade was Magoosh Chief of the Lipan Apaches. He once said "With cactus you can survive, with Mesquite you can get fat".

On a side note I've eaten breads made from Mesquite flour, drank Mesquite bean coffee from the roasted hard bean and have eaten jams made from grinding up the outer pod and drank a form of mead or beer from the same. Nopales I eat quite regularly and the tunas are a nice yearly surprise. Jams and wine from those. The average person just see's Mesquite and cactus as something to avoid, never thinking it can save your life. Surprising how much water you get out of munching on raw cactus pads. Many of the large flint scrapers we find were for just that purpose, scraping the thorns off the pads. It's slimy like ocra and some people like it that way. Humans like many animals can get allot of water out of a cactus, makes traveling a long ways easier. They've traveled days across areas that had no water but was covered in cactus. Maybe enough to keep one hydrated.

Interesting part is this was they're daily routine, look for food and water, constantly look for threats (Two legged, four legged and no legged.) and try and stay warm and out of the weather. We have several rock overhangs on the ranch and the stone is black in the ceilings from anchient fires. Hell of a life!

Prickly Pear Cactus facts.

https://www.nutrition-and-you.com/nopales.html

^^My thinking.

And, no doubt people got sick and some died eating native plants. But we know they learned what was nutritious, what was poisonous, and what was medicinal. As an example, every part of a cattail is edible.

What has impressed me the most is the lesson I was given by a Terrell county rancher, and it lasted all day long on a 20 section ranch, we traveled by UTV. He took me to obvious shelters, showed me how they cooked, and told me what they ate. That is some of the hardest country on this continent, and they made a living.

Poke salud. Who figured out you had to boil it three times before it became non toxic? After two attempts, I would have said screw it, lets try the leaves on that tomato plant and see what happens.

Very true. Skunk is said to be the best tasting small game at the time. Eating was more opportunistic at this point. Whatever presented itself. However if you take away all the rules we have in hunting and only apply taking an animal I am sure their success was better than one would think.

Cabaza de Vaca’s book/journal is an excellent read. I would highly recommend if interested in Texas Indians.

Exactly. Need often leads to many discoveries.

The Caddo would prepare bullnettle nuts as a pain killer. If done correctly it has an effect similar to morphine.

They winged it. It depended on where they were most likely. My father told us stories that were passed down from his people about seeing Buffalo around San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers where they camped. They wouldn't eat fish because they thought they were nasty. We eat them now because the buffalo are gone I guess.

The Indian that lived in the western US had to be some real bad A$$es. Only the strong survived. Amazing that they didnt advance much from the time they got to the continent some 25 thousand years ago. Meanwhile just a short 500 miles south of Texas large advanced civilizations thrived with cities of over 300k in population. I'm guessing it was easier to find food, water, and good soil in the jungle.

Like stated earlier I probably wouldn't settle Texas, or the western US aside from SoCal back then if I had a choice.

Well, the ice bridge that allowed entry from Asia had melted. Or I would hitch a ride with Leif Erickson who landed on America 500 years before Columbus.

Would you please post the recipe? Asking for a friend.

When you mess around with bull nettle you'll need something like morphine.

There were a lot of worms, insects, and the like eaten very frequently. Grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, ect. Very nutritious and they didn't have to risk life and limb to gather them. I've eaten toasted hoppers and crickets. They really weren't bad.

Actually, prior to the disease epidemics introduced by de Soto, de Leon, Cortez, La Salle, Hudson, etc., most of the Americas had large populations that lived quite well with a varied diet of vegetables, meat, foul, fish and other seafood. Various trapping methods involving nets, weirs and snares were well advanced and productive.

A little more detail on that if you have it. I've seen drawings of some rather elaborate traps and snares. Some could catch a deer!

Start with 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/pre-columbian

Back then it would have been cold everywhere. Global warming over the last 100 years or so has driven the cold further North.

There was also a larger wild animal population back then. I have read news reports of bear and antelope in the Ballinger, Runnels county area in the 1880's. Also mention of springs and running creeks that today are seasonal only when it rains.

Certainly a more diverse population but they still had screw worms, predators , etc.

In any case, a person on foot with a stick bow probably couldn’t count on going out an collecting a pronghorn or bear at will.

But live water was much, much more plentiful

Idk how true it is but this older man I know told me his grand parents or maybe great grand parents came to north Texas in the 1880’s and they said they were bears up here

This was in 1880



This was 1876