Hardwood digging sticks were used for gathering bulbs, roots, etc., and a special stone knife was used for cutting mescal. Seeds were collected on a blanket and carried in a skin bag. Acorns were boiled like beans, parched (never leached), shelled and ground on a metate or stone mortar and stored in a skin bag. The meal was eaten with meat stew. Mesquite and screwbean mesquite pods were pounded either in stone or hide mortars; and the seeds were thrown away, and the pod flour was soaked or boiled and the juice drunk, eaten as mush, or stored in cake form.
Mescal heads were pit-roasted as mentioned; a buffalo shoulder-blade was used as a shovel to scoop coals over the pit. The fire was usually lit by a lucky person. The cooked head and leaf bases were pounded and dried on frames and stored dry. Syrup was made from the flowers and the stalk above the head was eaten.
Yucca fruit was eaten either cooked on coals or dried, and the root stalk was used for soap. This pertained to practically all of the yucca family. Most cacti fruit and some of the pulp was eaten.
Pinon seeds were gathered and eaten raw, roasted or mashed into a butter. Pinon pitch was chewed as gum. Walnuts, wild plums, cherries, grass seeds, etc., tule and some greens (cooked) were used. Fruit juices, mescal, mesquite, and sotol juices were drunk either fresh, or boiled and fermented. In later years a maize wine was made. Salt and honey were gathered and used.
Meat was sliced, dried and made into pemmican; bone marrow extracted; blood boiled in paunch and sausages were made in gut. Meat food was stored either in skin bag, parfleche or pot.
Little agriculture was practiced. Irrigation with ditches from streams was known. Farming was confined to the sandy soil in the stream bottom land. All farming was a man’s job except the harvest when women helped. A two-handed planting stick was used. Corn was eaten green, roasted or dried and shelled by women. Two varieties of beans, pumpkins, squash and gourds were grown. Gourds were used as canteens, dishes and spoons.
Mescal harvest camps were sometimes set up in small caves, but tipis or thatched wickiups were the permanent houses. Tipis were three-pole foundation, buffalo hide with ventilator flaps, faced east or downwind, and had a fireplace and smoke-hole in the center. They were pegged to the ground, had a covered door, and a dew-cloth inner liner. When moved, they were carried on a travois or drag with horse.
Temporary lean-tos, shades, windbreaks, domed sweat houses, log rafts and log bridges were built and used. Swimming was done only when necessary, or when water was available.
Grass and agave hair brushes were made. Horn, wood and shell were used as containers. Knives, awls, and needles were made from stone and bone. Wood was worked with stone hammers, mauls, axes and fire. Stone was flaked, ground and polished. Fire was made by stone or a pump drill.
Bows were made of mulberry, oak, juniper, walnut and other woods. Bow strings were made of sinew and vegetable fiber. Arrows of willow and other woods—points were stone. Mescalero arrow points were supposedly stemmed base, or the base was side notched. These types of projectile points are common to the Carlsbad Basketmakers, too; so it is impossible to differentiate the two when found. Undoubtedly, those found on the Park fit into both cultures. Arrows were feathered with three feathers from the eagle, hawk, turkey and crow; and arrows were carried in an open-skinned, sewn quiver of deerskin, mountain lion or wildcat. They were carried on the back, under the arm, or on the belt.