Abstract
Ethnohistorically, wild and domesticated teparies (Phaseolus acutifolius: Leguminosae) are significant native food crops in southwestern North America. Their value rests in adaptations to arid environments, and high protein content and productivity. Use of wild teparies appears to be discontinued, but certain domesticated varieties are still grown by local commercial and subsistence farmers. The recent subsidence of tepary cultivation is related to breakdown of traditional economies and land use, and to the introduction of energy-intensive irrigated agriculture. An earlier and unsuccessful attempt to introduce teparies into modern agriculture was poorly timed. Teparies have considerable potential for low maintenance agriculture in arid and semi-arid lands.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Literature Cited
Bean, Lowell John andKatherine Siva Saubel. 1972.Temalpakh (from the Earth) — Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Malki Museum Press, Banning, California. 225 pp.
Berglund-Brucher, Ollie andHeinz Brucher. 1976. The South American wild bean (Phaseolus aborigneus Burk.) as ancestor of the common bean.Economic Botany 30(3): 257–272.
Bohrer, Vorsila L. 1960. Zuni agriculture.El Palacio 67: 181–202.
—. 1970. Ethnobotanical aspects of Snaketown, a Hohokam village in southern Arizona.American Antiquity 35(4): 413–430.
Brandon, J. F.,D. W. Robertson, A. M. Binkley and W. A. Kreutzer. 1943. Field bean production without irrigation in Colorado.Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 482: 1–22.
Bryan, Kirk. 1929. Floodwater farming. Geographical Review19(3): 444–456.
Carter, George F. 1945. Plant geography and culture history in the American Southwest.Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 5: 1–140.
Castetter, Edward F. andWillis H. Bell. 1942.Pima and Papago Agriculture. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 244 pp.
Castetter, Edward F. andWillis H. Bell. 1951.Yuman Indian Agriculture — primitive subsistence on the lower Colorado and Gila Rivers. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 272 pp.
Castetter, Edward F. andRuth M. Underhill. 1935. The ethnobiology of the Papago Indians. Ethnobiological Studies in the American Southwest II.University of New Mexico Bulletin Biological Series 4(3): 1–84.
Clark, W. 1975. U. S. agriculture is growing trouble as well as crops.Smithsonian 5(10): 59–65.
Clothier, R. W. 1913. Dry-farming in the arid Southwest.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 70: 725–798.
Committee on Genetic Vulnerability of Major Crops. 1972.Genetic Vulnerability of Major Crops. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 307 pp.
Correll, Donovan Stewart andMarsh Conring Johnston. 1970.Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas. Texas Research Foundation. 1881 pp.
Cosgrove, C. B. 1947. Caves of the upper Hila and Hueco area of New Mexico and Texas.Peabody Museum of Harvard University Papers 24: 1–181.
Cox, George W. andMichael D. Atkins. 1975. Agricultural ecology.Ecological Society of America Bulletin 56(3): 2–6.
Coyne, D.P. andJ. L. Serrano P. 1963. Diurnal variations of soluble solids, carbohydrates and respiration rates of drought tolerant and susceptible bean species and varieties.American Society of Horticultural Science Proceedings 83: 453–460.
Dennis, Robert. 1961. LeBaron’s tepary beans.Arizona Farmer-Ranchman. Unnumbered, Dec. 16.
Devel, Harry J. 1925. The digestibility of tepary beans.Journal of Agricultural Research 29(4): 205–206.
Dobyns, Henry F. 1949.Reports on Investigations on the Papago Reservation. n.p., Cornell University Department of Sociology-Anthropology. 74 pp.
Duke, lames A. andE. E. Terrell. 1974. Crop diversification matrix: an introduction.Taxon 23 (5/6): 759–800.
Earle, F.R. andQ. Jones. 1962. Analyses of seed samples from 113 plant families.Economic Botany 16(4): 221–250.
Evans, Alice M. 1976. Beans:Phaseolus spp. (Le- guminosae-Papilonatae). In: N. W. Simmonds, ed.,Evolution of Crop Plants. Longman, New York, pp. 168–172.
Felger, Richard S. andMary B. Moser. 1976. Seri Indian food plants: desert subsistence without agriculture.Ecology of Food and Nutrition 5( 1): 13–27.
Felger, Richard S. andGary Paul Nabhan. 1976. Deceptive barrenness.Ceres, FAO Review on Development 50: 34–39.
Felger, Richard S.,Gary Paul Nabhan andThomas Sheridan. 1976. Ethnobotany of the Rio San Miguel, Sonora, Mexico, n.p. Report for Centro Regional Noroeste de INAH. Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. 94 pp.
Finnell, H. H. 1933. The tepary bean for hay production.Pan-handle Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 46: 1–12.
Freeman, George F. 1912. Southwestern beans and teparies.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 68: 1–55.
Freeman, George F. 1913. The tepary; a new cultivated legume from the Southwest.Botanical Gazette 55(6): 395–417.
Freeman, George F. 1918. Southwestern beans and teparies.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 68: 1–55 (revised).
Freeman, George F. andJ. C. Th. Uphof. 1914. Plant breeding.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Annual Reports 25: 343–348.
Freeman, George F. andJ. C. Th. Uphof. 1915. Plant Breeding.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Annual Reports 26: 533–538.
Garcia, Fabian. 1917. New Mexico Beans.New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 105.
Garver, Samuel. 1934. The Redfield tepary bean, an early maturing variety.Journal of the American Society of Agronomy 3:397–4033.
Gentry, Howard Scott. 1942. Rio Mayo plants.Carnegie Institute of Washington Publications 527. 328 pp.
Gentry, Howard Scott. 1969. Origin of the common bean,Phaseolus vulgaris. Economic Botany 23(1): 55–69.
Gifford, E. W. 1931. The Kamia of Imperial Valley.U. S. Bureau of Ethnology Annual Reports 97. 94 pp.
Gifford, E. W. 1933. The Cocopa.University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography 31(5): 257–334.
Gifford, E. W. 1936. Northeastern and western Yavapai.University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography 34: 247–354.
Gray, Asa. 1850. Plantae Wrightianae. Texano- Neo-Mexicanae. Part 1.Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge 3(5): 1–143.
Hack, John T. 1942. The changing physical environment of the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Reports of the Awatovi Expedition 1.Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnography 35(1). Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 85 pp.
Harlan, J. R. andJ. M. J. de Wet. 1971. Toward a rational classification of cultivated plants.Taxon 20(4): 509–517.
Harvey, D. 1970. Table of the amino acids in foods and feeding-stuffs.Commonwealth Bureau of Animal Nutrition Technical Communication 19. Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau, Bucks, England. 105 pp.
Hayden, Julian, ed. 1935. Pima creation myth told by Juan Smith. Unpublished manuscript in Arizona State Museum Archives Folio A-215, Tucson. 67 pp.
Hendry, G. W. 1918. Bean culture in California.University of California Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 294. 346 pp.
Hendry, G. W. 1919. Climatic adaptation of the white tepary bean.Journal of the American Society of Agronomy 11: 247–252.
Honma, Shigemi. 1956. Bean interspecific hybrid.Journal of Heredity 41: 217–220.
Ives, R. L. 1966. Retracing the route of the Fages expedition of 1781. Part 1.Arizona and the West 8( 1): 49–70.
Jaffa, M. E. 1917. Cooking the tepary bean.University of California Agricultural Experiment Station Circular, Berkeley. Unnumbered. September.
Jones, Volney H. 1952. Material from the Hemenway Archaeological Expedition (1887-88) as a factor in establishing the American origin of the garden bean.In: Sol Tax, ed., Indian Tribes of Aboriginal America III,Proceedings of the 29th Congress of Americanists, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 177–184.
Kaplan, Lawrence. 1956. The cultivated beans of the prehistoric Southwest.Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 43: 189–191.
Kaplan, Lawrence. 1965. Archaeology and domestication in AmericanPhaseolus (beans).Economic Botany 19(4): 358–368.
Kaplan, Lawrence. 1971.Phaseolus: diffusion and centers of origin.In: Riley, C. et al., eds.,Man Across the Sea: Problems in Pre-Columbian Contacts. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 416–427.
Kaplan, Lawrence. 1973. Ethnobotanical and nutritional factors in the domestication of American beans.In: C. L. Smith, ed.,Man and His Foods: The Ethnobotany of Nutrition. University of Alabama Press, Alabama, pp. 75–85.
Kinbacher, E. J., Charles Y. Sullivan, andH. R. Knull. 1967. Thermal stability of malic de- hydrogenase from heat hardenedPhaseolus acutifolius ‘tepary buff.’Crop Science 7: 148–151.
Kloz, JosefandEva Klozova. 1968. Variability of proteins I and II in the seeds of species of the genusPhaseolus.In: J. G. Hawkes, ed.,Chemotaxonomy and Serotaxonomy. The Systematics Association Special Volume number 2. Academic Press, New York. pp. 93–102.
Kraenzel, Carl F. 1955.The Great Plains in Transition. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. 428 pp.
McKeel, Scudder. 1935. Plant foods and preparation.In: A. Kroeber, ed., Walapai ethnography.Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, pp. 48–57.
McOmie, A. M. 1914. Agriculture.University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Annual Reports 25:328–3377.
Mathiot, Madeline. 1973.A Dictionary of Papago Usage. Volume 1: B-K. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 504 pp.
Nabhan, Gary Paul, in preparation. The Ecology of Some Wild Southwestern Beans (Phaseolus): Taxonomic and Ethnobotanical Implications.
National Academy of Sciences. 1974.More water for Arid Lands — Promising Technologies and Research Opportunities. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 74 pp.
Niethammer, Carolyn. 1974.American Indian Food and Lore. Macmillan, New York. 191 pp.
Pennington, Campbell W. 1963.The Tarahumar of Mexico — Their Environment and Material Culture. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 267 pp.
Pfeffercorn, Ignaz. 1949.Sonora, a Description of the Province. Translated and edited by Theodore E. Treutlein. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 329 pp.
Piper, C. V. 192 . Studies in American Phaseolineae.Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 22(9): 663–701.
Rasmussen, Wayne D. 1960.Readings in the History of American Agriculture. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. 340 pp.
Ressler, John Quenton. 1966. Spanish mission water systems, northwest frontier of New Spain, n.p., Master of Arts thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson. 164 pp.
Russell, Frank. 1975.The Pima Indians. Re-edited by Bernard L. Fontana. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 479 pp.
Sapir, Edward. 1930. Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean language.American Arts of Arts and Sciences 65. 730 pp.
Shimkin, D. B. 1940. Shoshone-Comanche origins and migrations. Appendix: a note on the tepary bean.Proceedings of the 6th Pacific Science Congress. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 24–25.
Shreve, Forrest andIra Wiggins. 1964.Vegetation and Flora of the Sonoran Desert. Stanford University Press, Stanford. 2 volumes, 1687 pp.
Sobarzo, Horacio. 1966.Vocabulario Sonorense. Editorial Porrua, S. A. Mexico. 348 pp.
Spier, Leslie. 1928. Havasupai ethnography.American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 29: 83–392.
Sullivan, Charles Y. andE. J. Kinbacher. 1967. Thermal stability of fraction 1 protein from heat- hardenedPhaseolus acutifolius Gray ‘tepary buff.’Crop Science 7: 241–244.
Tevis, Lloyd, Jr. 1958. Germination and growth of ephemerals induced by sprinkling a sandy desert.Ecology 39(4): 681–688.
United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service. 1950. Sulphur Springs Valley Area, Arizona.USDA Soil Survey Series 1940, 14.
Whiting, Alfred. 1966.Ethnobotany of the Hopi. Northland Press, Flagstaff. (Originally,Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 15: 1-120; 1939.)
Winter, Joseph Charles. 1974. Aboriginal Agriculture in the Southwest and Great Basin, n.p., Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 186 pp.
World Health Organization. 1973. Energy and protein requirements. Report of a joint F.A.O./ W.H.O. expert committee.W.H. O. Technical Report Series 522. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
Wyllys, Rufus Kay. 1931. Padre Luis (sic) Velarde’sRelacion of Pimeria Alta, 1716.New Mexico Historical Review 6: 111–157.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nabhan, G.P., Felger, R.S. Teparies in southwestern North America. Econ Bot 32, 3–19 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02906725
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02906725