Maguey : plant of a thousand uses

said the McKay was all things to the Mexican Indian Teotihuacan it was built in the dim and distant pact long before the Spaniards led by Anandi Cortes came to Mexico this pyramid is the largest man mound in american t-6 feet smaller measured around the base than the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt and men who study history tell us that rope nets and bags were made from the fibers of the maguey plant and at the heartless loads of adobe clay that went into its building as the Indians had no burros or oxen then they carried the loads on their backs just as this man carries his load of alfalfa today the story of this strange tower and its companion across the valley is unknown they're thought to have been built by the Spaniards but as to their use no records have been found when the Spaniards came to Mexico about four hundred years ago they used Indian labor to build this aqueduct it was built to carry water across the deep valley to the little town of Los Remedios the Indians before the Spaniards came did not have any horses or cattle or sheep for goats or hogs or dogs or cats and they had no burros and no oxen the Spaniards brought all these animals to Mexico and so by the time of the building of this aqueduct there were oxen to drag crude sleds and drop carts with large wooden wheels rope made from the fibers of the McKay plant was a very important tool in all this activity it was used to tie the Ox bows to the heads of the oxen to lift the stones into place and to tie the smaller stones in the backs of the burros just as these Indians today tied their loads of wood on the backs of their burrows the village of Santa Rosa with its narrow cobbled streets lies on the side of a mountain above the Santa Rosa Valley it is the beginning of the rainy season now and on this Sunday morning services have been held in the church at the bottom of the hill prayers have been offered asking for plenty of rain growing crops homemade skyrocket bombs have been bursting in the air all morning and the blue haze of their smoke still lingers in the sky the band has held a concert in the churchyard now the services are over and the band toils slowly up the hill escorted of course by nearly all the children of the village during the week these people work hard men women and children but on Sunday they go to church and lead to friendly family gatherings such as this that the whole of the alcalde or mayor of the little village of santa rosa here many families gather for lunch afternoon and evening the children play the women prepare the food and chat about the weekly happenings the men rest and talk of the crops and perhaps drink a little homemade pork a which has been made from the juice of the maguey plant in the country districts of Mexico it is rare indeed for the people to actually live on their farms as they do in the United States for countless centuries they have built their homes and villages such as Santa Rosa and gone out each day to work in the fields the home of the alcalde overlooks the entire Santa Rosa Valley and one of the most important uses of the magg a plant is shown here where it is used as fencing planted close together along the edges of the fields the huge thorny leaves soon become very dense and thick thus not only domestic animals but the wild deer from the mountains as well are kept from eating the crops the farms are small and in most cases each family owns only one to get the greatest harvest possible it is important that none of the crops be eaten or destroyed by grazing animals the products of the maguey plant are very important to the Mexican people to supply this need there are of course many gray GAE plantations but fortunately for the Indian the plant grows wild all over the country in the mountains in the deserts and along the roadsides the plant and all it gives free for the taking getting the juice from the Magee plant for the making of pulque is a very simple process it scraped in the bottom of the leaf a little pool forms and the man returns each morning and evening and the juice is sucked into a gourd which is emptied into a pigskin carried on the back and taken home a crude paper can be peeled directly from the leaf the pulp of the leaf can be cooked and rolled or beaten into a fine parchment for needle and thread the ancient tribes used the thorn at the tip of the leaf for the needle and the attached fibers for the thread it is still used today for coarse works such as mending harness and blankets and Serapis rope made from the fibers of the McKay plant is probably the most important manufactured product in all of Mexico commercially it is a tremendous industry billions of pesos are invested in huge plantations and modern machinery bodies for the Indian he still makes his rope in the ancient and primitive ways of his forefathers Armando Martinez an Aztec Indian holds him a gay leaf over a stone and beats it with a club to loosen the pulp and expose the fibers and then with a stick which is curved to prevent it turning in his hands the top is gradually forced out and the long tough fibers are left the pulp which lathers in water is saved and used as soap in the yard of his adobe home the fibers are allowed to dry for a few hours in the Sun in the English language these fibers of many names among them being sisal sisal hemp and hennequin when dry Senor Martinez feeds the fibers into the slowly forming cord as his son Fernando turns a crank to which the court is attached the feeding of the fibers is a very important part of the process the cord must be of uniform thickness to produce a smooth even rope when the cord is finished it is doubled at the center and the center point is then attached to the crank and the doubled cord is twisted into a strand four of these strands are made and then they're attached to the ends of four small tree branches thrust through holes in a post the board with four holes completes this primitive device and as the board moves round and round each strand is twisted separately the other ends of the strands are attached to a hand-cranked slip through a hole in a post this post is mounted on a log which drags along the ground as the Rope becomes shorter due to the twisting Senor Martinez holds the strands apart with his left hand and in his right holds a block of wood with grooves for each strand this block he holds back tightly against the slowly forming rope the result is a tightly twisted rope strong and good for many years of service when all the leaves have been harvested the trunks or balls of the plants are loaded into ox carts and brought to this primitive factory where industrial alcohol is made the balls are split into pieces so they will bake more easily then they are stacked around the rim of a pit in which stones are heating from a wooden fire underneath them when the stones are red-hot the split McGhee is piled around the stones and then covered with broken up tree branches and dried leaves and left to bake overnight it is 9:30 the next morning now according to this homemade sundial which is the clock of the Indians and the men of just about finished removing the covering to get out the bait m'g a it is a rich brown in color after baking and looks and tastes about like cooked sweet potatoes when baked at home in a small fire not only the ball but the leaves and the roots as well make a very fine and nutritious food the baked Magee is taken to a saucer-like pit lined with stones and the juices are crushed at small factories such as this helped to supply the tremendous demand for industrial alcohol which is needed in the making of paint shellac perfumes flavoring extracts celluloid rubbing alcohol and countless other products through holes left between the stones and the bottom of the pit the juice trickles into an underground clay pipe which leads to a crude still here by distilling industrial alcohol is made as far back as history can be traced the nagae plant has been an indispensable part of mexican life this was true long before the Spaniards came and it is still true today beside there are other uses some leaves are cut and dried and used as roofs on the more humble dwellings course threads are made from the younger plants the roots are dug and cooked for food and then there are the fences between the fields and along the roadsides [Music] there is porque and paper and needle and thread and so and wrote and industrial alcohol is it any wonder that to the book Mexico the maguey is the plant of a thousand uses [Music]