By Carmen Duarte
Arizona Daily Star
Tohono O’odham elder Stella Tucker, who spread her knowledge about the art of saguaro fruit harvesting to all who wanted to learn, died Jan. 9. She was 71.
Tucker died at Tucson Medical Center after a long illness from kidney and liver complications, said her daughter, Tanisha Tucker. She was surrounded by her family.
“She taught me patience and gave me strength,” said Tanisha of her mother.
“She taught me endurance and compassion for others. She taught me to respect and love the land. She was a very kind and amazing woman. She will be missed by many people.”
Tanisha joined her mother at the annual saguaro fruit harvest camp and hosted workshops to keep the ancient saguaro fruit tradition alive and to engage O’odham youths in the harvest.
“I started learning the tradition when I was about 7 and I decided to carry it on as my mother aged,” said the daughter, who was proud that Stella “taught thousands about saguaro fruit harvesting over more than two decades.”
During the last seven years, the cultural tradition has started to revive among O’odham children who are learning the art through community programs, including the Tucson Indian Center and Tohono O’odham Community Action, a nonprofit grassroots organization that supports traditional farming, healthy foods and tribal culture, Tanisha said.
The elder Tucker, who was born in Topawa — a community south of Sells, the nation’s capital — learned the art from her grandparents, parents and her late aunt, Juanita Ahil.
Ahil harvested on lands that in 1961 were designated by the U.S. Interior Department as Saguaro National Monument. The monument was established in 1933, and additional lands were added over the years. It later was named a national park.
The monument designation in 1961 threatened Ahil’s saguaro fruit harvesting camp, and among her supporters were friends and educators from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum who wrote a letter on behalf of Ahil.
Then-Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall granted permission for the harvest to continue, said Kimi Eisele, a family friend.
After Ahil’s death in 1994, Stella Tucker took over the camp. In a 2007 interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Tucker remembered when O’odham families camped in the desert for weeks to harvest and cook saguaro fruit.
“I used to harvest on the weekends with my grandmother when I was a child,” said Tucker. “My family used to harvest near Saguaro National Park West. In the early ’70s, the government granted the (Tohono O’odham) Nation a permit to harvest on national park property.
“My grandmother started a camp in the 1970s off of Sandario Road, which I took over in the 1980s,” she said.
At the time, Tucker worked as a nutritionist at San Xavier Mission school and would be off during the summer, which allowed her the time to harvest saguaro fruit in June and July.
In a plentiful season, Tucker and volunteers would produce gallons of syrup and jam, which Tucker would sell from her home in Tucson, and to tribal elders who were not able to harvest anymore.
The group picked the fruit from the saguaro using a saguaro-ribbed tool called a KuipaD to knock the fruit to the ground, often from more than 30 feet up in the air.
The tool is made of two dried saguaro ribs lashed together. At one end of the ribs, a greasewood stick juts from either side, forming a cross.
Tucker passed her knowledge on at the harvesting camps to students, scientists, artists and family. She worked to teach the interrelationship between the O’odham, the saguaro and the Sonoran Desert. Tucker also taught many workshops at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, said Eisele.
“Stella was very patient and willing to share the knowledge she possessed,” said Tina Vavages-Andrew, the ancestral ranger at Saguaro National Park, a post in which she sustains a relationship between tribal nations and the park service. Vavages-Andrew organized visits to the camp for youths, among others, every year. “I most enjoyed her personal stories of her harvesting experiences,” she said.
In 2018, Tucker was awarded a Master-Apprentice Artist Award from the Southwest Folklife Alliance in honor of her work upholding, preserving and teaching the saguaro harvesting tradition, said her daughter.
In addition to Tanisha Tucker, Stella Tucker is survived by daughter Staycie Francisco; a brother, Ed Francisco; a sister, Caroline Lopez; and numerous nieces and nephews.
A 9 a.m. funeral Mass is set for Saturday, Jan. 19, at Mission San Xavier del Bac, 1950 W. San Xavier Road. A 10 a.m. rosary will be recited the same day at the San Xavier Community Rock House, west of the mission, followed by a traditional feast.
