Thanks to Elise Blackwell’s gracious comment on the true identity of the bean she once grew and that offered her such a strong connection with what was happening at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station, I was able to go and look for more information about Tarahumara Carpintero. A pole bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), it was originally collected by Native Seeds/SEARCH, and here’s what the NSS catalogue says about it:
Striking black and white Jacob’s Cattle bean. Originally collected in central and southern Tarahumara country, Chihuahua. This pole bean is prolific with a little shade in Tucson.
More is almost impossible to find, given that Googling “bean carpintero” results largely in information about Mr Bean and people who work with wood. “Carpintero Tarahumara” is not much more helpful. It will take you to Native Seeds/SEARCH and a couple of other places that are interested in the bean itself. One Canadian site declares that it is Apparently Extinct, which kind of ignores the fact that it is still available in the NSS 2010 catalogue (and which is where I got the image).
As for Jacob’s Cattle, there are masses of varieties, and masses of information. Some people say that Jacob’s Cattle beans are originally from Germany. Others that “it was a gift from Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine”. Most don’t bother to explain why the name fits, perhaps assuming that everyone is familiar with Genesis 30 (not the surrogate mother bit) and Jacob’s early experiments with epigenetics.
And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
The stories that varieties tell can be every bit as fascinating as their other qualities; names are often the portal into the stories. That’s why they matter.
Some further thoughts on this story…
Native Seeds/SEARCH when collecting puts every effort into finding out the stories and reasons for these names. Some of the beans conserved there have rich stories attached to them; some little information. I don’t remember well if there are further stories about the Carpintero… although I remember working with the bean (P. vulgaris). But here’s a guess – although they come from the Tarahumara/Raramuri communities, who speak their own language, of course many names come from Spanish. And Carpintero is the name in Spanish for woodpeckers, a number of species of which are abundant in the Sierra Madre of NW Mexico, such as the Acorn Woodpecker, and some other species which are very rare (check out the Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis)… if you check out the coloration of these birds, its not difficult to guess what’s in a name.
I see it for the Imperial Woodpecker, just about, but can’t see the bean clearly enough to know whether it also has a red spot. Thanks for the further clues.
No, no red spot on the beans… must be female (carpinter(a)s)!