Diane Howe sat under the piñon pines in the Chuska Mountains while she and her family picked piñon nuts that the tree graciously sprinkled onto the ground.
Next to her lay a blue tarp to catch falling piñon nuts. Howe said it was the first time since before the pandemic that they can remember this many nuts available for people to pick. Good harvests usually come along every three to four years, experienced pickers will say.
“This is actually the first year again that they have piñons,” said Howe. “Every four years, we’d come up here and pick piñons. It’s been awhile.”
The drive down Narbona Pass, a nearly 30-mile road that winds through the scenic Chuska Mountains in northeastern Arizona, offers a glimpse into Navajo history. Originally named after Col. John M. Washington, who explored the area in the late 1840s during a campaign against the Navajos, the route was renamed in the 1990s by a Diné College student to honor Navajo Chief Narbona, who was tragically killed by Washington’s men.
Today, Narbona Pass, surrounded by homes and sheep camps, is a favorite spot for piñon pickers like Howe and her family, who park along the roadside to gather the seasonal nuts. The area is rich in diverse tree species, including cork bark, Douglas fir, aspen, piñon pine, blackjack pine, yellow pine, oak, juniper and cedar.
Narbona Pass is not the only prime location for piñon pickers this season. The summit along State Route 264, which stretches from Gallup, N.M., through Window Rock, Ganado, and ends near Tuba City, is also dotted with ponderosa, oak, yellow pine, blackjack pine, piñon, cedar and juniper trees.
Piñon and juniper forests make up roughly 15% of the Southwestern states. Narbona Pass and the Summit area are just two of many popular piñon picking spots across the Navajo Nation. Howe said she'd heard the Summit area has even more piñons than where she was currently picking.
Picking nuts is a family tradition
Renae F., who asked to only share her last name initial, said she had been in Counselor, N.M., picking piñons, and the next day was in Narbona Pass with her children to continue the tradition.
“We got up this morning already wanting to go piñon picking,” said Renae F. “It's all over, it seems like. There’s a lot in Black Mesa, Shonto, Ramah, Counselor area it seems like it's everywhere this season. I guess it doesn’t matter where we could’ve went, we would’ve ran into piñons.”
For generations, piñon picking has been a cherished family tradition, especially for Renae F. As her children crouched down to gather the nuts and fill gallon-sized sandwich bags, she fondly recalled picking the nuts with her grandmother in Shonto.
The family would pack Shasta sodas and bologna and cheese sandwiches, while her grandmother always had little candies to share as they spent hours collecting the nuts.
Since a good piñon harvest only happens every 3 to 4 years, those who head out to pick often spend the entire day or even several days gathering the prized nuts.
“I’m thankful to nature for providing us with piñons to enjoy as our culture,” said Renae F. “I miss my grandma. I was telling them (my kids) that I was their age when I first went piñon picking. She kept telling me to shake the tree. She would lay out the sheet at the bottom. It brings back a lot of memories.”
Howe was out picking piñons with her daughter, her brother, Tom Smith, and sister-in-law after hearing through word of mouth about the abundance of nuts this season. They weren’t the only ones to catch the news. Along Narbona Pass, lines of cars parked on the roadside signaled that many other piñon pickers had also arrived to take advantage of the harvest.
Smith traveled from Cortez, Colo., to join Howe in piñon picking. It was Smith's first time in years engaging in this activity, and he enjoyed spending time outdoors, especially on a day with mid-70s temperatures, light winds and occasional cloud cover.
Throughout the area, numerous families could be heard, chatting and laughing as they participated in the piñon harvest. One thing these two families had in common was they weren’t picking piñons to sell, but rather for themselves.
“I don’t sell anything that I pick,” said Smith. “It might be good for some people, but I am just doing it for myself.”
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Sell the piñon nuts or keep them?
In the nearby border town of Gallup, New Mexico, signs can be seen advertising businesses buying piñons. Traders in the area often provide a market for pickers to sell their harvest.
One well-known trader, Ellis Tanner, a fourth-generation Indian trader, is known as "Aye'hee' Yazzie," meaning "Little In-law." In business since 1967, Tanner sat behind his desk on a cold, rainy Tuesday morning and said he’s been buying piñons from pickers since he started his business.
“I always tell people that if they ever get a chance to watch a Navajo family out picking piñon, take your time and watch them,” said Tanner. “They’ve got it down to a fine art. No one on the face of the earth can pick piñons like the Navajo people.”
He said it was still too early to begin buying piñons, as the picking season had just started. He reminisced about his second year in business, recalling how piñons had saved him when things weren’t going so well.
“Any business that starts out, the first few years of business is tough,” said Tanner. “We had a good crop the second year I was in business and it made all the difference in the world.”
When Tanner first started buying piñons, he would pay 25 cents a pound. Last year, due to scarcity, he paid $20 a pound. This year, with a more plentiful piñon season, he expects to buy them for around $15 per pound. He encourages pickers to try selling them on their own before selling to him.
“The thing that occurs is a lot of them picking them, cleaning them, roasting them and selling them,” said Tanner, “eliminating going through me, and that’s OK. That's the way to do it. I have the same attitude towards arts and crafts. I tell the artist to sell to me when they have to. But go out to these collectors, and whoever else...people think I am crazy. But I want to help my in-laws."
In the 1990s, Tanner led the New Mexico Piñon Nut Industry Trade Council. In a 1993 report titled Managing Piñon-Juniper Ecosystems for Sustainability and Social Needs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Tanner highlighted how the pricing system for piñon nut harvesters and traders was unfair, benefiting buyers from "big nut companies" instead. He emphasized that this needed to change.
"My business philosophy has always been: "It has to work for all of us,'" wrote Tanner. "We need to make it work for the Navajo piñon pickers, and for the traders as well as for the small buyers."
Howe said since it's been awhile since piñons have been plentiful in the area, and because of this she is picking for herself and family to enjoy rather than selling them. In the nearby community of Sheepsprings, Howe said usually there will be people there to buy piñons from pickers.
“You’ll see little kids filling up little bags and you’ll see them down there selling their piñons,” said Howe. “I don’t know when you’re going to see them out there buying piñons. I know a lot of people will sell them, but it's been awhile since there has been piñons out here. We are going to eat them. We usually salt them, roast them and eat them."
Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com .
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Piñon nuts in the Navajo Nation are bountiful as harvest draws pickers
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