w i l d w e s t d e s e r t . c o m
Production Stills

LOCATION SCOUTING


DESERT LIGHT


HIGH NOON & MEDICINE PLANTS


PINYONS OR PINE NUTS


SNAKES & SCORPIONS


BANDITS!

PINYONS OR PINE NUTS
1 This Shoshone staple protein was hard to find while scouting but was eventually identified using a book. In times when there were fewer animals around, the Shoshone would harvest these nuts in the canyons. The white settlers cut down most of the forests for charcoal and to take away Indian food sources during the genocide. PINYON MUFFINS RECIPE (makes 10):

(We made these from the pine nuts we picked - they are darn delicious)
1 cup mashed pine nuts
1/2 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 pinches salt
1/2 cup organic milk
3 tablespoons honey
Preheat the oven to 350’. Mix all dry ingredients together. Then add the wet ingredients and stir till all combined. Put mixture into muffin cups/ cupcake baking tray, half way up and then put in oven for 30 mins.
2 Women would use grinding stones like this one to make flour from the pinyons. It is said that pregnant women were discouraged from eating the nuts, as the baby inside them would grow too fat to come out. (They are very high in calories). 3 Actor, Lusheia Lenaberg reaches up for the pine cones. Amber leaks from the cones when burned, and women would line their woven containers with this waterproof substance.
4 Maggie Miller, Hair & Make-Up, bases Lusheia’s hair styling on paintings of Sacajawea, the Shoshone woman who first showed Lewis and Clark the way to the West. Sacajawea had her baby strapped to her back at the time. It is doubtful she’d have lead them across those mountains had she known of the hideous treatment her people would receive from the ‘white man’ in the future. 5 Rebecca Grace, Camera Assistant & Assistant Editor, agrees with Lusheia’s point that Native American actors would like to get regular roles instead of always playing Indians.
6 Hannah is happy to have found the ‘roaming’ pine nuts for Wild West. Corbin Harney, Western Shoshone Spiritual Leader, reveres these trees, telling their story in the movie’s interviews with him. At least some are still growing.
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