NATIVE AMERICAN Farming & Agriculture Table of Choctaw, Farming Contents & Agriculture
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NATIVE AMERICAN Farming & Agriculture Table of Choctaw, Farming Contents & Agriculture 2. Choctaw, Farming & Agriculture Sources: Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department, Choctaw Nation Agriculture Outreach Program 4. Citizen and Choctaw Nation School of Language Potawatomi Choctaw people and animal products that were Nation, Farming lived in balance eaten according to the seasons. In and Agriculture within the landscape the spring, women collected leaves of their homelands, present-day eastern from young, succulent plants such Mississippi and western Alabama. As as poke, dock and stinging nettles, 5. Cherokee, a result, Choctaw people have been providing the Vitamin A, calcium recognized as the best agriculturalists and iron needed to supplement dried Farming & of all of the Southeastern Tribes food rations that had been stored Agriculture (Romans 1770). The Choctaw people over winter. In the summer, they draw part of their identity from collected edible fruits like grapes and cooking and eating old Choctaw family blackberries, grains like sump weed 6. Chickasaw favorites. seeds, and oily hickory nuts, while the men provided protein by fishing Nation, Farming Their culinary repertoire includes meat and hunting small game. In the and Agriculture from both large and smaller animals, fall, women gathered acorns, while as well as plant foods collected in the men hunted the larger animals season. Traditional foods are still eaten that the acorns attracted, their meat by some Choctaw families today to and hides prime for the coming maintain good health and cold. In the winter, the community preserve their culture; dug starchy tubers like greenbrier there is an active effort roots, and welcomed the Vitamin C to revitalize traditional provided by fresh persimmons. In the Choctaw food dishes that are 1500s, the Spanish brought Shukha no longer in the everyday diet. (pigs), Wak (cattle), Takkon (peaches), This diet, developed by and Shukshi (watermelons) to the Choctaw ancestors over Choctaw homeland. By the late 1700s, many generations, Choctaw farmers added leeks, garlic, Gwen Coleman Lester represents a balance cabbage, hogs, chicken and ducks of wild plant foods (Romans 770:84). 2 | Native American Farming & Agriculture Choctaw people shared these One of the greatest threats dishes with visitors to their facing Choctaw traditional homeland and influenced culture today is a decreasing world history as Europeans connection with the land. Today, took Native American foods the Choctaw traditional foodway worldwide. For example, offers insights into healthy Choctaw cuisine is the basis eating, local food, and sustainability. of American soul food, it With this in mind, the Choctaw contributed significantly Nation continues to preserve farming to Cajun cuisine, and corn and agricultural history by teaching tribal is the third most important members and neighbors how to be agriculturally food crop world-wide. Corn minded. The tribe’s Historic Preservation program was domesticated in Mexico and brought north. grows out the seeds for highly threatened Choctaw Choctaw ancestors in 500 BC) and Perique (a Choctaw farmers developed four varieties of corn heritage crops that have been collected and traditional Choctaw variety of tobacco, one of the – Tanchushi, Tanchi hlimishko, Tanchi tohbi encourages Choctaw families to do so as well. most expensive in the world). Future plans include and Tanchi bokanli. These corn varieties, along These unique crop varieties represent the efforts of distribution of seeds to interested Tribal families with beans, were shared with the Spanish when centuries of work on the part of Choctaw farmers, and teaching them how to cultivate them. This will they arrived in Choctaw country in the mid-1500s; tending the crops and selecting the best seeds help to expand rural markets, shrink the local food later, some varieties made their way to the rest of each year. Compared to today’s commodity crops, desert, and make these healthy, Choctaw-produced the world. these tend to be higher in nutrition, flavor, and food ingredients more widely available. sustainability. Three hundred years ago, Choctaw communities began maintaining three distinct types of highly Today, some of efficient agricultural fields: small family garden these ancient plots planted between the houses in a village, large Choctaw community fields located down in the bottom land varieties of crop adjacent to the village, and patches of pumpkins plants survive and melons located away from the village. These by only a few fields utilized Choctaw advanced permaculture hundred seeds. practices developed over 15,000 years of Crop varieties sustainable land use. being preserved today include Tanchi Tohbi (the traditional Choctaw flour corn), Tanchi hlimisko The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s ancient land- Choctaws began raising cattle in the 1730s. By the (the traditional Choctaw yellow hominy corn), management practices are still valued today as 1770s, many Choctaws spread out into previously Choctaw Sweet Potato Squash (a 30lb variety the tribe harvests large crops of pecans, hay, cattle unsettled land in order to better graze their with amazing flavor and shelf life), Smith Peas (a and buffalo from thousands of acres of tribally livestock. By the start of the Trail of Tears in 1830, small field pea brought out of Mississippi in 1882), owned and cultivated land. The Choctaw Nation of the Choctaw Lambsquarter (a native green, with a better Oklahoma Agriculture Outreach program utilizes cattle herd nutritional profile than raw spinach), Huazontle (a Ag in the Classroom and works with Head Starts, numbered variety of domesticated Lambsquarter, grown by Daycare and public school students to teach and about 43,000 promote agriculture education. Working with head (Carso tribal extension agents, Agriculture Outreach 2005). works with the USDA as well as Oklahoma Around the Cooperative Extension Service, assists with local same time, livestock shows and works with tribal members on Choctaw their agriculture needs. farmers began growing and harvesting crops as separate families, like their Euro-American neighbors. This was not without consequence. Within decades after the Trail of Tears, these harsh land practices resulted in the decimation of the soils in the Choctaw homeland. Native American Farming & Agriculture | 3 Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Farming and Agriculture Written by: Early in the spring, when their food was Pat Thompson, about to run out, the Potawatomi tapped Oklahoma maple trees for syrup. They collected Ag in the sap in birch bark pails and poured Nanabozho and the Maple Trees Classroom it into log troughs hollowed from When Nanabozho, the Anishinabe Original Man, our teacher, The Citizen basswood trees. The large surface area part man, part manido, walked through the world, he took Potawatomi and shallow depth of the troughs was note of who was flourishing and who was not, of who was people came to ideal for ice formation. Every morning, mindful of the Original Instructions and who was not. He was Oklahoma from the ice was removed, leaving a more dismayed when he came upon villages where the gardens Great Lakes area during the Indian concentrated sugar solution behind. were not being tended, where the fishnets were not repaired and the children were not being taught the way to live. Instead of Removals. They are relatives and allies The concentrated solution could then be seeing piles of firewood and caches of corn, he found the people of the Ojibwe and Ottawa tribes, and boiled to make sugar. lying beneath maple trees with their mouths wide open, catching the the name “Potawatomi” refers to their Wooden evaporating dishes were placed sweet syrup of the generous trees. They had become lazy and took role as “fire keepers” in that alliance. on flat stones over the coals of a fire for granted the gifts of the Creator. They did not do their ceremonies They are Algonquian-speaking people, that burned night and day. In the old or care for one another. He knew his responsibility, so he went to and their name for themselves is times, families would all move together the river and dipped up many buckets of water. He poured the water “Nishnabek” (related to the Ojibwe to “sugar camp,” where firewood and straight into the maple trees to dilute the syrup. Today, maple sap word “Anishinabe.”) There are around equipment had been stored the year flows like a stream of water with only a trace of sweetness to remind 33,000 Potawatomi Indians today. before. Most of the time was spent the people both of possibility and of responsibility. And so it is that it takes forty gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. Potawatomi women planted and stirring. When the syrup reached just harvested corn, beans, squash, and the right consistency, it was beaten so Stories excerpted from Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Maple Sugar Moon,” Braiding tobacco, and gathered wild rice that it would solidify in the desired Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed, 2015. and berries. The men hunted deer, way, into soft cakes, hard candy, and elk, and wild birds and caught fish. granulated sugar. Then it was stored in They converted forests into enriched birch bark boxes called makaks, and How the Squirrels Taught the People agricultural fields using an ancient sewn tight with spruce root. Given birch technique known as “slash and burn.” bark’s natural preservatives, the sugars to Make Sugar would keep for years. During Gtegangises (Planting Moon), It is said our people learned to make sugar from tools made of bone, stone and wood Student Activity: the squirrels. In late winter, the hungry time, when were used to cultivate crops, including caches of nuts are depleted, squirrels take to the Read both stories that explore this history peanuts, potatoes, onions, melons and the treetops and gnaw on the branches of sugar maples. Scraping the of Maple sap. Compare the two stories. “Three Sisters” (corn, beans and squash). bark allows sap to exude from the twig, and the squirrels drink it.