Pawnee Indian Garden

Pawnee Indian Garden. . The Pawnee were one of the most important Native American tribes of the Plains area. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries they were living in circular earthlodges in large villages, sometimes including more than a thousand people. To sustain this number of people, the Pawnee depended not only on hunting, but on gathering and planting as well. , Pawnee women and girls gathered many kinds of food from plants that grew on the prairie. These included milkweed pods, sunflower seeds, wild nuts, and berries. Along streams or in marshy places they found roots of yellow lotus, cattail, wild onions, and sweet flag. They also gathered chokecherries, wild plums, wild grapes, sand cherries, wild potatoes, turnips, and turkey peas. , Cultivated gardens produced much of their food. A Pawnee woman's garden was about one acre in size. They used simple tools: a rake, a hoe made from a bison shoulder blade, and a digger, made from a fire-hardened stick. Using seeds they had saved from the previous year, they planted corn, beans, pumpkins, squash, and melons. Corn, their main food, was picked and roasted or allowed to dry on the stalk before picking. Pumpkins were cut into strips and dried. Corn and beans were dried and put into skin bags and then lowered into an underground storage pit. Some storage pits were located in the earthlodge; others were built outside the earthlodge. The outdoor food pits were ten to twelve feet deep and held food enough for several years. , Squash , Narragansett Indian word askutasquash, , which means "eaten raw or uncooked.". Squash are one of the oldest cultivated plants known to exist. Dating from 10,000 years ago, they were initially prized for their utilitarian properties (i.e., utensils, containers, etc...). Eventually, their flesh and seeds became valuable food sources. , The European settlers in the Americas only began to eat them when food became scarce during their first winter in the "New World." , Types of squash include: Butternut, Hubbard, Turban, Winter Pumpkins, Butternuts, Musky Winter Squash, Cushaw, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Ornamental Gourds, Crookneck, Spaghetti Squash, and Summer Pumpkins. , Maize , (Indian Corn) , Zea mays L.. Indian Corn (Maize) was domesticated over 8,000 years ago in southwestern Mexico. It was likely derived from the wild grass plant called Balsas teosinte. For thousands of years, the plant travelled all over the Americas, becoming one of the most important food plants in the Hemisphere. , Grown as a food staple (similar in importance to wheat in the Old World) for the Native American diet, it was not introduced to Europeans until after Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Since then, it has gone through major transformations. As an example, yields have gone from 32 bushels per acre in the early 1900's to over 200 bushels per acre today. , Modern corn varieties are grown for specific applications, such as feed for animals, high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol, and human consumption. , Anasazi Beans. Anasazi Beans were originally domesticated by the Anasazi Indians who lived in the region of the four corners in the western United States. Largely known for their cliff dwellings, the Anasazi were accomplished farmers developing advanced irrigation methods to make the cultivation of their corn, bean, and other crops possible in an otherwise arid region. , Despite the story that all modern Anasazi Beans originated with ones found sealed in a jar among cliff dwelling ruins, it is more likely that today's beans come from stock that continued to be cultivated by the modern Pueblo Indians of the region. , Just like the corn (maize), these beans are heirlooms. This means that no genetic modification has been made to them beyond the time-honored tradition of human selection of seed. It also means that they are not hybrids and the seed produced by the plant can be replanted and fertile seed will again be made by that plant.