THE FIRST AMERICANS

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THE FIRST AMERICANS
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Part 1
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It's surprising how many of the foods we think of as "European" actually came from our own backyard. Tomatoes, potatoes and cocoa are just a few of the gifts the White Man received from the Native Americans. We usually think of the natives who occupied these lands before the arrival of Columbus and Cortez as savages who mostly ate wild game, supplemented by nuts and berries. But many tribes existed almost entirely on plant foods, specifically corn, beans and squash. It is a fact that many Native Americans were skilled farmers, practicing sophisticated irrigation, hybridization and crop rotation methods. However, they also made excellent use of the foods that grew in the wild.
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The forest Indians knew how to gather wild foods in season and preserve them for the lean winter months. Surplus berries, not eaten raw or cooked with meat - as was the custom, were dried on sheets of bark or basket trays before storage. Acorns and chestnuts, which were abundant in North America, were also dried and then ground into a coarse flour or meal. In the East, hickory nuts, walnuts, butter nuts and hazel nuts were used in much the same way, as were pecans and buckeyes in the West. In addition to grinding nuts into flour, the Indians had techniques for extracting the oils for use in cooking and for making nut butter spreads.
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Wild root foods were an important staple in the Native American diet, including artichokes, potatoes and the roots of water lilies which were dug from the bottom of ponds. The Indians knew how to use other root foods (or tubers) as well, ones like the groundnut and breadroot or prairie turnip which we are not familiar with. Many of these root foods could be cooked, dried and pounded into a coarse meal to allow for storage.
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In the northern forests wild rice was a favorite. It grew in shallow waterways and was gathered in canoes manned by a paddler and a gleaner. Wild rice was highly valued as an article of trade.
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Nuts, seeds, roots, mushrooms, even leaves and bark could be eaten by those who knew what was palatable and what was not. Today we consider many of the wild leaves used by the Native Americans as both food and medicine, to be valuable herbal treatments for a wide variety of diseases. The Indians knew their value long before the White Man was willing to listen. (More on this subject in a future article.) The inner bark of some trees such as the basswood, slippery elm, birch, striped maple and white oak, though not a favorite food, could be boiled into a kind of sinewy soup when food was really scarce.
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It is believed that agricultural know-how developed in South America and spread north. When the Europeans first arrived in North America, they found "gardens" and, in some cases, large fields of corn, beans, squash, pumpkin, tobacco and sunflowers. The farming methods of the North American natives ranged from rather crude to the highly developed techniques of the Iroquois. However, the great tribes of Central and South America - the Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs - were unsurpassed agriculturists. The Incas, in particular, are credited with domesticating and hybridizing many wild plant foods, including maize (corn). Their terraced gardens and complex irrigation systems were a wonder to behold. It's the Incas, not the Irish, who actually gave us the white potato, although, it may have originated even further south in Chile. These high mountain countries of South America also gave us the sweet potato, peppers and pineapples. The peanut was originally grown by natives of Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. The tomato came from the area of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. Credit for cocoa and chocolate should rightly go to the Aztecs, not the Swiss or the Dutch. Reportedly, Montezuma first served this delicacy to Cortez and his officers in 1519. Avocados were being grown by the Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs, while beans of many varieties were being cultivated throughout North, Central And South America. Most of the beans we now eat were unknown to Europeans before they reached the shores of America. Maple syrup is a gift from the forest Indians of the north.
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Many Indian tribes practiced a process we now call "intercropping." In other words, they planted two complimentary crops together, cultivating and harvesting them at the same time. This process is getting a lot of attention today as a potential means of solving most of the world's food and fuel problems.
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Most Native American tribes ate only two meals a day. They did not eat immediately upon rising in the morning but rather did chores and played games until they were called to a hot noonday meal. Sometimes a warrior would hunt from sunup to sundown, finally sitting down to his only meal at the end of the day.
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The Indians, like most of us, liked their food well-cooked but not overdone. Most of the cooking was done in clay pots before the White Man introduced them to iron kettles. Much of what we have learned about the ancient Native Americans comes from remnants of their cooking, storage and eating utensils which were often decorated with detailed representations of their daily lives. Clay was an important part of the food preparation process. Small game, fish and rabbits were sometimes prepared by wrapping them in a thick blanket of clay which was dried and placed directly in the hot embers of a fire. Meat was also roasted on an open fire and meat and vegetables were cooked separately, or together, in hot oil. The fat or oil was derived from large game, nuts or seeds.
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Although the Indians may not have eaten quite as elegantly as the European aristocracy, each tribe had their own rules of dinnertime etiquette which usually involved giving thanks and serving the weaker members of the tribe (elders and children) first. One very important consideration was to show appreciation to the cook, even when the food was not really to your liking. Keeping the cook happy was a top priority.
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If one plant food had to be singled out as the most important crop throughout the Americas it would be corn. Many tribes had their own corn gods and corn dances. Holidays centered around the harvesting of corn. Both daily rituals and those used on special occasions often involved corn or corn meal. In addition to being a dietary staple, corn also had its medicinal uses with different colors of corn having different healing powers. White corn was used to bring down a fever; blue corn to treat heart trouble.
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It is estimated that 80% of the foods we now eat were gifts from the Native Americans. Whether or not that is accurate, we can certainly thank our Native American brothers and sisters for corn-on-the-cob, cornbread, corn muffins, corn chips, corn flakes, corn pops, corn dogs, tacos and burritos and, of course, pop corn.
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Part II
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While walking through the Western Pennsylvania woods on a beautiful fall morning, I think about the fact that on such a morning hundreds of years ago, all over this vast country Native Americans were probably out gathering their healing plants. In woods such as ours, wild ginger was gathered and stored for the treatment of indigestion. In the north, east of the Alleghenies, woodland Indians were gathering psychic root to use as a purgative. The Cherokees of the southeastern United States might be gathering pink root which was used to get rid of intestinal worms. All across the continent an herb called Indian Pipes by the colonists, was gathered and used as a lotion for sore eyes and as a sedative in cases of hysteria. In the western Rockies the natives might be gathering bread root, in the Great Lakes - a poisonous flower called Indian Tobacco whose leaves were a valuable addition to the Indian apothecary. Every region had its own riches and each tribe their treasured recipes.
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As we discussed last month, the Native Americans knew quite well, how to nourish themselves from the things that Mother Earth had to offer. They were also great believers in the power of nature to heal and were skilled at using her gifts to treat a whole host of human ailments. The Indian medicine man, housewife and hunter alike knew what plants to gather and how to preserve and store them for future use.
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But for the Native American, just removing the plants from the ground, drying and packaging them was not enough. Like all of natures components, these healing plants were to be treated with respect and shown appreciation for their favors. The baskets and bags that would be used to gather the plant-medicine were sprinkled with sacred tobacco the night before a medicine gathering venture. The gatherers would pray to the sun in the morning before leaving. Gifts such as tobacco, beads, arrowheads and ornaments made of precious metals were taken along to sacrifice to the spirit of the plants.
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A typical process for gathering the healing plants would go something like this. The first plant of a particular type to be discovered would be addressed in a respectful manner but not picked. A number of plants may be passed up before the first plant was chosen. A gift offering would then be made. The plant would be told why it was being taken. Then the plant was removed, roots and all; it was thanked and new seeds were planted. Sometimes songs or chants were recited like the Seneca verse from which these lines come.
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"Oh, give me of your power to purge,
Your power to heal our people with your virtue.
I will not destroy you but plant your seeds,
Plant them in the hole from which I take you."
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Plants, roots, and bark were dried, cut into small pieces and placed in fabric or leather bags.
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Some examples of Native American remedies include boneset tea mixed with prickly ash bark for colds and fever, sassafras and goldenseal for stomach ailments. The juice of the snap dragon was used for insect bites, lady's slipper root for poison Ivy, while sassafras root was chewed up and applied directly to mosquito bites. One herbal mixture the settlers grew quite fond of was kinnickkinnick. This combination of dried roots and bark was smoked by the Indians of the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes region.
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The Indians had developed their knowledge of herbs over many hundreds of years of living on this land. Some medicine men jealousy guarded their sacred remedies from all but the tribal apprentice who would be the tribe's next healer. But others were generous about sharing their knowledge, even with the Whites and a few people, like Dr. Benjamin Rush, recognized the value of these gifts.
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Dr. Rush (1745 -1830) was an American physician, politician and educator and signer of the Declaration of Independence. As an abolitionist and champion of the mentally handicapped, he obviously recognized the worth of all human beings. He also recognized the value of the Native American herbal remedies and he studied and recorded many of them. A lot of this herbal wisdom was eventually carried back to Europe where American herbs - new remedies for old ailments, became the rage of the European medical community.
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Some Native American medicines that came into common use include golden seal (or orange root), quinine which comes from the bark of the cinchora tree and is used to treat malaria, coca from which cocaine is derived and the lovely, but potentially poisonous, wildflower - bloodroot.
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To the Native Americans "medicine" was not just a pill or liquid to be taken when one was ill, but rather an important part of everyday life. In many tribes a medicine pouch or bundle containing items of personal and tribal significance was worn around the neck like a pendant and thus carried wherever one might go. There was also the medicine lodge where important ceremonies were conducted, and medicine dances were performed, imploring help from the spirits to heal, to grant a good crop or a good hunt. A varied diet of many different kinds of plant life, lots of exercise and fresh air - these too were elements of the good medicine that made infectious disease almost unknown to Native Americans before the White Man arrived.
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This article is intended for informational purposes only. Nothing in this publication is intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical diagnosis and advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or health-care provider before starting any new diet or procedure involving your health. Prompt professional medical guidance is recommended for any health problem.