BUFFALO BIRD WOMAN'S GARDEN

Native American Gardening

Grade
Goals/Objectives
Proficiency Objectives

People
American Heritage
Decision Making and Resources
World Interactions

Materials
Activity
Preparing the Land
Making Tools
Rake

Goals/Objectives:

• To learn, and put in to practice, the methods of cultivating plants used by Native Americans including the prehistoric Middle and Late Woodland Indians while comparing and contrasting them with the Historic Indians, such as the Shawnee or modern methods.
• To keep a detailed journal of the growing cycle. These foods would then be used in the preparation of Native American dishes.

Proficiency Objectives:

People in Societies

• Compare customs, traditions, and needs of Ohio's various cultural groups.
• Compare the roles of women in various societies around the world and at different times throughout history.
• Discuss the impact of the initial contacts between Europeans and Native Americans and explore the enduring legacy of those contacts.

American Heritage

• Sequence events in order of occurrence
• Group events by broadly defined historical eras and develop multiple-tier time lines, entering information on multiple themes.

Decision Making and Resources

• Recognize that all people have wants.
• Demonstrate an understanding of limited resources by taking turns and sharing materials.
• Identify the resources necessary for the production of a good or service.
• Describe how people in different cultures work to earn income in order to satisfy wants.
• Select a good and suggest the land and labor resources necessary for its production.
• Describe the advantages and disadvantages of specialization in the production process.
• Explain how developing the skills and knowledge of individuals enables them to become better consumers and producers.

World Interactions

• Explore how people in the local community and in communities around the world depend on the environment.
• Demonstrate that a map represents a real place.
• Develop map skills.
• Create tables, charts, and graphs to compare climate, vegetation, and resources in Ohio with other states and nations.
• Compare types of human interaction with the environment.

• Plot of land or individual pots for plants, allowing for at least 12" of soil.
• Sunflower seeds
• Squash seeds
• Pole bean seeds
• Notebook per child or a notebook used by the entire classroom for daily journal entries
• Sticks, approximately 4 ft. long, for tools
• Large mussel shell
• Deer rack
• Cord

The Middle and Late Woodland Traditions changed the life of Ohio's prehistoric people. There was a change from hunting and gathering to a more settled life style and the use of cultivated plants. What are some of the examples of change? (It brought about a more permanent form of housing and household items, such as pottery vessels.) Many of these techniques carried over to the Historic Indian era. The Woodland Indians were farmers in spring and summer and hunted and trapped in the fall and winter. The women cultivated a variety of vegetables and native plants. At many archaeological dig sites, storage pits were found that held the collected grains and seeds, or were used for trash pits. Some of these storage pits were 3 1/2 ft. wide and 5 ft. deep.

Historic Indians would have utilized many of the techniques as the prehistoric but would have used less of the native plants like knotweed and maygrass and concentrated on vegetables brought by settlers. There would have also been an increase in the use of iron tools and more modern methods. Students can refer back to the "Explore Ohio's American Indian Heritage"to see how the Shawnee Indian, Black Hoof, encouraged these ways (Have them write the description of Shawnee farming at Wapakoneta).

Along with sunflowers, this curriculum will deal with the traditional Three Sisters Garden, consisting of squash, beans and corn.

A classroom could recreate a version of this garden or the plant species in an outside plot or large individual pots (at least 12" of soil). The plots of land should be prepared in April with the planting in May. Pots could be prepared and planted in May.

**School calendar years make this initial activity difficult. However, a school district or home school with a year round schedule would be able to accommodate this on going curriculum.

For those who can not perform this segment of the activity, please move on to post-harvest activities.

Preparing the Land

Designate the area to be used by setting boundary marks - wooden stakes, mounds of dirt, or stones. In prehistoric and historic eras, men would have girdled the trees and the land would have been burned. This is not possible in most instances today. Clear the land area using any modern method available.

Making Tools

• Digging Stick: A green limb from a tree, approximately 36-48 inches long and 1to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. On one end, saw or cut an angled edge, to give the stick a sharp point for making holes in the soil.

• Shell or Bone Hoe: The Woodland Tradition would have used these tools. Historic Indians would have had access to iron tools. Of course, modern tools can be used as well.

• Take a green limb from a tree, approximately 36-48 inches long and 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter for a handle. Use one half of a large mussel shell with a hole drilled into the hinged edge that will accommodate the handle. You may use a modern drill or a pump drill (see instructions). The shell would then be tied to the handle with cord.

• An alternative would be to use a scapular bone from a turkey or deer (contact a local butcher). A hole would be drilled into the handle that would accommodate the slender end of the scapular. The bone would then be tied to the handle with cord.

Rake

A deer antler would be attached with cord, upside down, to the base of a handle 36-48 inches long.

The Garden