Great Farming Heritage of First Nations in Saskatchewan was healthy
- Harvey Knight | March 04, 2014
Up until about 40 years ago, the people of Muskoday First Nation lived a healthy organic hunting-food gathering-farming lifestyle. We grew gardens and crops without the use of chemicals, raised free-range cattle, chickens and turkeys, hunted deer, moose, and rabbits, and picked wild berries and medicine plants. We ate good fish and drank clean water from the South Saskatchewan River, which was still clean.
Like some other reserves in southern and central Saskatchewan, Muskoday already had an established, thriving farming economy by the time the Treaties in this area were concluded. As a child I grew up in this mixed farming community, where the people took care of themselves and each other, and welfare assistance was virtually unknown. A respect for the land, plants, and animals and a specialized knowledge of our relationship to them prevailed in the community, as I recall. Diseases and obesity that plague us today were virtually unknown then, as I remember. We were not wealthy but we were healthy and self-sufficient.
It wasn't until after I grew up I learned more about my agricultural history and culture from stories elders told and attending university. Farming and garden cultures already flourished in these parts before European settlers arrive here. The Saulteaux (Ojibway-Cree) and Cree people arrived here in these vast plains, parklands, and boreal forest from the East in earlier times, hundreds of years before the Europeans came in this territory. They were not only hunters and gatherers but were also adept farmers and gardeners. The Métis, with their mixed First Nation and European heritage, had also arrived earlier, establishing their grain and gardens of Indigenous food plants.
Their predecessors had been growing corn, squash, beans and other food plants in the East for many centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, and they brought this food planting tradition with them to this place we now call Saskatchewan. But there are stories and archeological evidence emerging that tell of agricultural economies existing along the South Saskatchewan River in prehistoric times even before the arrival of the Cree and Saulteaux peoples.
Sedentary village societies belonging to Atsina, Hadatsa, and Mandan tribes of the Sioux Nations lived and grew corn, squash, and beans on fertile lands along the South Saskatchewan River. They were forced out of this territory upon the arrival of the Cree and Saulteax Nations and moved south into the what is no known as the North Midwestern part of the states.
But the Indigenous food growing cultures of North America are rooted in an agricultural tradition that existed throughout the Americas on a vast scale going back to antiquity. Most plant foods we eat to today were first domesticated by Native Americans. As far back as 10,000 years ago Indians all over North, Central, and South America were harvesting large quantities of crops of plants, according to archeologists and Indian Elders.
Food plants that were first developed by Native American peoples include corn, squashes, pumpkins, potatoes, sunflower, tomatoes, beans, a wide variety of peppers, blue grapes, peanuts, cocoa, vanilla, maple syrup, avocados, pineapples, and watermelon. These plants have been a lasting legacy of the American Indian and a remarkable contribution as the major food staples in the world today. These plants are now grown all over the world and sustain countless millions.
The incredible success of Native American agriculture can be attributed to the way we were connected to the natural life of the world. In ancient times, they say, we learned to live and co-exist in companionship with plants, like corn, squash, beans, and potatoes, providing mutual support to one another for the sake survival and success. It was a relationship based on equality and reciprocity. The plants agreed to give humans life and sustenance, and in fact changed themselves genetically to be palatable and tasty for human consumption. In return, humans promised to always nourish and protect their plant relatives from their enemies. So in this sense Native Americans never "domesticated" plants for consumption in the Western sense of the word, not really.
What happened to that world of health and well-being? In a few short decades, we witnessed the demise of our agricultural traditions and saw our diets completely change from eating organically grown foods and wild meat to eating processed, artificial, chemical-based foods. And diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and obesity have risen dramatically as a result. One answer to our health problems is clear: start growing and consuming our own organic food cropsespecially crops of native origin.