Native American agriculture and food facts for kids
The Native Americans used a mixture of farming, fishing, hunting, and gathering wild foods to get the food for their traditional diet.
When the Native Americans hunted, they did not only use the animal for its meat; they also used the hides from various animals for clothing, shoes, rope, blankets, tepee covers. They traded furs with other people.
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Farming
The Native Americans grew three main crops - beans, squash, and maize (or corn) - called the three sisters.
Agriculture in the southwest started around 4,000 years ago when traders brought some plants and seeds from Mexico.
The most important crop the Native Americans raised was maize. It was first started in Mesoamerica and spread north. About 2,000 years ago it reached Eastern America. This crop was essential to the Native Americans because it was part of their everyday diet; it could be stored in underground pits during the winter, and no part of it was wasted. The husk was made into art crafts, and the cob was used as fuel for fires.
Some of the other crops they grew were pumpkins, potatoes, sunflowers, wild rice, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, peppers, peanuts, and avocados.
Men and women had different responsibilities when farming which differed from region to region. In the southwest area, men prepared the soil with hoes. The women were in charge of planting, weeding, and harvesting the crops. In most other regions, the women were in charge of doing everything, including clearing the land. Clearing the land was a huge chore since the Native Americans often rotated fields.
Native Americans used controlled fires to burn weeds and clear fields; this would put nutrients back into the ground. If this did not work, they would abandon the field for a while so it could get its nutrients back naturally.
Native Americans commonly used tools such as the hoe, maul, and dibber. The hoe was the main tool used to till the land and prepare it for planting; then it was used for weeding. The first versions were made out of wood and stone. When the settlers brought iron, Native Americans switched to iron hoes and hatchets.
The dibber was a digging stick, used to plant the seed. Once the plants were harvested, women prepared the produce for eating. They used to grind the corn into mash. It was cooked and eaten that way or baked as cornbread. Farmers in the Eastern Woodlands tended fields of maize with hoes and digging sticks, while their neighbors in the Southeast grew tobacco as well as food crops.
Some groups on the region's mesas developed ways to water their fields. They also filled storehouses with grain.
Fishing
Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugouts (wooden boats) 40–50 feet (12–15 m) long for fishing. Spears and harpoons were used to catch the fish. In the colder regions, they practiced ice fishing.
Indians also caught their fish in weirs (nets that they put across streams). These weirs were woven together from reeds and twigs which trapped the fish as they swam along.
They ate a large variety of fish and marine life. Some types of fish they caught were sturgeon, salmon, halibut, mullet, rays, and and porpoises.
They could store the fish by drying and smoking it for use in winter.
Hunting
Native Americans depended on meat for much of their diet.
A bow and arrow or spears were used for hunting deer, bison, buffalo, bears, elk, caribou, deer, rabbit, ducks, geese, and turkeys.
Sometimes they planned buffalo hunts in which herds were driven over bluffs.
They also hunted for marine animals such as clams and other shellfish, seals, and even whales.
Gathering
In addition to farming, fishing, and hunting, they also gathered food from the natural environment.
They gathered wild plants, berries, and seeds.
The Eastern Woodlands people gathered tree sap from sugar maple trees in spring to make maple syrup, maple cakes and maple sugar.
They gathered acorns to grind into flour with which they baked wafer-thin bread on top of heated stones.
Interesting facts about Native American agriculture and food
- Sixty percent of the present world’s food supply comes from corn and potatoes: Native American agriculture.
- Many Native American words for food have become part of the English language, including chocolate, potato, and squash.
- The white settlers in colonial America might have starved if they had not copied Native American farming methods.
- The buffalo (also called bison) was an important food source for the Plains Indians.
- Horses, which were brought to America by the early European explorers and settlers, allowed the Indians to chase prey.
- Open-fire cooking was used for baking, frying, deep frying, boiling, and roasting.
- Indian populations have seen heart disease double within the last 50 years. It is thought that it is because many tribes have begun eating the way other Americans eat rather than the traditional way of their ancestors.
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