RELG 456 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Iroquois, Corn Kernel, Gary Farmer
15 Jun 2018
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Week 2: Land as Sustenance: Historical Relationship with Food Wednesday, January 17th, 2018
Week 1 → Wednesday, January 10th, 2018 = class introductions, syllabus overview, etc.
I. The Gift -By: Gary Farmer (Video)
- The Indian civilization can be represented by the corn civilization
- “I put the seed in the ground now its up to you to decide how they grow”
- Bridge between the scientific knowledge and traditional indigenous knowledge
- Our government is organized by corn and we organize our lives and the sense of ourselves
through the crop
- Corn as the first treaty between human beings and nature
- Planting of the corn, beans and squash on a hill
- “we ask our lord, Jesus Christ for a blessing once the corn is planted”
- New varieties of corn do not take to the ground or grow naturally they just rely on their artificial
fertilizer
- The only means of production has become with fertilizer
- You cant solely take and take from the land, it’s a two way street
- Presumption that those without a degree in agronomy didn’t know anything about farming
- Corn as the breastmilk of mother earth
- Economic ratio of corn kernel per yield is significant
- French program to destroy (burn and cut 1.5 million bushels) all of the Seneca corn crops as a
means to defeat them where they could not militarily
- Emphasis on the appreciation for food
II. Map of the Province of Lower Canada:
III. First People’s First Crops: Iroquois Agriculture Past and Present (Video)
Who are the Iroquois?
- Five/Six nations in the confederacy, originally 5
a. Mohawks
b. Oneidas
c. Onondagas – central firekeepers
d. Cayuga’s
e. Seneca’s
f. Tuskaors- joined 1720
- Iroquois was one of the most powerful economic entities, controlled a great deal of land and a
prime player in the political field as well
Three Characteristics of the Iroquois Confederacy
a. Known for developing the first participatory form of government → began in the 1300’s
• Originates from the great law which is oral and recited by the people – details
governance of the confederacy
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Week 2: Land as Sustenance: Historical Relationship with Food Wednesday, January 17th, 2018
• Came when communities have experienced great disruption and people were
searching for ways for the people to live together – this led to the emergence of the
Great Law as the central governing capacity of the Iroquois Confederacy
• Wampum Belts- represent different things, five windows at Cornell University
represents one of the five original nations which formed the confederacy
• Confederacy still operates today, governance structures very important
b. Matriarchy - women respected, powerful and included in political, social and cultural
institutions of the confederacy
• Women important not only because of power but also as farmers in communities,
productive and dynamic
c. Agriculture has played a very large role in the political social and cultural history
• New York’s first farmers = Iroquois Women, myth = Iroquois as solely
hunter/gatherers
• Agriculture products actually provided more than half of their food needs, women
held the knowledge of plant and plant management – women controlled all aspects
of agriculture in Iroquois communities
• Though Corn, Beans and Squash (three sisters) are usually focused on, there were
other central products
• 1165: Agriculture and the interrelationship in New York goes back over 1000 years
• Agriculture through the eyes of the Europeans = Jacques Cartier (French explorer),
saw along the St. Lawrence River were large and extensive villages/fields of corn
and maze storage, along the Banks of the Hudson River
• Iroquois Confederacy, worked in coloration with Great Britain as an ally against the
French and as a result the French came to Iroquois villages with the intention to
destroy Iroquois’s corns fields which they knew were valuable to the allied GB and
Iroquois confederacy
• John Sullivan’s Campaign – general in Washington’s Army and 4/6 Iroquois nations
supported Great Britain against American revolutionaries, as a result Sullivan was
sent into West NY to again destroy Iroquois Agriculture to interfere in their
capacities to aid Great Britain
• Iroquois Farmers = superb and probably better than Europeans, also growing mass
acres of crops in the 15thcentury, these communities enjoyed a standard of living
that was very high and likely on the basis of their productive and successful
agriculture → profoundly different then what Europeans had seen, based on crop
(corn) which is indigenous to the Western Hemisphere vs. Europe growing barely,
wheat
• Another striking difference = Iroquois people planted without tillage, which
contrasted European farmers who used ploughs and draft animals, but they brought
seeds from their crops and they tried to broadcast by hand their grains on unfarmed
land – this entirely failed and thus they began to pay better attention to the
indigenous farming practises which was very productive without tillage
• Three Sisters= corn, beans and squash grown together as a polyculture
The Science Behind the Three Sisters:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Week 1 wednesday, january 10th, 2018 = class introductions, syllabus overview, etc: the gift -by: gary farmer (video) I put the seed in the ground now its up to you to decide how they grow . The indian civilization can be represented by the corn civilization. Bridge between the scientific knowledge and traditional indigenous knowledge. Our government is organized by corn and we organize our lives and the sense of ourselves through the crop. Corn as the first treaty between human beings and nature. Planting of the corn, beans and squash on a hill. New varieties of corn do not take to the ground or grow naturally they just rely on their artificial. We ask our lord, jesus christ for a blessing once the corn is planted fertilizer. The only means of production has become with fertilizer. You cant solely take and take from the land, it"s a two way street.
