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Bountiful Harvest In Native American Culture

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Bountiful Harvest Jeffrey Bell Fall is associated with the word harvest. Harvest Festivals or Harvest Gatherings can be attended on Sundays during the month of November. Thanksgiving is a time of the year to celebrate a bountiful harvest and a friendship that had formed over time, while the Native American Women taught the Pilgrims how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and store their crops for the winter. It may come as surprise that Native American women primarily are the ones who planted, cultivated and harvested all the crops for their tribes. In elementary schools across America teach about how the Pilgrims would have never made it without the help of the Native Americans. Without the Native Americans the Pilgrims would not know …show more content…

Their economy was primarily based on the cultivation of maize. They lived on small farms scattered among the land, the chief and his close friends and/or family are located within close proximity of each other near the center where rituals and political focuses took place. For the Mississippians maize met their main dietary needs and the different varieties harvested met their production needs (Scarry, 260). The Apalachee households planted small crops of maize, beans, squash, etc; and the harvest was stored in granaries for domestic use. However, they also would plant, cultivate and harvest larger fields that were to be stored in community granaries (Scarry, 262). Other Indian tribes like; Chickasaw, Tunica and Powhatan also had the same practices as the Apalachee’s. The Cherokee had larger fields and divided them into household crops, however, they worked as a community in the fields, but each family had their own granary and would all contribute some of their share to the community granary (Scarry, …show more content…

The tribes seem to be self-sufficient in dual production for either their household or the community. As time progress the communal granaries turn more into the community stores and depending on your position in the tribe depends on if you hold a key to a communal storehouse. The storehouses distributed most of their food to public feast, ceremonial occasions or families in need; like widows and orphans. The tribes like to feed the elite during political and social activities and when supporting military operations (Hann 1986:145, Scarry, 263). The data is limited, but those who have provided the evidence indicate that the Native American production was truly impressive. Soto and his army covered many acres of land as they made their way through the Southeast and commented on the fields and their abundance stored in the granaries. Rangel discovered the same as Soto that everywhere they traveled there was an abundance of their crops, whether it be maize, pumpkins, beans, etc. (Scarry, 265). Spanish documents show that land sizes were estimated on how many people to a family whose consumption was based on 25 to 50 percent of their caloric needs. Some researchers argue that plots were rotated every four years and after 30 years the plot lost its fertility and the village would be required to

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