Category Archives: Indigenous People before Contact

North American Farmers: Not What you Think

 

Speaking about the east coast and central regions of Canada which we visited on this wonderful trip we could try to answer Barbara Huck’s challenge to her challenge  to imagine a land where people just 500 years ago lived in towns and villages that were very different than we previously believed.  The people were not savages, as some of the Europeans erroneously believed. They were members of a thriving civilization.   As Huck explained,

“They tilled the soil and grew a remarkable array of crops—corn, squash, melons, beans, and tobacco. Not far away, the lakes and rivers were full of fish and the forests abounded with game. The women of this land did much of the fishing and farming; the men, for the most part, had other interests. While their wives and sisters and mothers planted and tilled the soil and cared for the children, the men travelled far from home, trading north and south, hunting, and as often as not, fighting. Theirs was a powerful nation, with many allies and intentions of expanding across a great river at the edge of their land.”

 

 

This all reminded me of what our guides taught us on our trip through the Africa;  often the women carry water and other vital goods on their heads, while the men sat around under trees and discussed important matters.

But who were these farmers Huck described in her book?  They were not Europeans as we might have thought. They were wholly indigenous. This is how she described them:

“The farmers were Iroquoian—the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk—who by 1500 occupied a large territory south of the St. Lawrence River and would soon unite to become the Five Nations Iroquois. To the north were Innu and their Algonquian speaking allies, from the Mi’Kmaq of the Atlantic Shores to eh Anishinabe of the Upper Great Lakes.

These cultures differed from one another as much as Scots differ from Spaniards today, or Finns from French. Some North American societies were settled and agrarian, others were seasonably mobile; some turned to the sea for their livelihood, others lived off the bounty of the inland plains.

As in Europe today, the societies of 15th century and 16th century North America spoke dozens of different languages. And like their modern counterparts most of these languages could be traced to a handful of common language groups.”

These Iroquois nations got together and created a democratic system of government that the framers of the American constitution were inspired by when they created what is often called the world’s first constitutional democracy. These Indigenous People y were certainly not savages.

The Origin of Agriculture: An Ojibwa Story

 

This is an Ojibwa story about the origin of agriculture among a people of great hunters. A young man or boy was taken out by his grandfather to a Vison Quest.  A vision pit was dug for him and he had to stay there in the wilderness for 4 days and 4 nights without food.

His grandfather and grandmother prayed for him, but before he went in he had to undergo rites of purification in the sweat lodge. It was hoped his dream would have healing in it or medicine. But this boy had no dreams so when he was done a Sky Being came down to visit him in tassels and plumes and they wrestled all day.

Even though the boy was weak from lack of food and water, under neath him there was tremendous earth strength. When he wrestled the Sky Being it was like the earth and the sky were wrestling together.

This happened for 3 days and they wrestled each day. The Sky Being had weakened from the exercise and was about to die and asked to be buried and asked the boy and his father to tend to his grave and keep it clear of weeds. As a result, there grew corn in the grave and it looked like in tassels and plumes. This is how corn became so important to Ojibwa people. In some sense at least it is how they moved from the Hunter Gatherer stage to the stage of agriculture. In the story the corn is born out of a person. It is not from a person like ourselves but it is a person from the sky.  In this way, “agriculture is born out of a wrestling of heaven and earth.”  That is a fabulous story.

 According to Professor Moriarty, in Ancient Greece, the corn was also a person. In fact this is the Mediterranean tradition. Moriarty explained that

In Greece the corn was a divinity and the earth was Gaia another divinity. In the Old Testament God is totally transcendent. Sometimes that is unfortunate because it means that all value is now in the super celestial world. All value is divine value and it’s in super celestial world. And that means that the earth is basically just raw material and we can only   look at it with an economic eye. But in this vision of it, the earth it itself a goddess. And the corn is a goddess. If the corn is a goddess than I am going to treat it sacredly. I am going to respond sacredly to it. When I take my sickle to the garden, I know that I am cutting down the goddess. When I broadcast the seed I know that it will grow into the goddess. But we have totally de-personalized corn. It has just become another economic proposition—economic material for us. And that is a pity.”

 

Now from the European perspective  that is a new attitude to nature.

Commonage Consciousness: An ecologically better way of being on the earth

 

There were some ways in which Europeans had a completely different attitude to things than the Indigenous people of North America they encountered when they first had contact with each other.  For one thing, as I have been saying, they had a completely different attitude to nature.  Closely associated with that, was that they had a completely different attitude to property—at least real property (land and buildings). Europeans believed in private ownership of land. That idea was foreign to Indigenous people. Indigenous people believed in tribes or first nations having rights to land. Not individuals. That has had a profound impact.  The idea of private property is part of capitalist society. At least it has always has been so until they encountered the Indigenous people and recently, with the rise of capitalism in Communist countries or formerly communist countries such as China.

The Indigenous idea of property held in common was blessed by the Parliament of Canada when it enacted the Indian Act in the late 19th century as it tried to assert jurisdiction over First Nations in Canada. That notion is still part of the federal law in Canada since then, even though it has been criticized by some.

Professor John Moriarty though considers the issue from the perspective of a poet. As he said:

“It is time now in western Europe to reinstitute Commonage consciousness. We have to reinstate it in a way that would reinstitute a new sacrament. Unless we reinstitute commonage consciousness, then we are going to continue to inflict appalling damage to the earth. That is a story that could take us into an ecologically better way of being on the earth.”

 

When Moriarty went to the hills in Connemara  Ireland and saw no fences, he was awe struck. Moriarty noted how people thought it was a big deal to take down the Berlin wall between 2 European political systems, communism and capitalism. Was that really such a big deal? John Moriarty did not think that was a big deal.

 

However, Moriarty thought “it was hugely important to take down the wall between us and blades of grass, between us and trees, between us and the stars, between us and everything that is.” That is an entirely new attitude to nature, at least for non-Indigenous people.

 Talking about an Indigenous nation in North America, Moriarty said

 “the Blackfeet did not see the difference between them and the buffalo. They saw what was common between them and the buffalo. And what is common is grace. What separates us in a way is trivial but what we have in common is grace and immense.

 

Moriarty wants to take us back from our “us and them consciousness” to a commonage consciousness and then we will be walking the earth in a more beautiful way.”

 

 

Moriarty says the world will not reveal itself to a scientist who confronts it only as a scientist, or to a theologian. The world will reveal itself to a Saint Francis of Assisi who will walk out naked into the world and says “Brother sun and sister moon.” Some Christians had a similar point of view.

We must recognize that we are all kin with all creatures on the earth. As he said, “What else is this Blackfoot Indian story but an amplification of the story of Saint Francis of Assisi?”

We must learn that the sun is our brother. The moon is our sister. The fire is our kin. We must consider what we have in common. Consciousness is common. Moriarty liked the idea of the English novelist and writer D. H. Lawrence who said we should “take a great arc back into the past and come forward.”

As Moriarty said, “It is only to someone who walks beautifully on the earth that the earth will reveal itself.”

 

Ancestral Spirituality

Great House

Like many other Indigenous people of North America in a number of other places, the Great House of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert was carefully aligned with the sun. In fact, 17 different astronomical observations could be made from the Great House.  First of all, the house was carefully aligned between North and South.

 

There was also a round hole “window” that once each year lined up perfectly with the sun on the day of the summer solstice. Another rectangular hole carefully marked the spring and fall equinoxes.

 

As well one square window lined up with the Lunar Standstill that occurred every 18.6 years. What is the Lunar Standstill? For the first half of each year, the moon rises during the day in phases from near-full to a mere thin crescent, rising earlier each month from early afternoon to early morning. In July, the moon rises between the rocks as a nearly invisible new moon around dawn. From August through November, the waxing moon rising between the rocks, ranges from crescent to nearly full. Moonrise continues to come earlier each month, from just before dawn to just before sunset. Finally, the full moon rises between the rocks at sunset near the Winter Solstice in December. The duration of the moon’s passing between the spires was different for each rising but generally lasted from five to fifteen minutes.

 

The moon’s orbit of Earth oscillates or wobbles, gradually causing the moon to rise at different points on the horizon over the years.  Actually, I never learned that the orbit of the moon around the earth is not as perfect as I thought. The entire cycle of the wobbling moon takes 18.6 years, and apparently the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert understood these imperfections, because they had observed. Even though I have never observed them. Have you?

 

At the termination of each of the swings of the moon, the moon seems to pause for about 3 years! There was such an apparent pause in 2021 and one in 2004.

 

At each end of its swing, the moon appears to pause for about three years, rising at the same point on the horizon before beginning to move. The cycle is complicated. That apparent pause is called the Lunar Standstill. There are places in North and South America where the indigenous people noticed these movements and sometimes built structures to take these movements into account. They paid a lot of attention to how these movements aligned with local landmarks such as rocks rising above the horizon.

 

No one is sure exactly why these alignments were produced, but they do show the sophisticated knowledge of astronomy that the Ancestral People had. I have my own theory.  Religion at its foundation is about connecting people to each other, other creatures, and the world. These alignments help establish these connections.

 

 

When we get the glorious opportunity to visit a place like Casa Grande or one of the other sacred sites of North America we can’t help but wonder who were these amazing people who built these astounding canals and structures and then watched the sky so intently. What were they looking for in the sky? Those first Spanish missionaries asked the locals here why that was the case, but the indigenous people had a difficult time explaining it to the newcomers. Perhaps they thought the new arrivals were too ignorant to understand.

 

To indigenous people of the American Southwest, as in so many other places around the world, the fundamental notion of spirituality and religion came from the notion of connection. That was always, at least until recently, the basis of religion around the world. In India the original meaning of the word “religion” comes from the Indo-European word “religio, which means connection or linkage. Religion is what connects us. It connects us to other people, and it connects us to the world.

 

In many North American languages, the name for the tribe means “the people”.  In other words, we are the people. Many North and South American people saw the connection between them and the world in how the stars or other celestial bodies aligned with the lives of people. It connected them to each other. It was the same with the ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert.

 

Unfortunately, adherents to some of the monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam forget the importance of connection and instead concentrate on what divides us from other people or the world. They see religion as something that makes them superior to others. In my opinion when this happens religion has gone off the rails, and in fact, in some cases is not actually religion at all, but its opposite.  Religion can become sacrilegious!

 

These odd alignments are all part of the mystery about the purpose behind the Great House.  It took an astonishing amount of human labor to create the house, but it was abandoned within about 75 years, even though the Ancestral People inhabited the area for more than 1,000 years. According to Rose Houk,

 

Modern archeologists have observed such an alignment of the sun through a “window” in an upper room of Casa Grande, marking the summer solstice. They have suggested that the “great house” may have been used as an astronomical observatory, one of several ideas about this enigmatic, imposing structure that stands out in the desert of central Arizona. Others have seen the four-story building as a fort, a granary, or a silo.  Whatever the truth, the Casa Grande’s significance was recognized early on when it became the nation’s first archaeological preserve in 1892.

The indigenous people here who consider themselves the descendants of the Ancient Ancestral Sonoran Desert people call this sacred place Siwan Wa’a Ki. To them it is a place to come and sing songs to the Huhugam Spirts. The non-O’odham call this sacred place Casa Grande Ruin. It was well known to their people and was mentioned in the O’odham legends.

What is clear is that this is a place Great Spirit.

Tohono O’odham/ Hohokam

 

 

Remnant of Great House

According to their own website the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert (Hohokam)  origins are linked to their homeland in the Sonoran Desert. Thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the current Tohono O’odham, settled along the Salt, Gila, and Santa Cruz Rivers in southern Arizona.

 

In the 1990s, archaeologists identified a culture and people that were ancestors of the Hohokam (later called Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert). They grew corn and lived sedentary lives in villages all year round. It is now believed that they might have occupied the territory now known as Arizona as early 2000 B.C.E. They originated as archaic hunters and gatherers who lived on wild plants and animals, and eventually settled in permanent communities and became farmers producing their own food instead of living a more mobile life and gathering what nature provided.

The Hohokam culture included an astonishing skill to build very sophisticated water storage systems and irrigation systems to water their crops.

The Hohokam were master dwellers of the desert, creating sophisticated canal systems to irrigate their crops of cotton, tobacco, corn, beans, and squash. They built vast ball courts and huge ceremonial mounds and left behind fine red-on-buff pottery and exquisite jewellery of stone, shell, and clay.

Following their ancestral heritage, they became what they call “scientists of our environment.”  Like other nations in the Americas they used and continue to use meteorological principles to establish planting, harvesting, ceremonial cycles and they developed complex water storage and delivery systems. Those principles also continue to have spiritual resonance.

They learned to make the best of their environment, migrating with the seasons from their homes in the valleys to cooler mountain dwellings. Over time they learned to raise a wide variety of crops including tepary beans, squash, melon, and sugar cane. They also gathered wild plants such as saguaro fruit, cholla buds, and mesquite bean pods, and we hunted for only the meat that they needed from the plentiful wildlife, including deer, rabbit, and javelina. They continue to live this proud heritage today as 21st century Tohono O’odham.

These Ancestral people were the only culture in North America to rely on irrigation canals to supply water to their crops. In the arid desert environment of the Salt and Gila River Valleys, the homeland of the Hohokam, there was not enough rainfall to grow crops. To meet their needs, the Hohokam engineered the largest and most sophisticated irrigation system in the Americas.

The canals were perfectly laid out on the landscape to achieve a downhill drop (or gradient) of 1 to 2 feet per mile. Many of the canals were massive in size. The Arizona Museum of Natural History discovered a prehistoric canal in the Phoenix Valley that measured 15 feet deep and 45 feet wide. As a result of irrigating up to 110,000 acres by AD 1300, the irrigation systems of the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert supported the largest population in the prehistoric Southwest, and until I came to visit Arizona I had never heard of them before. My ignorance was profound.

They traded goods widely across the American Southwest and even into Mesoamerica (what is now called Mexico).  They produced cotton and woven goods that were highly desired by other Indigenous nations and were woven goods from which they made things like blankets that could be traded for very good prices

There continues to be a significant and thriving O’odham population living in the region. The members of the Salt and Gila River communities celebrate their heritage as descendants of the ancient desert people.

When we are in the San Tan Valley we often go to San Tan Mountain Regional Park for hikes and outings.  It is beautiful country and it is on the edge of territory of the O’odham nation or inside the territory of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert (Hohokam).

The more I learn about these people the more impressed I am by their achievements.

 

 

Decline of Ancient Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert

 

At Casa Grande Arizona, a steel and concrete canopy was built in 1932 to protect what remained of the Great House from the elements.

As I mentioned earlier  the great puzzle is why were these magnificent structures and elaborate towns abandoned in favor of smaller communities after about 1450 C.E.

Some have speculated that some catastrophe caused the people to leave. There is evidence that the area experienced significant floods between 1300 and 1450.  Those were followed by intense periods of drought. Severe climate change in other words.

Archeologists use multiple kinds of evidence to answer such questions, or at least shed some light on the questions posed. As a result, they have been studying salt discharge on the Salt and Gila rivers, as well as the increasing soil salinity, diseases, and evidence of malnutrition. It is likely that environmental conditions changed and the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert (formerly Hohokam people) did what all smart people do, they adapted to changed conditions. That is how people survive. That is a lesson we moderns are beginning to experience. How will we adapt is not so certain.

The evidence does show that the extreme flooding deepened the Gila River Channel making it more difficult for canals to carry water to fields where water levels were low. Part of the canal system was abandoned while other parts were extended miles upstream to maintain proper water flows. Around 1350 C.E., the time of the Great House, a combination of factors may have triggered a breakdown of Hohokam society and undermined their leadership.

It is probable that as a result of all of these factors, the survivors of the floods and droughts abandoned large sites like Casa Grande in favor of smaller settlements along the Gila River. Today’s O’odham people believe that they are the descendants of the Hohokam people. As a result, Hohokam society never disappeared it just adapted and changed to a lifestyle that was better suited to the changed conditions. This change was likely to one more similar to their ancestors. They changed to a simpler life. Perhaps that is what we will be compelled to do.

There is a lot to be said for a simpler life.

Collapse of Society

 

For reasons that are subject to debate, during the period of 1400 to 1500 A.D. large community centers were abandoned in the American southwest, as were many canals. The people did not die out, they moved instead to smaller villages in small groups. They spread throughout much of the Southwest, including northern Arizona. They adapted to some changed conditions in other words.

 

What really interests me is why this occurred. It is one of the genuine mysteries of North American archaeology. I believe it has continuing important significance for our modern societies. There are lessons for us to learn here. Will we learn them?

They may have left because of environmental collapse. For example, because the ancestral people of the Sonoran desert were so successful at farming they may have produced too many people for the land to sustain.  People around the world need to learn modesty and humility. That certainly applies to us moderns as well.

When Spanish missionaries arrived at the end of the 17th century, they found only an empty shell of the once flourishing village of Casa Grande (as the Spanish called it). Over the next two centuries, many visitors visited the site and damaged it over and over again. Some were like vandals ruining what they saw. We could see graffiti from this time on the walls.  In the late 1800s scientists pressed for its formal protection and in 1892 Casa Grande Ruins National Monument became America’s first archaeological reserve. To this day, the Great House keeps the secrets of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert within its protected walls.

We all must learn that societies collapse. Everyone has done that and so will ours.

Trade and Expansion

 

 

                                                 Casa Grande ruins

 

From 775 to 975 C.E. the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert (formerly Hohokam) expanded their territory and their canal system. During this time they established an elaborate trading network. Villages were established along natural trade routes between the people of what we now call California, the Great Plains, the Colorado Plateau, and even northern Mexico.

 

Successful farming led to successful trade. In the American Southwest, the people produced enough cotton, beans, and corn for the entire area of what we now call the United States. They traded these products across North America.

 

As well they developed high artistic achievement. Because of the success of their agricultural system, they had time to devote to artistic achievement and they used that time for that purpose. They loved beautiful things and created them and traded for them. Platform mounds and ball courts were developed as well during this time.

The Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert  traded mainly pottery and jewelry for a wide variety of items that others collected or produced. Shells from the Gulf of California were common. With people from Mexico they traded for macaws, mirrors, copper bells, and other items.

Oval pits have been unearthed on Hohokam sites that suggest they were used for ball courts for games such as those played by Aztecs. Smaller ball courts have been found near Flagstaff and Wupatki and this suggests that the area of influence of the Ancestral Peoples was quite large.

 

From 975 to 1150 A.D. the ancestral people in the region abandoned many of their smaller ancestral sites in favor of larger sites like Casa Grande. As well the ball court system ended, but new above ground structures were built instead to replace them. This is when the era of the Ancestral people of the Sonoran desert culture began.

 

The period of greatest achievement by the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert (Hohokam) was from 1150 to 1300 C.E. Their canal system reached its greatest extent during this time. As well, during this time platform mounds and compounds dominated their architectural style. This was a period of outstanding achievement.

 

As a result of their sophisticated farming techniques, during this time this part of the country supported a high density of people. Estimates vary from 100,000 people to 1,000,000 people. I was shocked at these numbers. The people were served by about 3,000 miles of canals in the Southwest.

 

From 1300 to 1400 C.E. the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert continued to develop large irrigation based communities, with great houses like we saw before us, and other structures on top of platform mounds like we also saw before us today. The Great House in Casa Grande, the ruins of which we saw, was built about 1350. This Great House as well as other Great Houses in other villages that were sited along large canals played a major role in the irrigation community.  They were likely not used as residences, since there is little evidence of things like hearths. They were likely administrative and ceremonial centers instead.

 

The Canal System: the marvel of the desert

 

That canal system in time became the most elaborate and well-engineered in all of North America if not the world.  The Ancestral People cooperated to build and manage a vast canal system that diverted waters from the rivers to irrigate their croplands.  Because these croplands were located in land that was lower than the surrounding rivers the canals were started about 17 miles away to divert water by gravity flow. Where there were croplands without nearby rivers, they diverted storm run-off or tapped groundwater.

The canals were amazing. First of all, they were constructed entirely by human labor without any draft animals. The only tools they had were made of wood or stone. They had no shovels. The ground was true hard pan that made digging very difficult. The slope of canals was 2 ft. for 1 mile.  That is a very gentle slope, but it is more than enough to lead the water to where they wanted it. The canals were also surprisingly large. They were about as tall as a man.

This was very sophisticated agriculture. They farmed the area for about a thousand years. At its height the canals irrigated 1,900 acres of land. The canals stretched for 220 miles in this area alone. What amazed me was that these Ancestral People were extremely successful farmers. They produced higher yields than modern farmers with modern equipment and techniques. Modern Hohokam farmers see people as their main resource.

Following their ancestral heritage, they became what they call “scientists of our environment.”  Like other nations in the Americas, they used and continue to use meteorological principles to establish planting, harvesting, ceremonial cycles and they developed complex water storage and delivery systems.

I was also astonished to learn that there is evidence that the ancestral people were about 2-3 inches taller than the Europeans who arrived in the 17th century. Like the indigenous people of the Great Plains who relied principally on bison, that meant they were better fed than the Europeans who came here to civilize them! Perhaps the ancestral people ought to have civilized the Europeans! After all, the period of 300 to 1450 A.D. was the period of the Dark and Middle Ages in Europe.

When Father Keno was the first European to see this land in 1694, about 200 years after the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert left, he was struck by the beauty and ingenuity of the building. That is why he called the main structure that was left. Casa Grande (Great House) because he said he had never seen anything comparable in Europe.

Pueblo Traditions

 

Pueblo peoples have lived in the American Southwest for millennia and descend from the ancestral Puebloans.  The ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert are included in this group.  The term Anasazi is sometimes used to refer to ancestral Pueblo people, but it is now largely avoided. Anasazi is a Navajo word that means Ancient Ones or Ancient Enemy. That of course is why they don’t like the word anymore. Just like Inuit people no longer like the name Eskimo.  Many first nations don’t like the names that European settlers imposed on them so we should avoid using them. But it is tricky for us to do that. I know someone who got in trouble for using the name “Eskimo” which is the name she was brought up with. We should all do our best to learn the preferred names. But others should recognize that we are not perfect.

 

Pueblo traditions are different from some Christian traditions. Their traditions tell the Pueblo people that they must honor Mother Earth by taking care of her as their ultimate reference. Would you not take care of your ultimate reference as Paul Tillich suggested? That was how he chose to define “God.”

 

I recognize that in recent times some Christians have emphasized that the instructions in the Bible should not be interpreted to mean that humans have dominion over the earth. Rather they now interpret the prescription in the Bible to mean that they ought to be custodians who nurture the earth. Yet historically Christians interpreted their Holy Book to mean that they had Biblical obligations to subdue the earth, which in the view of many people, like me, was not just a license but instructions to plunder the world.

 

A few years ago I saw an film on PBS called  Native America: From Caves to Cosmosin which a Hopi woman recounted in Hopi the following myth (and I use this word carefully not to reference something that is not true, but rather something that is important, very important):

Massaw told us this world is a gift to us

And we must care for this place

He said, ‘To find your home you must find the center place,’

So we made a covenant to walk to the world’s farthest corners

To learn the earth with our feet

And to become one with this new world

And to find our center place

 

In the origin story of the Pueblo people they are given a sacred quest after they emerged from the earth. They are told to find the center place. Some went clockwise and some counter-clockwise. They built an image in the rock to show where they were. It was a spiral around a center spot. “Finding the right place–the center place–lies at the heart of Pueblo belief. It is more than a physical location. It is about living in balance with the natural world.”

 

I have seen a number of kivas in my travels through the American southwest. A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for sacred ceremonies and sometimes political meetings. Among the modern Hopi and other Pueblo peoples, “kiva” means a large room that is circular and underground, and used for spiritual ceremonies. They are sacred places. According to the film I watched, “The search for the center place is built right in to the kivas.  Every kiva is aligned to the 4 compass directions.” Of course there are 2 more sacred directions, including up and down. When the people climb out of a ladder in a kiva it is symbolic of their journey where they emerged from the earth. The Hopi believe the 6 directions give the Kivas great power.

 

To me, the most important part is the fact that it centers the occupants so that they can become part of the earth, not separate and apart from it. It connects us to the sacred earth. I see that as an essential religious act.

This is ancient ceremony but I think it ought to be a part of a new attitude to nature which we should be willing to learn about from our indigenous peoples.