I found this article online and was wondering what you all thought of it-

http://www.ivu.org/history/native_americans.html

I was always under the impression that animals played a large role in the american indian way of life.

It's pretty impossible to lump all aboriginal peoples into one group. There are some that subsisted almost entirely upon meat (like the Inuit) or those that may have been almost entirely vegetarian, just due to the food availablility in that area. It's a big continent with an awful lot of variation.

I'd imagine where game was available, they'd hunt it. Where it was scarce, they'd find other means. Just like everybody else!

a) It heavily depends upon the group you are speaking about

b) I'm always wary of any group making clams like this, just as I am weary of the "Jesus was vegetarian" people.

Yep, you really can't make generalisations about First Peoples, they are all different. Most have had an omnivorous diet because that is the most stable, but some have relied heavily on vegetable food sources, and as pointed out, some have been nearly completely carnivorous.

ditto

>>It's pretty impossible to lump all aboriginal peoples into one group. >>

ex-****ing-actly.

ebola

I read a book by Donald Treadwell, aka Lone Otter, called something with the work Unkechaug in the title, and something about them being a "first contact people," in the history section of my public library, who was a chief of the Unkechaug tribe, which has a reservation within walking distance from my house. They are also called the Poosepatuck but he said this is the white man's name, based on the tribal name for a location where many of them lived. The book as an anthropological study of his tribe, done originally as a master's thesis in anthropology, but later published by a Dutch publisher.

Lone Otter said that all the United States eastern seaboard pre-colombians, ate mostly a veg diet. Lone Otter himself was not a veg at all. He just did the research, and this is what he found. His descripition of the diet of the Unkechaug and all Long Island tribes, before changes made as a result of contact with Europeans: squash, including the high protein seeds. Lots of it. Some maize (corn). Beans. Clams, mussels, etc, in season. Some foraging, mostly agriculture. Deer were plentiful but not hunted and eaten. Small animals were sometimes hunted and eaten. But most of the "meat" in their diet was from shellfish. Why? Easy to pick up, gather. Much less complicated than hunting down an animal. Plus they were plentiful.

And about squash: while today most breeding is centered around making flesh, varieties with uniform size and color fruits, and small seeds that aren't too plentiful, and for seeds, growing entirely different varieties which produce lots of large seeds, the tribes took the opposite value. They wanted to grow a few varieties that each produced small squash or large squash, and variations of color from squash to squash, and they wanted good seeds, and good flesh, in the same variety.

He also reported that it is not known how much breeding knowledge they had. They clearly picked seeds from the squash that had characteristics they liked, and sowed only those seeds, but whether they singled out male flowers from varieties they liked, and pollinated the females with those flowers, is not known. It is generally assumed they didn't do this, although they appeared to know that pollen from male flowers fertiized female flowers. I don't believe Europeans intentionally selected male parents either, until a few hundred years ago.

It's pretty impossible to lump all aboriginal peoples into one group.

Exactly.

I love Native American history - It is interesting to note how many people have the idea (as the article states) that Native American Indians were buffalo killing, salmon-catching omnivores, when in reality the diets of most tribes contained very little meat.

It is well documented that many of the Native American tribes (even those with access to game) had totally vegetarian diets... plant foods were usually easier to come by, meat required energy to go out and hunt for.

Many of the Pacific Northwest Coastal tribes (and I think some on the East coast as well, though I'm not as famaliar with them) were surrounded by abundant fish, deer, birds and yet they ate a diet consisting only of plant foods.

Native peoples of many regions cultivated their own crops - such as the corn, beans and squash that the Southwest tribes are known for. Corn was so important, it was actually sacred. These tribes needed plant foods to even survive as game was not as readily available. Many of the foods we know and love today were first grown by American Indians. (What would I do without my zucchini?)

Whether they hunted or not, Native people respected life and the creatures that inhabited the world around them. Every tribe had their own version of the "Creation" or "How the World Began" legend - many of these stories told of the people (and animals) all being vegetarian.

Might not hurt to re-examine some of their lifestyles and traditions - amazing what we'd learn....

(OK, I'm a history geek, I'll shut up now...)

A Cherokee legend describes humans, plants, and animals as having lived in the beginning in "equality and mutual helpfulness". The needs of all were met without killing one another. When man became aggressive and ate some of the animals, the animals invented diseases to keep human population in check. The plants remained friendly, however, and offered themselves not only as food to man, but also as medicine, to combat the new diseases.

This appears to be fact, not mere legend. Jared Diamond says the same thing about Europeans in Guns, Germs and Steel, about Europeans. They got anthrax, smallpox, and more, as a result of intimate contact with domestic animals, sheep, hogs. Of course the animals did not "invent" the diseases, but they gave the humans the diseases. Humans died huge numbers because they did not have 1000's of years of immunity that the animals had. When Europeans invaded the Inca lands, the Europeans had already evolved to be relatively immune, while the Incas got the diseases because they
had less animal husbandry and less intimacy with the animals they husbanded, and less time and opportunity than the europeans to have developed immunity.

plant foods were usually easier to come by, meat required energy to go out and hunt for.


Definitely. For plant foods, in many areas you just have to walk out there and pick them up, even in my part of the country (Central Texas) if you know what to eat there are plenty of edible plants. Meat is an "expensive" food in terms of calories for the person who hunts it, even though it contains many calories, it also takes many calories to catch it. The plains Indians who became famous for hunting buffalo were agrarian prior to the reintroduction fo the horse into North America by the Spanish, then they gave up farming to hunt buffalo because with horses to do the hard work of chasing, it was much easier to hunt than to farm.

"Take only what you need" is/was a native american rule of conduct. If taken to its logical end, and provided you have sufficient plant foods available... I wouldn't think meat would be a significant part of the diet.

I can speak for the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans as my father is full blooded and I grew up learning the customs and ways of his people. They killed animals when they had to, for food and for clothing. Yes they ate meat, but not all the time as they could find it. Yes they also ate plant foods. I am sure that plants figured mostly as they would be easier to find and get. But they were not wasteful, and its not like they wore leaves, so if they killed for clothing they would have eaten the meat.

my understanding has always been that they have been omnivorous, but ate a largely plant-based diet. i think that soilman's post reflect this, and that the particular experience of that group is shared pretty much across the board.

meat was consumed in much smaller amounts--it wasn't the basis of the diet--but it was included as required.

i'd say that, generlly, they were omnivores, even though they ate a strikingly plant-based diet.

I can speak for the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans as my father is full blooded and I grew up learning the customs and ways of his people. They killed animals when they had to, for food and for clothing. Yes they ate meat, but not all the time as they could find it. Yes they also ate plant foods. I am sure that plants figured mostly as they would be easier to find and get. But they were not wasteful, and its not like they wore leaves, so if they killed for clothing they would have eaten the meat.


The Cherokee were/are extremely knowledgeable about plants in general, and had probably the most extensive knowledge of medicinal and useful plants of all the tribes, or -- I should correct myself -- we know the most about medicinal and useful plants of North America from the Cherokee.

A general comment to a few of the recent posts:
As I understand the question, we are not dealing with the diet of present-day Native Americans. The question concerns the diet of Native Americans prior to the arrival of the Europeans.

A general comment to a few of the recent posts:
As I understand the question, we are not dealing with the diet of present-day Native Americans. The question concerns the diet of Native Americans prior to the arrival of the Europeans.


Present day Native Americans mostly eat the normal American diet, which for some of them is extremely harmful because they are adapted to a completely different diet. I can't speak about tribes from the rest of the country, but tribes in the Southwest suffer from very high rates of diabetes because of the modern American diet. A wonderful organisation, Native Seed/SEARCH, is encouraging these tribes to grow their traditional vegetable crops and relearn how to eat the traditional desert foods so as to avoid diabetes.

http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php

As a native American I can tell you that yes my ancesters were more vegy eatters them meat eatters.me ate alot of wild rice and other wild plants and roots.meat was used more as most people today use spices.The modern day native american is very much the meat eatter ,except this one.

I find it pretty ****ing funny that some of you will bend over backwards to describe a omnivorous diet as "mostly vegetarian", yet would rip the head off an omnivore who described themselves as "mostly vegetarian".

If a tribe ate meat as part of their diet, then they were not vegetarian. Pretty simple.

Tame, I think they went around collecting fish off the trees.

Tame I find it pretty ****ing funny that some of you will bend over backwards to describe a omnivorous diet as "mostly vegetarian", yet would rip the head off an omnivore who described themselves as "mostly vegetarian".

Oh, knock it off, Tame. The fact is, that many tribes had a diet that was mostly vegetarian, and few of us would "rip the head off" of an omnivore who described himself as being "mostly vegetarian." What some of us would do would be pounce on someone who was mostly vegetarian, but described themselves as "vegetarian." If they accurately said I am "mostly" vegetarian, we would be ok with it. It is when they insist they are vegetarian, and we later find out that this means that they like vegetables in addition to their meat, and even eat some vegetable occasionally, that we get angry at them.

And yes, the idea that "Indians planted a dead fish next to every seed they planted" is a myth also. There seems to be no reason to believe that the Algonquin tribes of Northeast US and Eastern Canada did this.

What they did do is what we now call "intercrop" -- as many tribes in southeast asia still do today -- leaving corn stalks for beans to use as trellises, or planting vine crops such as squash, around cornstalks -- which they may have spaced further apart than is commonly done today.

As a native American I can tell you that yes my ancesters were more vegy eatters them meat eatters.me ate alot of wild rice and other wild plants and roots.meat was used more as most people today use spices.The modern day native american is very much the meat eatter ,except this one.


Oh, so you are a descendant of all tribes? I think not, sunshine.

Note this Oneida Nation web site's cookbook. http://oneida-nation.net/cookbook/

While these appear to be modern recipes that aren't the same as what Oneida's ate before european colonization, it does stress lots of vegetable matter, and small amounts of animal flesh. Of course, 400 years ago they did not have the giant ears of sweet corn that we grown today. While they occasionally ate small immature kernals of varieties similar to the dry varieties we use today, most corn eaten was reconstituted dry corn.

Tame Oh, so you are an ancestor to all tribes? I think not, sunshine.

What on earth are you talking about.

>>As a native American I can tell you that yes MY ANCESTORS [emphasis added] were more vegy eatters them meat eatters.>>

>>Oh, so you are a descendant of all tribes? I think not, sunshine.>>

Don't be a tool. :)

ebola

>>As a native American I can tell you that yes MY ANCESTORS [emphasis added] were more vegy eatters them meat eatters.>>

>>Oh, so you are a descendant of all tribes? I think not, sunshine.>>

Don't be a tool. :)

ebola

He/she/it implies he/she/it is speakings for all NAs based on the sentence structure.