The three sisters danced and the people lived

Yesterday, I posted information (from Wikipedia) on the sustainable agriculture of the three sisters (squash, corn and beans.)   

But the stereotype persists that Native American Indians got most of their nutrition from hunting.  We think of the Plains Indians bemoaning "now that the buffalo has gone."  But that kind of hunting wasn't possible until Indians got horses, and the horse came with the invaders.   

Most American Indians were farmers and ate a plant based diet with occasional meat from hunting and fishing, there are many stories from these people about how they must treat animals as relatives, and rituals and spiritual practices about what a hunter or fisher must do before he could take game or catch for food.  These practices limited over eating of animal flesh and functioned to place America's indigenous people in a non antagonistic relation to the earth.

In an article for the International Vegetarian Union Rita Laws writes:

"Among my own people, the Choctaw Indians of Mississippi and Oklahoma, 

vegetables are the traditional diet mainstay. A French manuscript of the 

eighteenth century describes the Choctaws' vegetarian leanings in shelter and food. The homes were constructed not of skins, but of wood, mud, bark and cane. The principal food, eaten daily from earthen pots, was a vegetarian stew containing corn, pumpkin and beans. The bread was made from corn and acorns. Other common favorites were roasted corn and corn porridge. (Meat in the form of small game was an infrequent repast.) The ancient Choctaws were, first and foremost, farmers. Even the clothing was plant based, artistically embroidered dresses for the women and cotton breeches for the men. Choctaws have never adorned their hair with feathers. 

The rich lands of the Choctaws in present-day Mississippi were so greatly 

coveted by nineteenth century Americans that most of the tribe was forcibly removed to what is now called Oklahoma. Oklahoma was chosen both because it was largely uninhabited and because several explorations of the territory had deemed the land barren and useless for any purpose. The truth, however, was that Oklahoma was so fertile a land that it was an Indian breadbasket. That is, it was used by Indians on all sides as an agricultural resource. Although many Choctaws suffered and died during removal on the infamous "Trail of Tears", those that survived built anew and successfully in Oklahoma, their agricultural genius intact."