Potawatomi in the Autumn

Architect Richard Thornton is a member of an alliance of Creek, Choctaw and Seminole scholars, who over the past seven years have been intensely studying the heritage of the Muskogean peoples. Much of their activities have involved re-examination of the archives of the early Spanish, English and French exploration of the Southeastern United States. We have asked Richard to provide AccessGenealogy with some of his work.  As we add to these articles we will also be providing a question and answer section for the reader to ask questions of Richard.

Never heard of the Potawatomi Indian Tribe? The Potawatomi Nation is a sister tribe to the Ottawa and Obijwe (Chippewa.) At one time, they were part of the same tribe and living somewhere in the vicinity of Canada’s Maritime Provinces or perhaps, New England. As the tribe gradually migrated westward along the edge of Lake Erie, it eventually broke up into three bands, which eventually became distinct tribes. The three tribes still share very similar cultural traditions and languages.

Although they never lived in permanent villages until the early 1800s, the Three Sister Tribes had very rich cultural traditions. Still today, their beadwork and paintings were some of the finest in the Native American world. They had a writing system which was preserved on bark or deer skin scrolls. The original syllabary was in use several centuries ago. It is remembered in their traditions in the appearance about 500 years ago of seven prophets carrying scrolls, which accurately predicted the future. In the 1700s, French priest developed the original glyphs into a writing system that could communicate complete sentences. Modern Ojibwe and Potawatomi writing is derived from that system.

Wild rice, smoked venison and lots of fish on the grill

Late summer and early autumn were a busy time in a Potawatomi village. Because of the short growing season, most of the vegetables became ripe enough to harvest in the late summer. While the corn was drying on the stalks in early autumn, most of the able-bodied people of the village dispersed in family bands to harvest their designated thicket of wild rice. Some of the teenagers stayed in the village to protect the corn and harvested vegetables from roaming animals. Elders sliced the pumpkins and squash, and then dried the slices of vegetables along with the beans, in the sun.

Wild rice was “the staff of life” for the three Sister Tribes and performed the same important nutritional role among Great Lakes Indians as corn did in the Southeast and Southwest. It is not true rice in the sense that we label Asian rice. It is a distinct wild grain that contains quite a bit more nutrition than the domesticated rice today. It only grows in water or wetlands, so it was necessary for the Potawatomi extended family bands to set up campsites or hamlets near the stands of rice.

There are two main varieties of North American wild rice, Northern Lake Rice and Southern Marsh Rice. The Northern Lake Rice grew at the tops of stalks that could reach eight feet in height. It grew on the edges of clear deep lakes. Southern Marsh Rice grows in shallow seasonal wetlands. Its life cycle is much more similar to Asian rice, in that it sprouts after the spring floods and then matures during the summer after the land has dried out.

Today, surviving stands of Southern Marsh Rice are about the height of Asian rice or wheat, when mature. However, this may be the result of crossing of wild and cultivated varieties in the past. Northern Lake Rice was never cultivated by the Native Americans, but is grown commercially today. Muskogean (Creek. Choctaw, Alabama, etc.) Indian towns intentionally located near seasonal riverine wetlands so that such water-loving crops as Marsh Rice could be grown, However, it was probably never an important source of nutrition in the Southeast, but rather was used to provide variety to meals . . . in the same way that wild rice today provides tasty variety to American meals.

Northern wild rice is harvested by striking the plants with wooden staffs, causing most of the kernels to fall into wooden dugout canoes. Those that fall into the water, sprout the next spring and renew the crop. Southern wild rice was harvested with a sickle, in the same manner than pre-industrial farmers harvested wheat.

While some members of the family were harvesting the wild rice, others built spherical temporary houses that were woven like baskets. These were almost identical to the woven houses built by Native Americans on the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts for fishing camps. (See article on woven basket houses.) Evidently, woven houses were an architectural tradition among Native Americans throughout much of the Eastern United States. The Potawatomi basket houses were woven from the leaves and stalks of cattails, whereas the Southeastern basket houses were made from durable palmetto fronds. Cattail fronds quickly decompose when exposed to rain. Thus, the Potawatomi houses barely lasted the length of the wild rice harvesting season.

While some Potawatomi were still harvesting the remaining ripe kernels of wild rice or going out into the forests to gather nuts, others began drying and processing the kernels. It was necessary to beat them and then winnow them with baskets in order to separate the inedible outer hulls from the nutritious kernels. The dried kernels would then be stored in baskets, and made ready for the trek to the winter camping site.

Wild rice requires extensive soaking in water and cooking before it is soft enough to eat. Thus, part of the work day of a Potawatomi woman involved pouring the dry kernels into pots so that they could soak for a day or two. Cooking the wild rice might require several hours over the fire.

Mid-autumn was the prime hunting season for deer, elk, moose and bears. If the weather had been good that summer, these animals would be plump from feasting on the recently fallen nuts. Also, in the Great Lakes Region, mid-autumn brought on freezing temperatures at night, which slowed down the decay of meat until the carcasses could be brought to camp, sliced and smoked. Of course, some nuts, animal meat and wild rice were consumed immediately, so the Potawatomi, themselves, could build up fat reserves in their bodies for the long winter ahead.

The arrival of Europeans in Eastern Canada and New England in the early 1600s started a catastrophic series of changes in the harmonious lifestyles of the Potawatomi People. Invisible killers periodically crept inland from the coast that caused diseases that the Potawatomi healers had never seen. The intermittent plagues could have started as soon as the mid-1500s.

By the mid-1600s war parties from the Iroquois Confederacy were ranging deep into the Great Lakes Region to clear wide swaths of the landscape for their hunting grounds. Simultaneously, the Rickohockens sent raiding parties from their mountain homeland in SW Virginia to obtain Native American slaves for Virginia planters. By the late 1600s, it was the Cherokees who became the main terror of the Midwest. Until around 1720 the main source of income for the Cherokees was the Native American slave trade. Cherokee slave raiders armed with muskets repeatedly attacked the Erie and southern Potawatomi villages until the Great Lakes tribes obtained firearms from the French.

The Potawatomi eagerly established friendly relations with the newly arrived French colonists and soldiers in Quebec. An alliance with France provided protection from Native American raiders, who were allied with England, such as the Iroquois, Rickohockens and Cherokees. The French built forts and fortified trading posts in Potawatomi territory. Extensive contacts with French missionaries radically changed the villages and architecture of the Potawatomi. The new lifestyle of the Potawatomi in the early 1800s is described in the article on “Log cabins and livestock.”

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation operates a 36,000 square feet cultural heritage center in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The photos displayed in this series of articles are of models in this museum. Shawnee is about an hour’s drive from Tulsa.

The Potawatomi wove light weight huts out of cattail plants
to live in while harvesting wild rice.
Photo: Photo & model by Richard Thornton, Architect

Notes About this Material

Source: Richard Thornton, an alliance of Muskogean scholars, professors and professionals. Copyright Richard Thornton, Blairsville, GA, 2010. Used here with permission. 

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