For many of us, at least one or two of the “three sisters” likely were at our Thanksgiving dinners this week.
The sisters, though, are not kinfolk. They are what the Cherokee Indians and other Native American tribes called corn, beans and squash — basic foods that the native peoples were growing and consuming centuries before Europeans arrived in America during the 16th century. Today, they are common foods on our dinner tables.
Thousands of years ago, the plants’ ancestors existed — and still do — in the wilds of Mexico and other parts of North America. Then, indigenous peoples learned how to cultivate and domesticate the plants; eventually, the three sisters became the most important staples in the diets of Cherokees and other Native Americans.
When Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition army marched through what is now Georgia in 1540, soldiers reported finding huge fields of corn (maize) growing in harmony with squash and beans around Cherokee villages and towns. Other domesticated plants — pumpkins, gourds, sunflowers — grew in gardens.
In addition, the Cherokee people and other Native Americans were using dozens of wild plant species to treat an array of human ills and disorders. They also gathered wild foods such as nuts, fruits and wild honey.
But it was the Cherokees’ reliance on agriculture, particularly the three sisters, that made their villages stable. The relative ease of raising the plants in quantities above daily subsistence needs afforded the people leisure time to establish settled societies.
In particular, corn became the basis for many Cherokee traditions, beliefs and rituals. The all-important Green Corn ceremony, for instance, was held in late summer to celebrate the beginning of the corn harvest.
In essence, the history of wild plant domestication carries an important lesson for today — the vital necessity of conserving and safeguarding native wild plants, including rare and endangered species. Like the three sisters, they could become tomorrow’s foods or potent new medicines.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be full Monday night. Mercury is low in the east just before sunrise. Venus, low in the east, rises an hour before the sun. Mars is high in the east at dusk. Jupiter and Saturn are low in the southwest after dark.
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