Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri

By George E. Hyde, George F. Will, George F. Will

Book Overview

Corn occupied an important place in the lives of many Native communities that lived along the Upper Missouri River. In this landmark book, George F. Will and George E. Hyde introduce readers to some fifty varieties of native corn discovered in the Missouri Valley. Equally important, they provide an indispensable overview of Indian agricultural techniques there, including methods of harvesting and storing the crop, the preparation of corn for food, and the role of the crop in intertribal and Indian-white trade. Corn was not only grown, traded, and eaten, it also had spiritual significance. A final contribution of this book is a discussion of the presence and value of corn in American Indian myth, religion, and ritual.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803298269
• ISBN13: 9780803298262
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Interesting book

If you are a gardener, are interested in Native American culture, and especially if you are both, you may value this as highly as I do. Through interviews with surviving women who remembered the details of their tribes' agricultural methods, and the way of life/religion that went with them, the authors have made an important contribution in an area that was undervalued at the time (the early 1900's). But thank goodness they had the foresight to put this information to paper. The book describes tools, varieties, planting methods, and agricultural customs of the Upper Missouri tribes. Thanks to the authors' preservation work, and the work of others, some of the varieties mentioned can still be found. If you are interested, google up the Seed Saver's Exchange in Iowa, and add a new dimension to your gardening.