Dry Beans ?

[tenngun]

Most farming tribes were close to the missiouri platte or arkansas. By the time the boys got in to the mountians they would have run out people that raised beans. After the big pox epedemics hit most of the river tribes took to the hunting gatharing lifestyle.
I often have wondered when we see 'corn' or corn 'corn meal' listed in supplies of any frontiersman how much was corn(maize) and how much was european grain. ???Were the old boys eating 'bear mush' before the first hippy or health food fanitic was born? I often have it in my pack...bought at a health food store. ( I aint a hippy I'm a well groomed mountiman :haha: )

 

[sidelock]

My Grandpa in his early days in hunting camp kept a pot of beans on the fire all the time and added a hand full as the level went down. He added stale bread to the mix and called it GORP. I never added bread but for many years my camp always had a gallon can of beans on the open fire and simply added a hand full as needed. Everyone helped themselves as they pleased.

 

[satx78247]

UNDERSTOOD.
The Texican Army, Santa Anna's horde & the CSA forces LIVED on pinto beans & corn, rice, potatoes, coffee, etc.

yours, satx

 

[coloradoclyde]

Great link ....Thanks... :thumbsup:

 

[coloradoclyde]

My Grandpa in his early days in hunting camp kept a pot of beans on the fire all the time and added a hand full as the level went down. He added stale bread to the mix and called it GORP.

Gorp ????...............Really :shocked2: :hmm: :idunno:

 

[tenngun]

'Good old rasins and peanuts'? odd beans

 

[Nativearizonan]

Most farming tribes were close to the missiouri platte or arkansas. By the time the boys got in to the mountians they would have run out people that raised beans. After the big pox epedemics hit most of the river tribes took to the hunting gatharing lifestyle.
I often have wondered when we see 'corn' or corn 'corn meal' listed in supplies of any frontiersman how much was corn(maize) and how much was european grain. ???Were the old boys eating 'bear mush' before the first hippy or health food fanitic was born? I often have it in my pack...bought at a health food store. ( I aint a hippy I'm a well groomed mountiman :haha: )

Au Contraire. It would depend on which MM you are talking about. Those based out of Taos were definitely in heavy bean eater country. All the pueblo tribes, the Navajo, Utes, Paiutes, even the Apache raised beans. Those that followed buffalo for a living didn't often farm, but those that didn't have buffalo or salmon usually relied somewhat on gardens, know as rancherias in the SW. Those that had gardens had beans.

As far as the "corn" goes, I think by that time the word corn, used in the USA, meant maize, unless you are reading the journal of some European. I've eaten plenty of corn meal mush. It's about like cream of wheat in consistency and is great with some butter and honey, but edible without it. Corn cakes can be made from it as well, even if you don't have leavening of any kind. Keep them thin and you can eat them.

I had an ancestor during the WBTS that was stationed in Arkansas, where they were pretty much surrounded for much of the war and he lived off of corn meal mush and molasses, which was the only food available. My grandmother told me he would never eat it after the war, even though the rest of the family liked it.

 

[Nativearizonan]

Bear mush?

I guess that would be like the "bear sign" that I have eaten. It's what I have always heard rice and raisins called.

 

[crockett]

Thanks for that bean link- I now realize I am "Bean challenged".
I agree with the idea that when "corn" is mentioned in 1820 and later journals they mean maize and not grain crops in general. One reason is the word maize is never used- at least I haven't run across it, so corn means corn (maize) in the 1820 and later writings (at least that is my take on it).
I saw a TV show years ago of an Apache tribe- I can't remember which but it was Arizona. There was a canyon with some bottom land that got flooded every spring and left rich nutrients and these guys looked like they just threw handfuls of corn seed on the ground and raked it into the soil and took off, not returning until fall when they had the best looking corn you ever saw.
On the "every tribe" farming- I think that might have been pre-horse. Certain tribes like the Sioux seemed to switch to buffalo hunting and then trading excess buffalo with the river based tribes for vegetables, corn, bean, squash.
The Massachusetts NDNs showing the pilgrims how to put a little fish into each hill of corn. I'm not sure but I think that might have been the first time Europeans used a fertilizer, prior to that it was letting fields be fallow a year or two- I think.
Agriculture is an interesting study. What country produced the first, carrot, garlic, orange, etc. When you add up corn, tobacco, tomato, peppers, potato, etc. etc. the native peoples of the new world don't get enough credit.

 

[tenngun]

Yeah your right about that. Most of us in our heads stick things in boxes . When I think Mountian man I think upper missiouri first modrrn Utah Idaho Montana Wyoming north Colorado. Of corse they went south, when I did MM I had a lot of Taos gear in my outfit. I grew up in NM and love Spanish/Mexican art architecture ect.
Most tribes did farm in many areas. Until the coming of the horse plains tribes tended to be near the big rivers. Massive droughts between 9-1200 depopulated much of the plains and south drove the pruning people south depopulating the Great Basin and four corners area. The people of much of Idaho Utah and Nevada had never been given to farming. Costal California had such a acorn and fish crop they didn't need to. That area and north on the coast to Alaska supported the largest population of non farmers in the world. Similarly where great crops of wild rice grew many western Great Lakes tribes never bothered putting in a crop.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Check this out .....Wheat in the southwest in the 1600's....

Eusebio Francisco Kino, (10 August 1645 ”“ 15 March 1711) was an Italian Jesuit, missionary.. That supposedly introduced wheat to the southwest.
http://shop.nativeseeds.org/collections/wheat

 

[Nativearizonan]

On the fertilizing, not every tribe did it. The Hopis and Navajos still dry farm the same areas the same way they always have and never fertilize, they plant with a lot of room between "hills" of corn and they move it around some from year to year, which is kind of like leaving part of the field fallow all the time. To them adding fertilizer to their plants is like putting it in your food. Yuck! They don't do it.

 

[Nativearizonan]

What it really interesting to me is the watermelons. The Pueblos were growing them when the first Spaniards showed up in NM. It's part of the Hopi and NavaJo mythology that the same deity who gave them beans and squash gave them watermelons (they had corn in a previous world, according to their myth, but not the other plants). Scientists say watermelons are native to Africa, and were introduced by the Spaniards, so they insist the NDNs traded the seeds up to NM before the Spanish traveled their. That kind of shows a pretty good trade network already established to the upper Rio Grande. Another thing, though, some of the "native" watermelons in the four corners area are unlike any other that I know of. They have red seeds and can be stored through the winter like a pumpkin. I grew some of those once and they were still fresh in February, even though I don't have a root cellar, just kept them in the garage.

BTW, Sandia means watermelon in Spanish. Sandia Mountain is that big mountain just east of Albuquerque.

 

[tenngun]

People love to trade and travel. obsidian from the north west was found in mississippian sights, pueblos used blue macaw feathers, some how american peanuts showed up in south east asia in broonze age sitesSome argue the real life Kopipeli was a mesoamerican trader :idunno:

 

[tenngun]

Bear mush?

I guess that would be like the "bear sign" that I have eaten. It's what I have always heard rice and raisins called.

I was first given it as a mix of wheat,barley,steel rolled oats and corn meal..I bet its whatever the cook calls it.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Did you hear about the 800 year old squash seeds that were found in an archeological dig in northern Wiconsin....and were still viable ????

 

[tenngun]

I can well believe it. I know anisazi beans were, and stored egyptian grains.
Another thread brought up books about the Santa fe trail and Wah Ta Yah and the Taos trail was mentioned. I hadnt read it in years and so was reading it again...an old friend long unseen.
Well in the second chapter Garrard tells of waking up and cooking breckfast. He is daydreamingand stokes the fire too high..."The consequence was a mess of burnt beans;"

 

[coloradoclyde]

Woo..Hooo! I got 2 bean pots for Xmas.... :grin:
Baked beans, here I come..... :haha:

 

[satx78247]

CONGRADS!!!

Baked beans with ham, bacon, onions, etc. are WONDERFUL.

yours, satx

 

[crockett]

Colorado: last night I was re-reading "The Taos Trappers" by Weber. I'm planning a trip to the area NM/AZ/UT and waned to read up on the trapping grounds. In any event one of the major trappers- Ewing Young (maybe it was George Yount) was heading on a major hunt all along the Gila and beans (frijoles) was one of the stables. So PC.