Collecting

The Europeans referred to the inhabitants of North America as “diggers” as they often dug the earth looking for edible roots and bulbs. In many regions women collected wild tubers, bulbs and seeds. This occupation was so competitive and efficient, that it blocked expansion of agricultural techniques in the north and the west. Californian women collected acorns (processed tem and turned into an edible product), mesquite beans rich in sugar, seeds of mountain pines, wild honey and seeds of a local crop which reminds of oats. In the summer seed were extracted from ears, or ears were torn manually (reaping knives were not known). Then grass was set on fire, and when fire died out part of the collected seeds was scattered around. After autumn rains new sprouts appeared. European colonizers forbade Indians to burn grass. As a result lands covered with bushes and undergrowth and the herb that the Indians used disappeared. Inhabitants of the north-west of the United States and the adjoining regions of Canada collected wild plants which resembled carrot and onion as well as camas roots (Camasia quamash) in the basins of Fraser and Columbia rivers. Roots were dried in ovens and preserved for winter and exchanged for meat and fish with neighbors. The Algonquin people who lived around the Great Lakes collected wild rice (Zizania aquatica) in shoaling waters. Two women in a boat bent rice stems over the boards and beat out seeds with sticks. The collected rice was dried on special daises under which fires were set; men threshed the prepared seeds.

Berry basket. USA, Russian America. The Alutiiq. First half of the 19th cent.		Basket.  USA. The Pueblo. Mid-to-late 19th cent.		The Timukua, Florida, deer-hunting, Theodor de Bry