FROM THE I-COLLECTIVE A MULTI-MEDIA COOK BOOK
Issue 14
WATER PLANTS
A-ma Gvnida. Tú be chihina. Oka vt okchaya Tó éí iiná.
WA
Tv
Pah ee
Mni Wiconi.
nîp
ATER IS LIFE
vtlhxvt xweenish.
ech noohwahgut. Nibi gaa-bimaaji’iwemagak.
pîy oma pimâtisiwin.
Water Is Life and yet when it comes to the people that belong to these lands and waters it has become a weapon against us. According to the Water & Tribes Initiative, “forty-eight percent of Tribal homes in the United States do not have access to reliable water sources, clean drinking water, or basic sanitation,” while studies show that seventy-three percent of First Nations water systems are at high or medium risk for contamination, with some Reserves water advisories dating back twenty plus years. While the toll on Indigenous peoples is heavy we also must look to our plant and animal relatives' loss as well and recognize our historical relationship with water so we can honor what was stolen from us and reimagine our future. In the following pages we will explore some of those histories and what both Tribes and individuals are doing to reconnect some of those severed ties and how our ancestors are speaking out from the past to bring those connections home. Now can you imagine fields of cotton, amaranth, squash, beans, tobacco, barley, agave, cholla, and an estimated one hundred thousand acres of maize growing in the Sonoran desert? What about riparian zones and aquaculture of fish and mollusks? Not now, with piped water and mechanized irrigation, but nearly two thousand years ago with O’odham community built water infrastructure in the form of around five hundred miles of gravity fed canals, the largest water system in the so-called americas at the time. Is it hard to picture? Well you don’t have to look any further than Phoenix, Arizona if so, it was created from the remnants of these systems, with a dozen of the canals, 65 miles worth, built on or parallel to these original ones. You also don’t have to look hard for the foods or people that descended from this because farms like the San Xavier Co-op are carrying the torch of their ancestors. What about the Mexica and their lake city of Tenochtitlan, what is modern day Mexico City, with a canal system that separated fresh and salt water to create ecosystems for their “floating gardens” called chinampas. Chinampas are wo/man made islands, some three hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, traditionally composed of a bundled willow retaining wall and layered with soil, organic matter, and sludge from the canal system that were then planted just like a field. Today six thousand acres of wetlands on Lake Xochimilco are still home to this agra/aquacultural knowledge and as a result of the Covid pandemic it is even seeing a resurgence. We can be sure that this growing technique will be teaching us all into the future as we find ourselves moving into an ever growing realm of climate catastrophes. Are you familiar with aquaculture? One of the many practices Indigenous
peoples enlisted to create sustainable foodways is by building, and maintaining, water farming techniques. By definition aquaculture is breeding, rearing, and harvesting flora and fauna in freshwater but, through an Indigenous lens, it becomes a space of creating balance and habitat for our plant and animal relations. Cranberries is a good example and one of our featured recipes. Having previously harvested wild cranberry for market sales the Wahta Mohawks in
Ontario began the Iroquois Cranberry Growers (ICG) in the 1960s with just half an acre of cranberry bog and eventually growing it to sixty eight acres before closing their doors in 2016 due to market issues although we guarantee that with the growth in want for Indigenous raised produce they would definitely fill a niche market with Native Chefs! What do you do with cranberries? Here’s one of our favorite treats to last throughout the winter!
Ingredients:
1 12oz Bag Cranberries
1 Medium Orange (zes squeezed)
1 Small Piece Ginger (s 1 Pint Honey
1 Small Canela/Cinnam Stick (optional)
CLICK PICTURE FOR RECIPE VIDEO!
- You will also need a qua mason jar, a glass fermen weight, and a fermentati
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sted and
sliced)
mon
art sized ntation ion lock.
Honey Fermented Cranberries Rinse cranberries in water. With a dinner fork poke holes through each cranberry and drop into the jar, adding orange zest and slices of ginger as you go, you can also add the canela/cinnamon stick at this point. Continue to fill the jar until there is an inch of room left. Add orange juice. Slowly add honey. (We find that if you use a chopstick to poke into the jar while adding the honey it speeds things up) When the cranberries are submerged in the honey, put on a regular lid and flip upside down to completely coat the cranberries. It doesn't hurt to give it a few shakes! Remove the lid and using your chopstick, or whatever you choose to use, push any air bubbles you see out of the cranberries. Insert the fermentation weight and push down. If there seems to be too much liquid you may pour some off and if not put on your fermentation lock. Label your jar with the date and put in your cupboard, pantry, or just leave it on the counter. Your cranberries will be ready to eat in 3 months but, we have left them for a solid year with amazing results!!!
Another amazing instance of this is that of Wapato Gardens! If you’re not familiar with Wapato let us introduce you to our contributor for this issue, Rachael Perney, so she can shed some much needed light on this beautiful relative!
Wapato: A Story Of Deep Aquatic Roots
Rachael Perney
The case for the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples has been clearly documented for many years. We know about the broken treaties and the frequent displacement of peoples from their native lands. However, we also need
to highlight the myriad ways that the complex ecosystems of Indigenous peoples continue to be harmed by their marginalization in Western society. I write this as one small attempt to explore that marginalization through the microcosm of aquatic plants. For a number of years, I have been learning about Indigenous foods by studying, foraging, raising, and preparing native plants. After moving to Indiana, the ancestral lands of the Miami, Wea, and Piankashaw, I focused my interest on native water plants, including the wapato and its tuberous roots. But this research has produced more than beautiful plants. It has also yielded a richer appreciation of the cultural importance of water plants and demonstrated the sophisticated agricultural food systems sustained by Indigenous peoples for centuries. And all that has brought me a little closer to the root of the problems—as well as some positive developments.
Tubers, seeds, flowers and leaves from a vast variety of water plants have provided Indigenous people with medicine and an abundance of nutrition since time immemorial. The wapato has 25 cousins in the sagittaria genus family (including cuneata, lancifolia, rigida, and graminea) that are all edible. They are all botanically water plantain. Other members of that plant family are edible as well, though some require more specific extended preparation when cooking. While the types of water plants eaten are widely varied across the continent. Wapato is a prominent example of a nourishing tuber, both found in the wild and cultivated, sometimes in large aquatic gardens, for thousands of years. Wapato, often called duck potato (sagittaria latifolia), has many Indigenous names because of its presence in hundreds of different tribal communities. The name wapato became a well known alias because that is what it was called in a widely used trade language of the Northwest coast. There was clear intentionality in the development of the wapato’s ecosystems that included , weeding, tending, habitat expansion, selective harvesting and transplanting, soil building, terracing, fire management and waterway modification. In some areas it still grows abundantly, though in some areas it has been virtually eradicated. Wapato enjoys growing in clean water with lots of sunshine and can be found on the edges of streams, perennial wetlands, marshes , rivers , swamps , and slashes— anywhere the water depth meets the wapato’s requirement of being at least 6 inches but no more than 16 inches deep. The brilliant green arrowhead-shaped leaves are striking as they pierce the water, growing alternately from the plant's base. In midsummer, a stem producing clusters of three flowers—each with 3 white petals and bright yellow stamen emerge. Below the water, rhizomes grow vertically to the plant deep into the mud, producing fat, bulbous egg-shaped tubers with a little tail. The tubers grow untwined in the delicate wispy rhizomes. Even when produced by the same plant, the tubers can vary in color from tan to lightly tinted shades of blue, purple and pink.
How can you grow wapatos? To grow a wapato seed takes at least two years of alternating cold and heat to break the seed’s dormancy. It takes up three years to produce tubers. While breaking dormancy, wapato seeds must stay wet the entire time. They also cannot be placed where the current is too strong or they will be swept away. Growing wapato from tubers is much faster and they are not as sensitive to water current. But make sure you push them down firmly in the soil when planting or they will pop to the surface of the water like fishing bobbers and float away. What can you eat? All parts of the wapato are edible, especially the tubers. The flowers are nice raw and leaves can be cooked any way you would cook greens. After the tubers are peeled and cooked (reducing much of the bitterness), they taste much like a potato with a sprinkle of fresh sweet corn, corn meal, chestnut and grapefruit with a slightly more granular texture. They can also be dried after they are cooked and saved for later. (Two warnings: Make sure you are harvesting wapato from non polluted water. And parts of the plant that grow below water can contain parasites that cause liver damage. Cooking ten minutes at 200 degrees will kill all the potential parasites.) Water plants—and the water commons— under attack Like all aspects of the lives of marginalized Indigenous people, water plants like the wapato have suffered. Over the years, deforestation, urbanization and farming have
taken a toll on the environment of native peoples. The mismanagement of water in this capitalistic system has been particularly harmful. The pumping of underground water for irrigation has caused lakes and ponds to disappear and streams to dwindle. Massive dams have destroyed the shallow habitat required for these water plants, as has the straightening of rivers. In short, the water commons—water available to all people—is increasingly under the control of the few. The threats to native water plants are multiple, including such diverse factors as water pollution and invasive species (the European carp), one overriding historical cause is the false narrative used to displace people from their lands. The colonial argument in its simplest form was that natives had no claim to the land (or its water) because they did not farm it. You can see this narrative in blatant assertions that Indigenous people were “primitive and savage.” But you can also find in in the language describing the use of water plants. In that misleading narrative, natives were only collecting wild growing plants. Common words to describe the water plants as being “heavily collected,” “consumed” or “eaten.” These narratives are leftovers from white supremacist ideologies and colonizer propaganda that Indigenous people didn’t participate in farming or agriculture. That helped to justify the theft of people’s land and coopting the resources of that land The truth is that many edible aquatic plants were cultivated and managed by Indigenous communities as part of large-scale aquatic foods systems. These systems were greatly varied in techniques, water sources, and
natural materials used. In this diversity of aquacultural systems, views on the plants’ purposes also varied. But these were based on reciprocity and symbiosis between not just the humans and the plants, but also the water and animals in the ecosystem. And that native ecosystem, far from being “primitive and savage,” was a sophisticated and sustainable aquatic food system. Evidence from the Katzie Nation whose stories of wapato go back to their cosmology makes that case. The Katzie x̌ʷəq̓ʷə́ls̕ (wapato) beds In 2006 in preparation for the Golden Ears Bridge, crews stumbled across the ancient remains of an aquatic gardenscape. In the project, handled by the Katzie Development Limited Partnership, a Katzie Nation owned firm, unearthed a 450foot wapato growing platform. The leveled platform had been used underneath the wapato beds to keep the tubers from growing too low in the soil. Two-thirds of the rock used was shaped and fire-treated and the rest meticulously filled in by hand piecing small rock. In the excavation were the preserved remains of 4000 wapato and 150 pieces of broken wooden digging equipment. Carbon-dating placed the age of the site at 3,800 years old! The garden had been used for about 700 years! That a site made from locally sourced organic material was preserved for that length of time is truly amazing. It yet again demolishes the argument that Indigenous people were not agriculturalists. And it gives the Zatzie people a visual glimpse into their ancestors’ achievements and practices. Practices that are still carried out today include the work of the Katzie Eco-cultural Restoration Project that grows wapato free from pollution for food and for seed stock for transplanting. Hopeful signs: Yakama Land Restoration In the wake of colonization, a devastating number of food systems were distorted and the teaching about them lost. But there are still people practicing these ways. And there are people fighting to return land and water autonomy to native hands. In 1993 the Yakama nation recovered a long-lost piece of their traditional homeland when it bought a 430-acre farm across from their reservation in Washington state. It had been a wetland with a creek, but it was drained and used to grow wheat for many decades. They hoped they could return it to its former holistic ecosystem. This would help save the steelhead trout, which had depended on them for their survival since their habitat had been obliterated. They also wanted to restore flora and fauna traditionally used by the Yakama that had all but disappeared. Fire
management and other traditional methods were used to restore the land. Elders advised the use of beaver mimicry to assist in the revitalization efforts. While working on a project for her MPA at Evergreen University, Yakama Nation member Emily Washines did a case study looking at a connection between natural land restoration, cultural knowledge and the health disparities of Indigenous people. While researching plants that would have made up the traditional Yakama diet, she learned about the wapato. It had been one of the traditional first foods for her people. She decided to go to the restored Toppenish Creek floodplain to look for it and found it had returned on its own and was growing again after 70 years! Below is a link to a video she made about the return of wapato to her community. https://youtu.be/J2LiaKkas4w Hopeful signs: the Columbia River restoration In November 22, 2021, members of multiple northeast nations,along with the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, partnered to return wapato to the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the Columbia River. They planted 3,000 tubers and 30,000 seeds on 965 acres of floodplain habitat that has been home to this plant for thousands of years. The wetland floodplain was re-established by the removal of two miles of barriers in the largest restoration project of the lower Columbia River to date. It is hoped that in addition to protecting the salmon and wildlife, this area will become a place where native people can once again come to harvest foods and medicine. What is the future hope for restoration? Wapato can be seen as a symbol of many other beneficial water plants that need to be protected and reclaimed in an industrialized society. More critically, the history of the wapato demonstrates a small slice of the massive consequences of historical land displacement of Indigenous people. Realistically, remedies for those historical atrocity will never be complete. But small steps toward healing are possible. From the telling of stories and distribution of seeds to the removal of dams, land restoration and the returning of lands to native people. Finally, the very water on which we all depend must be protected for the health and survival of the overall environment, the people who drink it, the plants that live in it and the ecosystems that thrive from it.
A personal note Learning about these plants has given me the chance to deepen my understanding of Indigenous foods and, more importantly, the people who developed and preserved their history. I have been enriched by what I have discovered. That said, I came to appreciate the maxim that the more you know, the more you realize you do not know. The more I waded into the complex sophisticated agricultural practices of the ancestors who came before us, the humbler I became. But my journey has begun.
What an amazing journey and insight! Another piece of that story is that wapato grows across the majority of the so-called US and Canada, and quite often in the Great Lakes region, alongside our next plant relative, Manoomin. Most commonly known as “wild rice” this plant has, and continues to be, tended by the people and yet like most traditional foodways it is under constant threat from mining, oil and gas, dams, invasive species, and manmade climate change. Where rice used to flourish in Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, and southern Wisconsin it no longer exists. The Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission’s Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment is a great tool to help understand the true level of these threats. In response to this a 2021, first of its kind, lawsuit filed by the White Earth Band of Ojibwe recognized the Rights of Manoomin, essentially acknowledging Manoomins, “right to exist, flourish, regenerate, as well as rights to restoration, recovery, and preservation.” set precedence for cases to enforce the rights of nature!!! With that being said, let's celebrate with some Manoomin Ice Cream!!! Topped with Honey Fermented Cranberries perhaps?
Wild Rice Ice Cream: Ingredients: 80 grams (¼ cup) cooked wild rice 50 grams (¼ cup) coconut sugar (or agave syrup) 120 ml almond milk 1 x 15 ounce cans full fat coconut milk, (*Set ½ cup of this milk aside in a small bowl.) 2 tbsp cornstarch ⅓ cup maple syrup ⅓ cup maple sugar 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract CLICK FOR RECIPE VIDEO!
Directions:
1. In a blender, co seconds. Set aside
2. Place coconut m the remaining ½ c ar and syrup along minutes.
3. After 2-3 minute add the wild rice m to mix until mixture over an ice water allow to sit overnig
4. Place ice cream
5. The next day, at making device, fo mixture into the ice tency is reached.
6. Place into a pla overnight is best.
7. Serve as desired
Alternative Options
1. Regarding sugars tives. Honey would be a little overpowe
2. Wild Rice - feel fr cook wild rice in co rice in a pan or in th flavor and aroma.
3. Don't be afraid to ing the coconut mil
4. But most importa
ombine the coconut sugar, cooked wild rice, and almond milk. Puree for 10-15 e.
milk ( minus the ½ cup) in a medium saucepan. Combine the cornstarch with cup coconut milk and mix to dissolve, set aside. From here, add the maple sugg with vanilla into the pot and mix, turn to medium low heat and warm for two
es, re-mix cornstarch mixture and add it to the coconut milk in the pot. Then mixture as well and continue on medium low to medium heat and continue e thickens. Roughly 10 min. Strain mixture through a strainer into a bowl placed bath. Continue to mix until cooled completely. Place in a ziplock bag and ght in the refrigerator.
m attachment into the freezer and freeze overnight.
ttach ice cream attachment to your stand mixer or if using another icecream ollow the manufacturer's directions. Turn on and while running, gradually pour e cream maker. Allow to churn and mix for 10-15 min or until soft serve consis-
astic container, cover with plastic wrap and freeze for 4 hours minimum but
d.
s & Ideas:
s alternatives - feel free to experiment, agave, coconut, maple are all great alternad be great as well but perhaps used as only one substitute, the flavor of honey could ering OR a great idea for Honey Wild Rice Ice Cream?
ree to double up on the pre cooked rice if you like. Alternatively, you could also oconut milk to help deepen the flavor of the wild rice. Also, you could toast the wild he oven as well to heighten and change the flavor as well. Giving a bit of a nutty
o experiment and add additional flavorings. Chocolate can be melted when heatlk. Nuts or toasted seeds folded in at the end before freezing in the freezer.
antly, have fun!
Now that we’ve had a snack lets hop right into our next topic; Cattails! When it comes to this conversation we have numerous entry points, from ceremonial to foodways to tribal names. For instance the Fallon Paiute and Shoshone Tribe are actually known as the Toi-Ticutta; The Cattail Eaters. While the territory they occupy, historically and currently, in modern day Nevada and California is recognized today for being desert that wasn’t always the case. Marshlands and lakes once flourished here prior to colonization and their remaining food and water ways are constantly under attack. From water theft by non-Native farmers to the nearby Naval Air Base where bombing exercises destroyed the tribe’s sacred Medicine Rock, a place where medicinal plants were harvested, they are experiencing continued warfare against their people, land, and water, just as their relatives to the south, The Nüümü (Owens Valley Paiute). In the movie PAYA: The Water Story of the Paiute we learn “the untold story of America’s longest-lived water war between the Owens Valley Paiute and the City of Los Angeles” and about the large scale aquaculture systems they once cultivated but, with an enforced land base of just 279.08 acres, the maintenance of those ways is under constant threat. We can hear you asking, “What about the cattails though?”, and we’re here to say that it’s a nuanced story to tell. Unlike the previous “foods” we discussed, this one actually carries a varied cosmology between tribes and in respect to this we won’t be offering a recipe. What does that mean? It speaks to the many varying protocols within tribes, which when it comes to food and medicine are endless, so we invite you to honor this with us. As we recognized with the ToiTicutta, eating cattails is woven into their very being, so shall we recognize our Apache relatives' use of it in prayer and abstinence from consuming them, but we definitely invite you to study more about them.
And last but not least! To all of the Water Protectors out there we dedicate this issue to you!!! From ongoing fights like Stop Line 3 to the Tiny House Warriors and the Back 40 Mine on the Menominee River and on to battles won like stopping the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay we stand in solidarity and beside you.
Gratitudes: Rachael Perney Sara Paschall, Pine Nut Printing Tashia Hart A Gathering Basket Staff:
Written Content Curator, M. Karlos Baca Image Curator, Brit Reed Creative Director, Trennie Burch Video Curator, Quentin Glabus Program Director, Kristina Stanley
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