Life on the Prairie

Elizabeth

Middle waters child,

Taught by the Nuns and Black Robes,

Still true to her own.

 

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Child of the prairie,

Taught by earth, wind, buffalo,

Proud Osage woman.

The short story, “Elizabeth Journey,” received second place at the first Astra Festival of Arts’ writing contest in Independence, Kansas.

Please note this blog posts the first and third weeks of each month.

Prairie Girls

 

Elizabeth

I am Elizabeth. I was brave, but my heart ached when my people were forced to leave the land of our fathers. The government in a place called Washington said we must move. We took all our possessions with us. Some walked and some rode horses. Our heads were held high, but there was only sadness on our faces. 

I did not know what my life would be like in Indian Territory. Would there be more buffalo hunts? Would there be Black Robes? Would I have a marriage ceremony? I did know I would honor my promise to Grandfather and not forget my Osage ways.

 

Great-Grandma’s House

The above is a picture of a daguerreotype (photograph made on a chemically treated tin plate). It shows my great grandparents, my grandfather as a young boy, (kneeling on one knee) and a neighbor holding a scythe (a hand-held blade used to cut grass).  I recently found this in a collection of my mother’s possessions. Mother is no longer with us, and I cannot confirm it, but I have a memory of seeing this as a young child. My grandfather told me of the long-ago afternoon when a man in a horse-drawn wagon came by the farm and took a picture of the house and family.

Grandpa also told the story of his mother looking through the glass of her kitchen window one day to find a Native American brave staring at her long, red hair. Grandma’s heart beat more rapidly, I’m sure. The brave, though, meant no harm. He had just not seen a red-headed woman before.

 

Historical Fact

Native American Removal

The United States government historically practiced the removal and relocation processes on Native Americans. Although tribes were paid for some of the land taken by whites, it was pennies per acre. Native Americans believed land was like the air and belonged to everyone. No one could truly own it.

The relocation of the Native Americans was always further west and on poor land. They were to farm this new land, but most of the tribes were hunters and gatherers. As the railroads expanded west, the surplus of buffalo was soon exhausted to the point of extinction. That loss spelled the end to Native Americans’ food supplies and allowed their complete domination by the government.

Internet sources helpful for this topic include:

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html

http://www.teachushistory.org/indian-removal

http://loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html

www.thehistorykids.net/archives/ira.htm

 

Prairie Recipes

 

Prairie Recipes

By Collette

Most Native American tribes have developed recipes utilizing food and animal products acquired locally. Buffalo was the main source of protein for the Great Plains tribes. The following include simple recipes with buffalo meat the Osage Indians developed.

Osage Strip Soup

3-4 pounds of buffalo meat, preferably from the rump

Taking the buffalo meat, follow the grain with your knife and cut meat into strips as thick as one’s thumb. Cut into one and a half to two inch strips. Wash the meat. Put into a kettle and cover with cold water, but no more than one inch over the meat. Take a ladle and mash the meat. Place the kettle over the campfire and bring to a boil. Boil for 45 minutes to one hour. Serves 12 or so.

Osage Pounded Meats

Roasted buffalo meat
Chopped pecans
Honey

Cut roasted buffalo meat into strips. Pound strips until as fine as meat that has been run through a grinder. Add pecans and honey; shape mixture into small balls.

The final recipe uses yankopin which was a water lily root. It is difficult to find them today because Indians liked them so well the sources were depleted.

Osage Yankopin

The roots look like long, slender sweet potatoes with seeds shaped like small round chestnuts. Large quantities of yankopin root were pulled up in the fall and either eaten raw or boiled. It was often dried. The seeds were collected at this time and either consumed raw or dried for later eating.

When processing for drying, cut the roots into one to two inch pieces. String on leather thongs with up to thirty pieces per strand. Hang the strands to dry on wooden racks used for drying meat. To prepare to eat dried yankopin, boil in water until tender and add salt.

Story Teller's Corner

Osage Orange Tree

The Osage orange tree, commonly called the hedge tree, produces inedible hedge apples as its fruit. The only creatures that seem to like this fruit are squirrels. The seeds inside could be eaten by humans, but is seldom worth the trouble. The harsh, green outer coating is difficult to remove. When you try to remove it, a milky substance can get on you and sometimes produce an allergic reaction. If that is not enough to deter your efforts, the tree produces big thorns on its branches.

The only person I have known who used these hedge balls was my grandmother. At Christmas for several years, she gathered them, spray painted them silver and gold, and placed them under the Christmas tree for decoration. Surprisingly, today  they can be purchased over the Internet to use for decorating. I guess my grandmother was ahead of her time when she got the idea to spray paint them.

The true use for the hedge tree is its wood. It was prized by the Osage tribe because of its hardness. They utilized the wood for their bows making them strong. Hedge was often planted around the perimeters of farms as a barrier. It kept cattle, chickens, and hogs inside the area enclosed. Hedge rows dot the countryside across America. The wood is so hard it is still used as fence posts today.

Halloween Fun

 

Halloween Fun?

by Judy

 It was early October, the time of year a mother of four young children should have been thinking about Halloween costumes. It seemed like it was just last week I was carefully laundering the Raggedy Ann dress and burning my fingers pressing Raggedy’s white apron. I knew my chances of getting either of my sons to wear it were slim to none. No doubt, I needed to come up with four entirely new costumes.

Our small town celebrates Halloween in a big way. Volunteers coordinate a festival which lasts ten very long, activity-packed, expensive days. There are parades on three of those days, one devoted entirely to the town’s children. At least a thousand kids dress in costumes and walk down the three main blocks of our town. Unfortunately, over the years competition has developed among some of the mothers as to who can come up with the best costume.

Now, I am as competitive as the next person. In fact, I’m more competitive than many people. And my young children were cute, personable and very insistent they walk in the parade in costume. Oh yes, I’ve spent many nights before Halloween at the sewing machine unhappily stitching furry black cloth into a gorilla costume, sewing red petals on sweatshirts to frame little, candy-sticky faces, or gathering shiny, slippery, silver material into a tutu or scorching my fingers gluing feathers to a baby’s shirt. Fortunately, I blocked all thoughts of the hundreds of naked baby chicks running around in the cold, night air…all so a sleeping six-month old child could be pulled through town in a little red wagon.

My personal favorite costume was the one my older son wore when he was ten. I simply had him put on his red polo shirt, jeans and his favorite baseball cap. Thirty minutes before the parade I picked up a pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. The kids and I quickly devoured the pizza. (I had been so busy creating original costumes for my other three children I hadn’t cooked a real meal for a few days.) My son appreciated the light-weight empty box as he carried it down the parade route. I thought it the best costume ever. Sure, the kids parading with him were disappointed we didn’t share the pizza. But really, doesn’t everyone love the smell of pizza?