by Alison Mitchell, Co-Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation
November is National Native American Heritage Month – a time to recognize and honor the culture, traditions, and achievements of the original inhabitants of North America. New Jersey, like everywhere in the United States, has a rich and significant Native American history. From the land we walk on today to the food we eat, we experience this history every day.
The first people to live on the land now known as New Jersey were the Lenni-Lenape (in the 1600s, European settlers named them “Delaware Indians”). The Lenni-Lenape lived here starting at least 10,000 years ago.
Anywhere from 8,000 to 20,000 Lenni-Lenape (which translates to “Original People”) inhabited New Jersey, Delaware, southern New York and eastern Pennsylvania when Europeans arrived. Separated by clans and governed by chiefs, the Lenape people of New Jersey had three main dialect clans – each made up of smaller independent but interrelated communities. The Munsee (People of the Stony Country) lived in the north. The Unami (People Down River) and the Unalachtigo (People Who Live Near the Ocean) inhabited the central and southern areas of the state.
Descendants of the three main dialect clans continue to live in New Jersey today.
Michaeline Picaro and her husband, Chief Vincent Mann, are of the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation, Turtle Clan. The couple leased 14 acres of farmland in 2019 to create The Three Sisters Munsee Medicinal Farm, a start-up that operates more like a charity – feeding, nurturing, and healing members of the Turtle Clan.
The Three Sisters Munsee Medicinal Farm’s name combines the dialect that the clan spoke with the sacred collection of crops lovingly referred to as “The Three Sisters,” which are corn, beans, and squash. According to the National Agricultural Library, the intercropping method of planting corn, beans, and squash together has been studied and described by scholars of anthropology, history, agriculture, and food for many years. While this “companion planting” practice is often cited as a way to improve small personal gardens, its roots lie in larger-scale implementations designed to nurture and sustain entire communities.
Many different Native American tribes practiced this traditional gardening technique, which is believed to have originated with the Haudenosaunee (hah-dee-no-shownee) of upstate New York, or “People of the Longhouse.” At least 15 different indigenous nations in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada planted The Three Sisters, including the Native American women of New Jersey (women were responsible for planting).
The Three Sisters gardening technique is a stroke of Native American genius. It involves inter-planting pole beans and squash with corn, using the strength of the sturdy corn stalks to support the beans and the shade of the spreading squash vines to trap moisture for the growing plants. The beans add nutrients to the soil, the big squash leaves provide shade, and the corn provides strength and structure. The traditional Three Sisters companion planting technique created beneficial relationships between the three plants, helping each other grow, all the while contributing to a larger community of plants and animals.
“One of the reasons why corn, beans, and squash have lasted together as a trio for so long is because of the symbiotic relationship between them,” says Picaro. Together, Picaro and other members of The Three Sisters Munsee Medicinal Farm plant the crops ceremoniously every year. “There is a traditional way, a ceremonial way to grow them.”
The Three Sisters complex was not simply an agricultural strategy or technology, but a cultural complex, complete with stories, ceremonies, technology, customs and etiquette. Picaro says she named the farm after The Three Sisters to start a conversation. “It represents a snapshot. People have to know the history. We have been doing all of these things the right way and the colonists were learning our ways. But we did not understand what they were doing to us.”
The evolution of humans and the plants they cultivate and forage – how they interact with those plants and the way the plants nourish them in return – is a long love story. Native farmers and foragers knew when, how, and how much to harvest for the maximum benefit of the plant as well as the farmer. Nowadays, this concept is sometimes referred to as “permaculture” which describes “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems,” according to the Permaculture Research Institute. Long before the term “permaculture” was coined, indigenous communities in New Jersey were skillfully growing and eating plants in the same symbiotic relationship that The Three Sisters crops represent.
Many of us incorporate these sacred ingredients into our Thanksgiving feasts or even our weeknight dinners. When we do, we can share the story of The Three Sisters with future generations around the table. Knowing the history of the land where we live and the food that we eat – particularly the traditions of Native Americans in our state – helps us to appreciate and honor the wisdom of those who came before us and the role those earliest residents played in cultivating and stewarding the land in this state we’re in.
To learn more about some of the tribes of New Jersey, please visit the following: https://ramapomunsee.net/; https://ramapomunseelandalliance.org/; https://www.nlltribalnation.org/; https://www.facebook.com/splitrockprayercamp/. To learn more about The Three Sisters Munsee Medicinal Farm, check out https://munseethreesisters.org/.
For information about preserving New Jersey’s land and natural resources, visit the New Jersey Conservation Foundation website at www.njconservation.org or contact me at info@njconservation.org.
