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51-537: Canawaugus was one of the most populous of the Seneca villages, with a population approaching 1000 people. The Seneca religious leader Handsome Lake was born here about 1735. Governor Blacksnake moved here shortly after his birth. Cornplanter was born here around 1750. It is unclear whether or not the village was destroyed in the Sullivan Expedition of 1779. Canawaugus was one of the 11 reservations retained by

102-519: A trellis for the beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil, and their twining vines stabilize the maize in high winds, and the wide leaves of the squash plant shade the ground, keeping the soil moist and helping prevent the establishment of weeds . The prickly hairs of some squash varieties deter pests, such as deer and raccoons . Although this synergy had been traditionally reputed among American cultures, scientific confirmation has arrived only much more recently. Much of this research

153-645: A larger scale. The Ancestral Puebloans adopted this garden design in the drier deserts and xeric shrublands environment. The Tewa and other peoples of the North American Southwest often included a "fourth Sister", the Rocky Mountain beeplant , which attracts bees to help pollinate the beans and squash. The Three Sisters crop model was widely used by a number of First Nations in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands region. European records from

204-633: A moral code that was eventually referred to as the Code of Handsome Lake . Today it is called the Longhouse Religion . Handsome Lake abolished societal sins, attempting to cleanse the tribes of all immoral actions. He threatened his people in order to show them the error of their ways. He insisted that Iroquois people must refrain from drinking, marital abuse, abortion, spouse and child abandonment, selling of land, overconsumption, intensive animal farming , and witchcraft. The rise of Handsome Lake's Way of Life

255-746: A revised code meant to revive traditional consciousness to the Haudenosaunee after a long period of cultural disintegration following colonization. This message was eventually published as the " Code of Handsome Lake " and is still practiced today. Handsome Lake's name is transcribed differently in the languages of the Six Nations: Cayuga language : Sganyadái:yo ; Oneida language : Skanatalihyo ; Mohawk language : Skaniadario ; Tuscarora language : Θkanyatararí•yau• ; historically recorded also as Ganioda'yo , Ganiodaio , Conudiu , Conudiu , Ga-Nyah-Di-Yoh , and Kaniatario . Handsome Lake

306-401: A technique known as companion planting , the maize and beans are often planted together in mounds formed by hilling soil around the base of the plants each year; squash is typically planted between the mounds. The cornstalk serves as a trellis for climbing beans, the beans fix nitrogen in their root nodules and stabilize the maize in high winds, and the wide leaves of the squash plant shade

357-531: A very long history in the Americas. The process to develop the agricultural knowledge for cultivation took place over a 5,000 to 6,500 year period. Squash was domesticated first, with maize second and beans third. Squash was first domesticated some 8,000–10,000 years ago. From 800 AD, Three Sisters crop organization was used in the largest Native American city north of the Rio Grande known as Cahokia , located in

408-472: A visit by the spirits of the Three Sisters, prompting him to return to and re-teach his fellow Haudenosaunee their traditional agricultural practices. Researchers in the early 20th century described more than a dozen varieties of maize and similar numbers of bean varieties, as well as many types of squash, such as pumpkin and winter squash, grown in Haudenosaunee communities. The first academic description of

459-422: A yellow Frock , or dress. The eldest of the three, who represents corn, is often described as wearing a pale green shawl and having long, yellow hair. These three sisters are repeatedly visited by a young Indigenous boy, impressing them with his character and hunting skills, specifically archery. With each visit, one of the three sisters disappears until the eldest is left alone. As such, she begins to mourn. When

510-480: A young minister who meets the one he perceives to be the Lord, who then asks him to go to a new land and bring with him cards, money, a fiddle, whiskey, and blood corruption. In return the young minister will become rich. The young minister sought out Christopher Columbus , and with the help of his crew, traveled to the Americas. They turned back to report what they had seen, which caused an immigration of people from Europe to

561-412: Is further enhanced by protein contributions from beans and pumpkin seeds, while pumpkin flesh provides large amounts of vitamin A ; with the Three Sisters, farmers harvest about the same amount of energy as from maize monoculture , but get more protein yield from the inter-planted bean and pumpkin. Mt. Pleasant writes that this largely explains the value of the Three Sisters over monoculture cropping, as

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612-739: The American Revolution , the Haudenosaunee lost most of their land in New York and Pennsylvania and were forced to live on reservations, including in Canada, as punishment for taking the side of the British Crown in the revolution. Although these reservations included much of the prime real estate in Western New York , including several of the prominent creek and river valleys, the small and fragmented native lands were separated by wide swaths of land that

663-591: The Beaver Wars . In 1779, Handsome Lake wanted to die after the US military attacked the Haudenosaunee villages, wiping out whole communities and killing many. In his despair, Handsome Lake was said to had envisioned a visit by the Three Sisters -the spirits of the corn , beans , and squash . The Three Sisters' visit prompted Handsome Lake to return to and re-teach his community its traditional agricultural practices. After

714-622: The Old World in that the Americas lacked large-seeded, easily domesticated grains (such as wheat and barley ) and large domesticated animals that could be used for agricultural labor. At the time of first contact between the Europeans and the Americans, Carlos Sempat Assadourian writes that Europeans practiced "extensive agriculture, based on the plough and draught animals" while the Indigenous peoples of

765-742: The Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838, before returning the Allegany, Cattaraugus and Oil Spring reservations in the Third Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1842. In December 2022, the Seneca Nation of Indians purchased a 1.8-acre (0.73 ha) plot that had been on the Canawaugus reservation and claimed sovereignty over it as a continuation of the original Canawaugus reservation. Handsome Lake Handsome Lake ( Ganyodaiyo' ) (1735 – 10 August 1815)

816-575: The 19th century was 18.9 bushels per acre (1.2 t/ha), but opines that pre-historic yields might have been as low as 10 bushels per acre (0.6 t/ha). As the Iroquois and other Native Americans did not plow their land, Mt. Pleasant and Burt concluded that their lands retained more organic matter and thus were higher in yields of maize than early Euro-American farms in North America. Maize, beans, and squash, whether grown individually or together, have

867-414: The Americas practiced "intensive agriculture, based on human labour". In Indigenous American companion planting, maize ( Zea mays ), beans ( wild beans and vetches spp.), and squash ( Cucurbita pepo ) are planted close together. The maize and beans are often planted together in mounds formed by hilling soil around the base of the plants each year; squash is typically planted between the mounds. In

918-511: The Americas. Along with the people came the five things that aided in destroying the natives. The end reveals that the "Lord" in the gold castle was actually the devil, and that even he knew what he had caused was wrong. Three Sisters (agriculture) The Three Sisters ( Spanish : tres hermanas ) are the three main agricultural crops of various indigenous people of Central and North America : squash , maize ("corn"), and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans ). In

969-593: The Cahokia site had been mostly abandoned and the large population dispersed, though the Mississippian and Muscogee cultures continued to thrive until c.  1600 , when contact with Spanish explorers brought Eurasian diseases, death, and cultural collapse. In the Handbook of North American Indians , the Three Sisters are called the "foundation of (Iroquois) subsistence", allowing the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois to develop

1020-466: The Iroquois have a matrilineal kinship system. Born during a time when the Seneca nation was at its peak of prosperity through fur trading , Handsome Lake witnessed the gradual deterioration of his society. Other well-known relatives in Handsome Lake's family included Governor Blacksnake ( thë́:wö:nyaʹs ), Red Jacket ( shakoyá:wa:thaʹ ), and Half-Town. In 1794 he signed the U.S. treaty with

1071-512: The Mississippi floodplain to the east of modern St. Louis, Missouri . It spanned over 13 km2 and supported populations of at least thousands. Cahokia was notable for its delineated community zones, including those for administration, several residential areas, and a large agricultural complex. Domesticated squash, gourds, and maize were initially grown alongside wild beans; domesticated beans were not grown at Cahokia until 1250. The cultivation of

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1122-629: The Seneca tribe in the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797. It sold the reservation to the Ogden Land Company in 1826. The Seneca Nation of Indians claims that the 1826 sale was never legal because it would have required a treaty be ratified by the United States Senate , and that the Canawaugus reservation was never disestablished. The Ogden Land Company would later purchase the Senecas' remaining lands in

1173-602: The Six Nations (known as the Pickering Treaty ). He visited Washington, D.C., with Cornplanter in 1802. Several factors contributed to the erosion of morale and spiritual welfare of the Iroquois/Haudenosaunee. At its peak in the early 18th century, the Haudenosaunee controlled much of what is now the midwestern United States, which it had conquered through decades of warring against the tribes native to those areas in

1224-581: The Three Sisters cropping system in 1910 reported that the Iroquois preferred to plant the three crops together, since it took less time and effort than planting them individually, and because they believed the plants were "guarded by three inseparable spirits and would not thrive apart". Among the Haudenosaunee, women were responsible for cultivation and distribution of the three crops, which raised their social status. Male roles traditionally included extended periods of travel, such as for hunting expeditions, diplomatic missions, or military raids. Men took part in

1275-635: The Three Sisters crops by Cahokian residents produced a food surplus large enough to support Cahokia's expanded population, as well as further cultures throughout the extended Mississippi River system such as those of the Mississippian and Muscogee . There is evidence that Cahokia held at least one great feast around 1050-1100 AD. The food served at these gatherings included, alongside a variety of other plants and animals, several domesticated squash varieties, maize, and wild beans. Food that needed to be processed, like cornmeal , would commonly be prepared at

1326-421: The code had reasons to believe that Handsome Lake was giving up on their old ways by altering the character of their way of life. They saw Handsome Lake's new ideals as abandoning their history and forfeiting to Quaker ideals because Handsome Lake did not believe that they could survive with the world evolving around them. Then-President Thomas Jefferson gave his endorsement to Handsome Lake's code in 1803. With

1377-531: The converse effect, increasing even further the yield gain of beans when planted with maize. Pronin et al. 1972 find increased productivity and root exudate in both crops when combining faba beans with maize, and even more so in soils with preexisting high nitrogen fixing microorganism activity. Indigenous peoples throughout North America cultivated different varieties of the Three Sisters, adapted to varying local environments. The milpas of Mesoamerica are farms or gardens that employ companion planting on

1428-399: The corn, beans, and squash came from her breasts, hands, and navel respectively; sunflowers from her legs; strawberries from her heart; tobacco from her head; and purple potatoes or sunchokes from her feet. It is said that in 1779, Seneca Chief Handsome Lake wished to die after the US military killed Haudenosaunee communities and villagers. Handsome Lake, grief-stricken, envisioned

1479-430: The feast site alongside non-food items that gave the feasts ritual or ceremonial importance. Eventual overuse of the environment in the areas surrounding Cahokia began to degrade the land. As the surrounding woodlands were cleared through overuse, runoff frequently flooded the crop fields throughout the growing season, limiting the ability to grow the squash, maize, and corn Cahokia subsisted upon. By c.  1350 ,

1530-485: The ground, keeping the soil moist and helping prevent the establishment of weeds . Indigenous peoples throughout North America cultivated different varieties of the Three Sisters, adapted to varying local environments. The individual crops and their use in polyculture originated in Mesoamerica , where squash was domesticated first, followed by maize and then beans, over a period of 5,000–6,500 years. European records from

1581-489: The help of Handsome Lake’s relatives, his visions were written down and published in 1850. The Code of Handsome Lake remains practiced among the Seneca and is considered to be a traditional Indian way of life. Beginning in the 1820s, it became traditional for the Code to be recited every September at Tonawanda in the Seneca Nation. How America Was Discovered is a story told by Handsome Lake, and documented by Arthur C. Parker , about

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1632-418: The initial preparation for the planting of the Three Sisters by clearing the planting ground, after which groups of related women, working communally, performed the planting, weeding, and harvesting. Based on archaeological findings, paleobotanist John Hart concludes that the Haudenosaunee began growing the three crops as a polyculture sometime after 700 BP . The Haudenosaunee frequently traded their crops, so

1683-535: The institutions of sedentary life. The Three Sisters appear prominently in Haudenosaunee oral traditions and ceremonies, such as Iroquois myths and the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. According to legend, the Three Sisters grew out of Earth Woman's dead body. During the time of creation , Sky Woman fell to Earth, where she had a daughter named Earth Woman. With the west wind, Earth Woman conceived twin sons . The first twin, Sapling ,

1734-525: The main determinants of yield. Mt. Pleasant also questioned the conventional wisdom that the Iroquois practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, abandoning fields when the soil was depleted of nutrients after several years of farming, but instead claimed that Iroquoian no-till farming techniques preserved soil fertility. In a similar experiment to reproduce Native American agricultural practices in Minnesota, Munson-Scullin and Scullin reported that over three years,

1785-533: The need for each crop could vary substantially from year to year. Jane Mt. Pleasant surmises that the Haudenosaunee may have typically inter-planted the three crops, but they could also have planted monocultures of the individual crops to meet specific needs. The Maya diet focused on the Three Sisters. Maize was the central component of the diet of the ancient Maya and figured prominently in Maya mythology and ideology . Archaeological evidence suggests that Chapalote-Nal-Tel

1836-653: The northeastern U.S., this practice increases soil temperature in the mound and improves drainage , both of which benefit maize planted in spring. In Haudenosaunee or Iroquois farming, the fields were not tilled , enhancing soil fertility and the sustainability of the cropping system by limiting soil erosion and oxidation of soil organic matter . A modern experiment found that the Haudenosaunee Three Sisters polyculture provided both more energy and more protein than any local monoculture. The three crops benefit by being grown together. The cornstalk serves as

1887-458: The per-acre annual maize yields declined from 40 to 30 to 25 bushels (2.5, 1.9, and 1.6 t/ha). Other scholars have estimated lower average yields of maize. Hart and Feranec estimated the yield of Huron agriculture at 8 to 22 bushels per acre (0.5 to 1.4 t/ha), the higher yields coming from newly cultivated land. The Huron lived in Ontario near the northern limit of where agriculture

1938-502: The sixteenth century describe highly productive Indigenous agriculture based on cultivation of the Three Sisters throughout what are now the Eastern United States and Canada, from Florida to Ontario. The geographer Carl O. Sauer described the Three Sisters as "a symbiotic plant complex of North and Central America without an equal elsewhere". The agronomist Jane Mt. Pleasant writes that the Three Sisters mound system "enhances

1989-486: The sixteenth century describe highly productive Indigenous agriculture based on cultivation of the Three Sisters throughout what are now the Eastern United States and Canada, where the crops were used for both food and trade. Geographer Carl O. Sauer described the Three Sisters as "a symbiotic plant complex of North and Central America without an equal elsewhere". Agricultural history in the Americas differed from

2040-588: The soil physical and biochemical environment, minimizes soil erosion, improves soil tilth , manages plant population and spacing, provides for plant nutrients in appropriate quantities, and at the time needed, and controls weeds". After several thousand years of selective breeding, the hemisphere's most important crop, maize , was more productive than Old World grain crops. Maize produced two and one-half times more calories per given land area than wheat and barley. Nutritionally, maize, beans, and squash contain all nine essential amino acids . The protein from maize

2091-577: The system yields large amounts of energy, and at the same time increases protein yields; this polyculture cropping system yielded more food and supported more people per hectare compared to monocultures of the individual crops or mixtures of monocultures. Scholars Mt. Pleasant and Burt reproduced Iroquois methods of cultivation with Iroquoian varieties of maize at several locations in New York . They reported maize yields of 22 to 76 bushels per acre (1.4 to 4.8 tonnes per hectare). Soil fertility and weather were

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2142-399: Was born normally , but his evil twin brother, Flint, was so impatient that he came out of his mother's side, killing her during childbirth . As Earth Woman died, either she wished for her body to sustain the people or Sky Woman sowed on her grave the seeds she had brought when she fell to Earth, but never planted before. Out of Earth Woman's body parts grew various plants: the spirits of

2193-588: Was performed in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s and published in several volumes of Biochemical and Physiological Bases for Plant Interactions in Phytocenosis edited by Andrey Mikhailovich Grodzinsky  [ uk ; ru ] . Dzubenko & Petrenko 1971, Lykhvar & Nazarova 1970 and Pronin et al. 1970 find a wide number of leguminous crops increase the growth and yield of maize, while Gulyaev et al. 1970 select later maturing lines of beans to produce

2244-505: Was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was a half-brother to Cornplanter ( Gayentwahgeh ), a Seneca war chief. Handsome Lake, a leader and prophet, played a major role in reviving traditional religion among the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse), or Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy. He preached a message that combined traditional Haudenosaunee religious beliefs with

2295-424: Was a result of the cultural clash between the fledgling United States and the once equally powerful Six Nations people. The traditional religious rituals were no longer applicable to the environment in which the Haudenosaunee people found themselves. In 1799, after a period of illness due to many years of excessive alcoholism, Handsome Lake had the visions that gave him the power to become a prophet. In his vision, he

2346-501: Was born as Hadawa'ko ("Shaking Snow") around 1735 in the Seneca village of Canawaugus , on the Genesee River near present-day Avon, New York . Very little is known of his parents; his mother, Gahonnoneh, later had an affair with a Dutch fur trader and gunsmith, resulting in the birth of Handsome Lake's half-brother, Cornplanter. Handsome Lake was born into the Wolf clan of his mother, as

2397-500: Was eventually earmarked for American settlement in what would be known as the Holland Purchase . This dislocation followed years of social disruption due to epidemics of infectious disease and major wars. Alcohol was introduced to the tribes in this time frame, a substance to which numerous Haudenosaunee (including Handsome Lake himself) began consuming in excess, exacerbating the erosion of the traditional family unit. This situation

2448-475: Was feasible and had less fertile soils than many other regions. Nevertheless, they produced surpluses for trading with nearby non-agricultural peoples. Bruce Trigger estimates that the Hurons required .4 to .8 acres (1,600 to 3,200 m ) of land under cultivation per capita for their subsistence with more cultivated land required for trade. Sissel Schroeder estimates that the average yield of Native American farms in

2499-564: Was more successful than most religions during that time because his code combined traditional Iroquois way of life with Quaker values. Despite the clear presence of Christian values in his teachings, it is unclear how much contact with Christianity Handsome Lake had previous to his visions. His way of life stressed survival without the sacrifice of the Iroquois identity, and recognized the need to make adjustments in order to survive in their changing world. Handsome Lake's ideals were eye opening and majority of people agreed with him. Those who opposed

2550-472: Was the dominant maize species, though it is likely others were being exploited also. Numerous legends from indigenous cultures surround the existence and production of the Three Sister crops. One legend personifies the crops as three human sisters. The first sister, who represents beans, is described as a toddler dressed in green. The second sister, who represents squash, is a slightly older child dressed in

2601-565: Was warned by three spiritual messengers, ke:i niënöti:h , who presented him with ideals that he must enforce among his people. They told him of concerns he must enforce, like learning the English language and preservation of their land. Shortly after Handsome Lake's first vision, he ceased drinking alcohol. When he regained his health, he began bringing a message of Gaihwi:io (or Kaliwihyo ) (the "Good Word") to his people. He preached against drunkenness and other evil practices. His message outlined

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