Essay On Native American Foodways

‘Pre-Columbian Indigenous Americans’ foodways were a foundational aspect to the modern American diet. Food used by Native American tribes would greatly transform the European diet. The study of Mesoamerican foodways allows us think about why important crops such as maize, potato is still widely used today. Foodways studies, particularly Pre-Columbian foodways, are critical to our historical understanding relating to early agricultural practices, political economies, and how plants and animals were domesticated. Great empires such as the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas inhabited vast lands of Central and South America. The Pre-Columbian era was a time for indigenous cultures to flourish and to maintain their traditions. For many thousands of years, indigenous North American tribes maintained sacred relationships with themselves, with their food and the environment they lived in.

Located in the northern plains and mountain valleys. Bison provided the Arapaho with a major food source, but also every part of its body, by utilizing its fur for clothing for example. This primary source document explains how the Arapaho relied heavily on bison as their cultural and collective sense of identity. “he made the arrow point of the short rib of a buffalo. Having made a bow and four arrows, he went off alone and waited in the timber at a buffalo path…” “the people used the fire drill. A man went off alone and fasted. He learned that certain stones, when struck, would give a spark and that this spark would light tinder.” (The Arapaho Learn How to Hunt Buffalo in AA, pg. 5) The Arapaho’s hunted bison for culinary and various cultural practices. The primary food sources that the Arapaho tribe ate which included bison ranged from all native animals that were available to hunt and provided raw materials as well. As a result, hunting was one of the primary methods to get