The Pawnee Seed Savers: Nebraska Gardeners Replenish Ancestral Foods by Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley, Nebraskaland Magazine, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Lincoln, Nebraska, October 2025, pp 28-35.
A very real part of the encroachment of Europeans on the Native American populations was the loss of their traditional food supplies. They went from eating their traditional vegetables and plants, as well as game meat to being dependent on government supplies. In the case of the Pawnee they went from farming in Nebraska to Oklahoma, where their seeds were not as effective. It created a whole change in diet; and one not as conducive to their physical make-up (their genes were use to the traditional diet.) Only more recently has this been thought to be so important, and in order to correct it a garden system has been developed. They use seeds left over from the old days, and then gardens in Nebraska. Each year they raise crops, and then have more traditional seeds.
The three sisters are corn, squash and beans. Their most sacred of these is corn. The project started slowly in 2004, but now as Native Americans find old stores of seeds, they have grown 20 different varieties of Pawnee corn. They have also grown varieties of beans, squash, sunflowers and watermelon. Sunflower is considered the fourth sister and traditionally they ate the seeds, but it was also used to protect the other plants as sunflowers can grow over ten feet tall.
There are now over 20 gardeners in Nebraska growing Pawnee seeds. Most of the harvest they share with the Pawnee in Oklahoma, and so doing the Pawnee are able to eat their traditional foods.
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