Beans

Beans

Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were one of the 'Three Sisters' of Indigenous agriculture, a system of companion planting practiced and perfected by numerous Indigenous cultures throughout Mesoamerica and North America for millennia. In the area encompassing the Eastern United States, archaeological evidence points to the beginning of 'Three Sisters' agriculture emerging via trade route-inspired diffusion in the Late Woodland Period, roughly around the year 1000 CE (Gremillion 1995: 12). 'Three Sisters' agriculture consisted of planting Maize/Corn (Zea mays L.) kernels in mounds that were created in fire-cleared fields, often in clusters of up to four stalks or more. Among the growing corn stalks, seeds of climbing beans would be sown, providing a sturdy trellis on which for them to climb, as well as bracing and helping the corn stalks remain upright in high winds. Corn plants are heavy nitrogen feeders, and beans just so happen to be nitrogen fixers via bacteria that colonize their root systems and sequester atmospheric nitrogen in the soil in usable forms like ammonia, which helps to provide the nitrogen needed by corn plants. Pumpkins/Squashes/Gourds (Cucurbita spp. L. or Lagenaria siceraria (Molinda) Standl.) would also be planted in between the corn and bean mounds to provide shade to the soil with their large leaves in order to help the soil retain moisture and to shade out weedy species from being able to thrive and compete with the crop plants. The biological mechanisms of companion planting were unknown at the time, but the benefits were observed and refined by Indigenous peoples over thousands of years, oftentimes with them selectively breeding landrace, local varieties of these crops over long periods of time which were well-suited and adapted to the climates in which they lived. Indigenous bean varieties came in all sorts of colors, sizes, and growth habits and particular groups of Indigenous peoples often developed certain landrace varieties over time which came to be associated with their particular cultures. To the English colonizers, the larger Indigenous Phaseolus pulses were called 'Beans' while smaller pulses (perhaps referring to different landrace varieties of smaller beans, or wild species like vetches (Vicia L.) that may have fallen into this category) were called 'Peas'. Indigenous peoples often cooked beans with corn, boiling them together into a stew or mush that served as the precursor to the modern dish succotash, or the soaked or cooked beans were added to cornmeal dough when making fire-roasted corn cakes or boiled tamale-like dumplings; also, pounded beans were used to make a sort of johnnycake-like bean bread.

The variety of bean that we are growing in the greenhouse is called 'Hidatsa Red Indian'. This variety was first introduced commercially in 1915 by Oscar H. Will & Company as part of a series of traditional western varieties called the Pioneer Indian Collection. The Hidatsa people, from whom the variety comes from, are a Siouan group which live in the upper Missouri River Valley, today residing on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota as one of the Three Affiliated Tribes which includes the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara peoples. This bean variety was chosen primarily for its growth habit and plant size at maturity; whereas some bean varieties create a 'bush', this bean variety will climb if provided a trellis structure to support it and will only reach about 3-feet or a little larger in length/height. Some bean varieties can reach over ten-feet long/tall and would have overtaken and potentially toppled the Tutelo Strawberry Corn that we are growing which only grows six-feet tall or so. 

Hidatsa Red Indian Bean seeds were purchased online from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company located in Mansfield, MO. 

Ethnohistorical Accounts

*NOTE: These quotations from early English colonists represent some of the only information written down about Indigenous lifeways in Eastern North America. However, it must be specified that they represent biased and oftentimes prejudiced observations and worldviews and should be regarded as interpretations of how Indigenous people lived and not exclusively as fact.

• "Okindgíer, called by vs Beanes, because in greatnesse & partly in shape they are like to the Beanes in England; sauing that they are flatter, of more diuers colours, and some pide. The leafe also of the stemme is much different. In taste they are altogether as good as our English peaze. Wickonzówr, called by vs Peaze, in respect of the beanes for distrinction sake, because they are much lesse; although in forme they little differ; but in goodnesse of tast much, & far better then our English peaze. Both the beans and peaze are ripe in tenne weekes after they are set. They make them victuall either by boyling them all to pieces into a broth; or boiling them whole vntill they bee soft and beginne to breake as is vsed in England, eyther by themselues or mixtly together: Sometime they mingle of the wheate [maize] with them. Sometime also beeing whole sodden, they bruse or pound them in a morter, & thereof make loaues or lumps of  dowishe bread, which they vse to eat for varietie" (Hariot 1590 {1588}: 14). 

• "...the next yeare [after burning forested land to plant crops on] with a crooked peece of wood they beat up the weeds by the rootes, and in that mould they plant their Corne. Their manner is this. They make a hole in the earth with a sticke, and into it they put foure graines of wheate [maize] and two of beanes. These holes they make foure foote one from another... for as we gather greene pease, so doe they... They plant also pease they call Assentamens, which are the same they call in Italy, Fagioli. Their Beanes are the same which the Turkes call Garnances [garbanzo], but these they much esteeme for dainties" (Smith 1907 {1624}: 58-59). 

• "They likewise plant a Bean in the same Hill with the Corn, upon whose Stalk it sustains it self. The Indians sow'd Peas sometimes in the Intervals of the Rows of Corn, but more generally in a Patch of Ground by themselves. They have an unknown Variety of them, (but all of a Kidney-Shape) some of which I have met with wild" (Beverley 1705: Book II, 29-30).

• "Of the Pulse-kind, we have many sorts. The first is the Bushel-Bean, which is a spontaneous Product. They are so called, because they bring a Bushel of Beans for one that is planted. They are set in the Spring, round Arbours, or at the Feet of Poles, up which they will climb, and cover the Wattling, making a very pretty Shade to sit under. They continue flowering, budding, and ripening all the Summer long, till the Frost approaches, when they forbear their Fruit, and die. The Stalks they grow on, come to the Thickness of a Man's Thumb; and the Bean is white and mottled, with a purple Figure on each side it, like an Ear. They are very flat, and are eaten as the Windsor-Bean is, being an extraordinary well-relish'd Pulse, either by themselves, or with Meat. We [also] have the Indian Rounceval, or Miraculous Pease, so call'd from their long Pods, and great Increase. These are latter Pease, and require a pretty long Summer to ripen in. They are very good; and so are the Bonavis, Calavancies, Nanticokes, and abundance of other Pulse, too tedious here to name, which we found the Indians possess'd of, when first we settled in America; some of which sorts afford us two Crops in one Year; as the Bonavis and Calvancies, besides several others of that kind... The Kidney-Beans were here before the English came, being very plentiful in the Indian Corn-Fields" (Lawson 1709: 76-77). 

References

• Baker Creek Rare Seed Company. (n.d.). Bean Seeds, Hidatsa Red Indian. Retrieved from: https://www.rareseeds.com/bean-hidatsa-red-indian.  

• Gremillion, K. J. (1995). ?Comparative Paleoethnobotany of Three Native Southeastern Communities of the Historic Period.? Southeastern Archaeology 14 (1), 1-16. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/40713027.    

• Hariot, T. (1590). A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants. Discouered by the English Colony there seated by Sir Richard Greinuile Knight In the yeere 1585. Which Remained vnder the gouernement of   twelve monethes, At the speciall charge and direction of the Honourable SIR WALTER RALEIGH Knight lord Warden of the Stanneries Who therein hath been fauoured and authorised by her MAIESTIE and her letters patents: This fore booke Is made in English BY Thomas Hariot Servant to the abouenamed Sir WALTER, a member of the Colony, and there imployed in discouering. T. de Bry & G. van Veen (Engravers). Frankfurt am Main: Johann Wechel. In Library of Congress Online Catalog. (Original work published 1588). Retrieved from: https://www.loc.gov/item/48032384/. 

• Lawson, J. (1709). A New Voyage to Carolina; Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of that Country: Together with the Present State thereof. And a Journal Of a Thousand Miles, Travel'd thro' several Nations of Indians. Giving a particular Account of their Customs, Manners, &c. By John Lawson, Gent. Surveyor-General of North-Carolina. London. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/newvoyagetocarol00laws/page/n3/mode/2up.  

• Marsh, E. (n.d.). The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture. U. S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library. Retrieved from: https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters.  

• Rountree, H. (1989). The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press.

• Smith, J. (1907). The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, & The Summer Isles Together with The True Travels, Adventures and Observations, and A Sea Grammar By Captaine John Smith Sometymes Governour in those Countryes and Admirall of New England. (Vol. 1). Glasgow: The University of Glasgow Press, by James MacLehose and Sons. (Original work published 1624). Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/generallhistorie01smit/page/n7/mode/2up.