Kewaa's Baskets

Growing up a woman was not an easy task for the women of Kewaa's village. The burdens of every day were hard on a woman's spirit and body. Kewaa saw this through her young eyes.

One day, as she helped her mother scrape a hide in preparation to make clothes from it, she dared to ask, ''Why do we work so hard and when we are sad and so tired, we have to keep all these woes to ourselves?''

Kewaa's mother stopped and, taken by surprise by her daughter's question, very softly asked, ''Why do you ask such questions? Complaining will not get anything done and no one wants to hear our problems. You should not let anyone hear you talk like that, especially the men.''

''But the men have their games and sit around and talk. They can complain,'' Kewaa was quick to answer.

''I know, my daughter,'' her mother replied. ''You are right. There are days when it is very hard for me to do my tasks. There are times when I think about your grandmother, my mother and how I miss her so. My sadness keeps me from doing my work. Where did all these questions come from my daughter? You are always so quiet. You are young. You should not worry so over such things.''

Kewaa became quiet for a while, but she felt she had to answer her mother and explain her feelings. She told her mother she also had days of sadness and days when she was so tired that she found it hard to work. She was no different because she was younger. Illness, sadness and just being troubled do not happen only to older people, but to everyone.

Her mother sighed and said, ''You think too much.''

Kewaaa became very quiet and went on with all her tasks of the day.

Later on, as the sun was starting to leave to make room for the moon, she took a walk to the river. It was her favorite place to go. She would watch the fish peek at her from the river; listen to the trees sing their song in the breeze and just try her best to feel good about her day. But that evening was different. She was sad and she could not help herself. Tears rolled down her face as she leaned over to look into the world of the river. Crying seemed the only way to get rid of her burdens.

As she wiped her eyes, she noticed the reflection in the water. The reflection was not her own, but a beautiful woman with long white hair. Startled but not scared, she asked the woman in the water, ''Who are you?''

''It matters not who I am,'' the reflection answered. ''But I know who you are and I am used to a smiling face. I have never seen you sad. Why do you cry?''

Kewaa told all her complaints and woes to the kind face in the water and it made her feel good. ''I am sorry to tell you of all my burdens, but what could I do?'' The woman smiled and said, ''You need to find a way to put these burdens to rest in a special place. Make baskets from the reeds and grasses. Have the other women help you. Then make sure every home has a basket in it placed by the entrance.

''Your homes are a sacred place. You do not want to fill them with worries, illness and anger. Explain to all that they should put their worries in the basket before they enter their homes. Also put their anger there. Send all these burdens and bad feelings away. Let the baskets help you to reach within yourselves for inner strength and wisdom and to solve problems. Let them be the keepers of all your private thoughts. Also tell the people the baskets will make their burdens lighter because, as they give the baskets their burdens, they will become less and so disappear.''

Kewaa promised she would do as the woman told her, but asked, ''Who should I tell the people told me this?''

''Tell them the Creator, for he makes the river and I speak for him. Kewaa, please tell your people not to enter another's home with bad feelings or woes, but to put them in their basket. It would not be good to leave one's troubles in another's home. You go now. You have a lot to do. The next time you visit me I hope to see you smiling.''

''You will!'' Kewaa replied. ''Thank you.''

Off she ran to her home to tell her mother. By the time Kewaa got home, it was past her time for bed and her mother was concerned that something had happened to her.

But after Kewaa told her of her day and what she experienced her mother was very happy. They planned to gather everyone together in the beginning of the new day. After all, there were baskets to be made. As the day was new, Kewaa was sure to be up extra early. She could not wait to spread the word for all to come to her home so she could tell them what she learned. As the people showed up, Kewaa's mother stood proud as her daughter spoke of the burden baskets. Everyone listened and even then the men helped in gathering reeds and different grasses, for they too needed places to put their burdens.

For the next two days, everyone was busy making baskets; and as they wove the baskets all had a chance to talk and share stories, which made everyone feel good. Laughter ended the night. They finished the last basket. After that night, all had their baskets and all did as Kewaa had said. It helped each one find the strength they needed and make their burdens lighter. Kewaa never saw the woman in the river again, but some say she was looking at herself as an elder.

I, myself, am not gifted in the craft of basketmaking, but you can be sure I have a basket at my door and try to lay my burdens in it every time I come home.


Copyright by Ken ''Rainbow Cougar'' Edwards, from the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, is an accomplished painter and storyteller. Edwards is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., and a longtime cartoonist for Indian Country Today. Originaly posted on ONEOFMANYFEATHERS@groups.msn.com

If You Can't Forage It or Grow It Yourself, Buy Local

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the most important thing consumers can do to respond to the current E. coli outbreak in the United States is to avoid eating spinach, the suspected source of the contamination. But Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer with the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, acknowledges that buying spinach that is locally-grown may be a safe alternative. “Clearly the risk is significantly reduced if you know the farmer and know his farm,” he told the New York Times on Wednesday. This is particularly true if you live on the East Coast, far from the California farm that packaged the spinach that has now sickened people in at least 23 states, he added.

Worldwatch Senior Reseacher Brian Halweil, a long-time advocate of buying local food for health, security, and environmental reasons, supports this perspective. “Food that spends large amounts of time in transit, changes hands multiple times, and is processed in huge batches provides nearly unlimited opportunities for both accidental and malicious contamination,” Halweil says. He notes that smaller, local processing plants, though not immune to errors, accidents, and sabotage, at least limit the effects of these problems simply by the scale of their operations.

Halweil says that local food production and consumption could have mitigated the devastation wrought by serious outbreaks of food-borne illness in the past. In his 2004 book Eat Here, he describes how the British foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001 spread much farther and faster than a similar 1967 outbreak because of increased long-distance transportation. While in 1967, most slaughter and consumption took place locally, by 2001 animals were being shipped from all over the United Kingdom to a central slaughterhouse. According to Halweil, as long as today’s industrial-scale food system continues to dominate global agriculture, widespread illnesses like the recent E. coli outbreak are likely to continue. “Large-scale food contamination events like this give us one more incentive to preserve farms and food makers around the nation,” he says.

This story was produced by Eye on Earth, a joint project of the Worldwatch Institute and the blue moon fund. View the complete archive of Eye on Earth stories, or contact Staff Writer Alana Herro at aherro [AT] worldwatch [DOT] org with your questions, comments, and story ideas.

The Red Road

Long road winding began in the stars,
spilled onto the mountain tops,
was carried in the snow to the streams,
to the rivers, to the ocean…
It covers Canada, Alaska, America,
Mexico to Guatamala,
and keeps winding around the indigenous.

The Red Road is a circle of people
standing hand in hand,
people in this world, people between
people in the Spirit world.
star people, animal people, stone people,
river people, tree people…
The Sacred Hoop.

To walk the Red Road
is to know sacrifice, suffering.
It is to understand humility.
It is the abilility to stand naked before God
in all things for your wrong doings,
for your lack of strength,
for your discompasionate way,
for your arrogance - because to walk
the Red Road, you always know
you can do better. And you know,
when you do good things,
it is through the Creator, and you are grateful.

To walk the Red Road
is to know you stand on equal ground
with all living things. It is to know that
because you were born human,
it gives you superiority over nothing.
It is to know that every creation carries a Spirit,
and the river knows more than you do,
the mountains know more than you do,
the stone people know more than you do,
the trees know more than you do,
the wind is wiser than you are,
and animal people carry wisdom.
You can learn from every one of them,
because they have something you don’t:

They are void of evil thoughts.

They wish vengence on no one, they seek Justice.

To Walk the Red Road,
you have God given rights,
you have the right to pray,
you have the right to dance,
you have the right to think,
you have the right to protect,
you have the right to know Mother,
you have the right to dream,
you have the right to vision,
you have the right to teach,
you have the right to learn,
you have a right to grieve,
you have a right to happiness,
you have the right to fix the wrongs,
you have the right to truth,
you have a right to the Spirit World.

To Walk the Red Road
is to know your Ancestors,
to call to them for assistance…
It is to know that there is good medicine,
and there is bad medicine…
It is to know that Evil exists,
but is cowardly as it is often in disquise.
It is to know there are evil spirits
who are in constant watch
for a way to gain strength for themselves
at the expense of you.

To Walk the Red Road,
you have less fear of being wrong,
because you know that life is a journey,
a continuous circle, a sacred hoop.
Mistakes will be made,
and mistakes can be corrected -
if you will be humble,
for if you cannot be humble,
you will never know
when you have made a mistake.


If you walk the Red Road,
you know that every sorrow
leads to a better understanding,
every horror cannot be explained,
but can offer growth.

To Walk the Red Road
is to look for beauty in all things.

To Walk the Red Road
is to know you will one day
cross to the Spirit World,
and you will not be afraid…

"Unknown" This work is NOT copyrighted. Feel free to copy and distribute.
The Old Buzzard's Roost

Eat, Exercise, and Be Healthy: A Lesson from Our Ancestors

Long before fast-food restaurants became a part of our lives, our ancestors hunted wild animals for meat, gardened, and gathered berries, nuts and plants to provide a healthy and well-rounded diet.

These "hunter-gatherers", as they were called lived long before the beginning of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Many groups throughout the world continue to live this way today. Perhaps most interesting for today's health conscious people, these humans did not and do not have anywhere near the amount of the so called "diseases of civilization" such as cancer, stroke, diabetes, and high blood pressure that cause 75% of all deaths in America today.

It is commonly thought that the reason our ancestors did not get these diseases is because they did not live long enough. It is true that these early people often died early in their life because of infections or accidents. But those who survived these early set-backs lived long lives--surpassing in length the longevity of people today.

So why didn't they get "age-related" diseases like heart disease and high blood pressure? Scientists believe that diet and exercise had a lot to do with it.
You may wonder how we can know how people lived long ago and what they ate. First, the bones of these early people have been found and analyzed by scientists. Bones reveal how much calcium a person consumed in his or her diet, for instance, or how strong this person was. Also, there are people who still live today as hunter-gatherers throughout the world. Though they are mistakenly referred to as "primitive" people, they actually have very sophisticated knowledge about plants, animals and vitamins and minerals in their environment. Modern scientists are now trying to learn as much as they can about the medicinal use of plants from the medicine men and women of these tribes.

It is known that today's hunter-gatherer tribes live very much the way that our early ancestors lived. Researchers are studying these people to determine what contributes to their health.
In the past men and women got much more exercise than the average person today. Basically, they needed to engage in relatively heavy and consistent physical activity just in order to eat. The men in these early and present tribes were and are hunters. Hunting requires walking or jogging long distances for hours or days to track animals. And the women were no slouches either. It appears that the primary responsibility of women in early tribes was to garden and gather plant foods, berries, nuts and fruits.

In one African tribe existing today, the women routinely walk between two and twelve miles per day to gather food three days per week. If you think a twelve mile walk is impressive you be even more impressed when you consider the 15 - 35 pounds of food they carry on the return trip. In addition, many are also carrying babies on their backs. And, gathering food does not mean lazily picking up fruit off the ground: these women often have to climb the trees to get the fruit. Or, they dig out potato-like tubers or roots buried in the ground.

Today we are told to eat foods from four basic food groups: meat and fish, vegetables and fruits, milk and milk products, and breads and cereals. Our ancestors derived most of their nutrients from two groups: meat and fish, and vegetables and fruits. Even today, most hunter-gatherer groups do not rely on milk or milk products or upon breads or cereals. These products were not available to anyone until the beginning of agriculture. These two food groups supplied our ancestors with a good healthy diet. Much healthier than our diet of cereals, white flour and processed foods. If you compare modern diet with those of our ancestors, present day people are the losers.

Our ancestors consumed far more calcium (for good strong bones) and fiber (prevents colon cancer) than we do today. Our ancestors ate a high-protein, high fiber diet. Their intake of sodium, which causes high blood pressure in some people, was far lower than the intake of the average American today. When they consumed fat they consumed polyunsaturated animal fats instead of the hydrogenated plant fats that are included in today's processed foods.

Interestingly, their cholesterol intake was higher than modern peoples because they consumed much more meat than most folks in "civilized" societies now. However, our ancestors, and today's hunter-gatherers, ate wild game which has a much lower fat content than animals raised in confinement today. Furthermore, these fats were of the polyunsaturated type, the opposite of what is contained in our confinement raised beef, pork and poultry.

Additionally, unlike their cooped up counterparts today, wild animals ate a natural diet that did not contain hormones, tranquilizers and antibiotics. These wild animals had as much as 20% less fat than domesticated, confinement raised animals on commercial "factory" farms. These early people also did not have to contend with refined flour and grains which have had the fiber removed, so their food had more bulk and roughage than present day processed products.

Modern peoples wishing to live longer, healthier lives can take lessons from our ancestors: Eat whole un-refined grains, free-range or wild meats, and plenty of high-fiber vegetables. Limit your intake of carbohydrates and eat a high protein diet based on lean meats. Avoid sugars.

You can learn more about the benefits of native-style and high protein - high fiber diets from the following books, most of which are available from www.Back40 Books.com web store or by calling 1.866.596.9982.


Recommended Reading:

Traditional Foods are Your Best Medicine, Ronald Schmid, N.D

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, Gilbert Wilson

Nutrition and Degeneration, Weston A. Price

Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Robert C. Atkins, M.D.

Early Autumn Eats

Now, in early Spetember in the Ozarks, is a great time for foraging. There are greens and potherbs such as Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and Lady's Thumb (Polygonum Persicaria) and a great tea maker called Sumac.
There are two kinds of Sumac around here, Staghorn (Rhus typhina) and Smooth (Rhus Glabra). Both are small trees or shrubs and this time of year have a seedhead of red berries. The earlier you harvest the berries after they turn completely red the fewer arachnids will have made their home there. Also, rain dilutes to potency so now is the time to take a walk. Sumacs are pioneer species and so will be located around field and stream edges. I usually harvest a gallon or two of berries. Notice I said berries. You will want to break off whole seed heads and allow to dry for a couple of weeks. Then simply strip the berries off and store in glass jars for future use. You can skip this step and just use the entire seed heads, right away if you like, but they will take up a lot of storage space and the twigs can make the tea bitter.
To make tea, use about 1/4 cup of berries to 1 quart of water. Bring water to a boil, add berries, remove from fire and let set about 1/2 hour. This drink is high in vitamin C and is nicknamed "Indian Lemonade" as it is VERY tart. You will want to add some stevia, honey or sugar to meet you taste. It IS good.
I haven't gone into preparing the potherbs listed above as I assume most of you know how to deal with these. If you don't, leave a comment and I'll post some instructions.
A really good book on wild edibles is, Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide by Elias and Dykeman is availible from Back40Books,com by clicking here: http://www.back40books.com/search.asp?p=1&w=%7E&c=Edible+Wild&t=s

Welcome!

This blog is about my rustic life. I strive to live in Harmony with all of Creation, and I try to make posts that will be evocative and will lead others to this way of life. I live and work in a very remote area of the Missouri Ozark mountains surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness land. I actually live a dual lifestyle: Many days I am at one of my computers heavily involved in the "virtual world" creating how-to videos, taking nature photographs and helping out with our web bookstore www.Back40Books.com Other days I will be out in the "Real World" practicing my "Old Ways" lifestyle and Spirituality.
My posts will often detail activities that are appropriate to the changing seasons such as foraging, hunting, gardening, wood cutting and tracking. I will present specific details and use photographs as necessary. If you would like to see photographs I have for sale visit my photography web gallery at www.Chenoweth-Collection.com
As I strive to live the life the creator has directed me to do I will also talk about aboriginal spirituality and antique Indian Ways of Living in Harmony with Nature. Feel free to make follow up posts or ask questions at any time. Thanks for Dropping by!
The Old Buzzard