Women's Role in Gardening
As to the Domestick way of living of the Chicasaws it’s much like to the Savanoh’s. The men apply themselves to the warr and hunting, supply their Houses plentifully with meat, the woman plant and howe the Corn. It’s reckoned beneath a man to touch a howe or bring a litle wood to the fire. . . [Alexander Nairne, the provincial Indian agent for South Carolina, in 1708] (Moore 1988:48)
Given that Indian women historically have been the main caretakers of gardens, and given that nearly all our modern crops were first domesticated by ancient Indians, it follows that women likely were domesticators of many of our crops today.
One of the most common themes in eastern North American Indian societies was that of an Earth-Mother or Earth-Goddess, often identified as Old Woman or Grandmother. As pointed out by archaeologist Guy Prentice, she is the mythological mother of all humans and plants, the womb from which life originates and to which it returns in death, a symbol of the cycle of life. According to archaeologist Thomas Emerson, women are symbolically connected to fertility, including agricultural fertility; water, rain, and lightning; serpents, death, and the Underworld; and the moon. Men are associated with fire/sun; bird/falcon and through it thunder, lightning, rain, and fertility; warfare; and the Upperworld.
A number of ancient female stone figurines have been interpreted by archaeologists to be prehistoric representations of the Earth-Mother described in historic mythology. Premier among these is a bauxite figurine known as the Birger figurine, ritually killed (purposely broken) and buried around A.D. 1100 at a religious structure in west-central Illinois. It shows a kneeling woman dressed in a short skirt and carrying a bundle on her back. Her left hand rests near the head of a toothed, feline-headed serpent, while her right hand hoes its body. The tail of the serpent splits and climbs up the woman’s back as a squash vine. Figurines such as this do not depict everyday women as they are associated with gardens: rather, they illustrate a mythological woman such as the Earth-Mother.
Given that Indian women historically have been the main caretakers of gardens, and given that nearly all our modern crops were first domesticated by ancient Indians, it follows that women likely were domesticators of many of our crops today.
One of the most common themes in eastern North American Indian societies was that of an Earth-Mother or Earth-Goddess, often identified as Old Woman or Grandmother. As pointed out by archaeologist Guy Prentice, she is the mythological mother of all humans and plants, the womb from which life originates and to which it returns in death, a symbol of the cycle of life. According to archaeologist Thomas Emerson, women are symbolically connected to fertility, including agricultural fertility; water, rain, and lightning; serpents, death, and the Underworld; and the moon. Men are associated with fire/sun; bird/falcon and through it thunder, lightning, rain, and fertility; warfare; and the Upperworld.
A number of ancient female stone figurines have been interpreted by archaeologists to be prehistoric representations of the Earth-Mother described in historic mythology. Premier among these is a bauxite figurine known as the Birger figurine, ritually killed (purposely broken) and buried around A.D. 1100 at a religious structure in west-central Illinois. It shows a kneeling woman dressed in a short skirt and carrying a bundle on her back. Her left hand rests near the head of a toothed, feline-headed serpent, while her right hand hoes its body. The tail of the serpent splits and climbs up the woman’s back as a squash vine. Figurines such as this do not depict everyday women as they are associated with gardens: rather, they illustrate a mythological woman such as the Earth-Mother.
© Gail E. Wagner, 2014. The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of the page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of South Carolina. Page last updated 13 Sept. 2014.