Seasons
Frost is in the air.
snowflakes are gently falling.
blanketing the town
Blooming on the trees
the buds will turn to flowers
and flowers to leaves
Summer is coming
as fast as the cool spring breeze
the sun will bring joy
Leaves, so pretty now
dark red, orange, and yellow
falling, to the ground.
Food of the Southwest
If you would like to expand your knowledge of the southwest people’s food then you should read this research paper. If not then this is not your type of paper to read. The southwest has a hot summer and a cold winter. That made it hard to grow food and yet the southwest tribes managed to grow food. I am studying the Native Americans before European contact. The Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo are some of the tribes that lived in the southwest.
Cooking
How the southwest people cooked their food is very interesting. When they are cooking bread they build an oven out of fired clay. Then they would put fired clay racks in the oven and then that is when they would put the bread in the oven to cook it. The southwest people always had their ovens facing east because the wind and sand blew in from the west. The southwest people also liked to dry meat to make a type of jerky. Sometimes they made an energy food called pemmican. Pemmican is made of dried meat, kidney fat, and crushed cranberries. They also ground corn to make cornmeal. Unlike other areas, the southwest has a lot of fired clay pots and pans. The southwest stored their water in carved mesa rock. They also collected water in the mesa rock. Just think about how much time and energy they put into cooking their food. Imagine how much time and energy it took them to hunt for food.
Hunting
When the southwest people hunted for food they had to travel very far to the plains and prairies. Before the Spanish came with horses the southwestern tribes would stampede the bison off of cliffs and then kill them. One of these cliffs is called Head-Smashed-In. Another way that the southwest people hunted bison is they would disguise themselves as wolves and then shoot the bison with a bow and arrow. That is how the southwest people hunted for food. How they grew their food is what I will inform you about next.
Farming
When the southwest people farmed, they could not just throw seeds into the ground for many reasons. One of those is the weather. The reasons that the southwest people could grow corn in the desert conditions is that the corn had long roots to reach down to the moisture and to keep the plant from blowing away. This corn is called Hopi corn. Hopi corn is also much shorter than modern day corn. Some southwest tribes were flood farmers. Flood farmers are literally farmers that farm when the desert floods. They also would grow the three sisters. The three sisters are corn, beans, and squash planted around each other. As you can see the southwest people have many ways to grow their foods.
I hope that this paper has increased your knowledge of how the people of the southwest cooks, hunts, and farms. I thought the fact that they disguised themselves as wolves to hunt bison was very interesting. Doing things 500 years ago is much different than modern day. I hope that you have enjoyed this research paper and will use this information throughout your lives.
