<previous -index- next>

	CORN   "We purchased from the Mandans a quantity of corn of mixed color which they dug up in ears from holes made near the front of their lodges..."     One of the advantages Lewis and Clark enjoyed as guests of the Mandan people during the winter of 1804 was the availability of garden produce stored by the villagers. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara were flood plain horticulturists who cultivated some nineteen varieties of hardy flint, flour and sweet corns, as well as beans, gourds, tobacco and sunflower. The food crops, grown by women, were dried and stored for winter consumption in bell-shaped underground cache pits. This agricultural production was key to the development of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages as trading centers on the Upper Missouri river. Corn was a staple in intertribal trading networks and became central to the burgeoning exchange between village groups and French and British traders during the 18th century. During the 19th century, American trading posts along the Missouri also became dependent on Indian corn, which was routinely shipped from one post to another. During their winter with the Mandan, it has been estimated that the Lewis and Clark party consumed many hundred bushels of Indian corn. Corn and other dried produce was often brought to Fort Mandan by Indian women, who traded with individual expedition members for small items of Euroamerican manufacture such as awls. Medical treatments of village residents, generally performed by Lewis, were reciprocated with gifts of corn.	Upper Missouri corn varieties. Left to right: Mandan soft red flour, Mandan blue, Arikara mixed flint, Mandan yellow flint.   Corn was also presented to the explorers in formal, diplomatic contexts and was purchased outright by the captains. And throughout the winter, the expedition members conducted a lively business exchanging metal and metalworking for the corn of the villagers. On February 5, 1804, a journal entry notes that, "The blacksmith cut up an old cambouse, of metal, we obtained for each piece of 4 inches square, 7 or 8 gallons of corn from the Indians who were delighted with the exchange." These resources became increasingly important as the winter deepened and meat supplies were exhausted. Lewis and Clark also collected Arikara and Mandan corn and tobacco for Thomas Jefferson, who grew the plants in his garden at Monticello. The corn varieties pictured here were collected on the Fort Berthold reservation (home of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, now known as the Three Affiliated Tribes) at the turn of the century and were donated to the Peabody Museum by George F. Will.

	<previous -index- next> h o m e i n t r o o b j e c t s m a p r e s o u r c e s c r e d i t s The Ethnography of Lewis and Clark: Native American Objects and the American Quest for Commerce and Science Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Copyright ©President and Fellows of Harvard College