Wisdom for the Ages

Three Sisters by Jasmine Valencia of the Institute of American Indian Arts

“When we come to a pinenut place we talk to the ground and the mountain and everything. We ask to feel good and strong. We ask for cool breeze to sleep at night. The pinenuts belong to the mountain so we ask the mountain for some of its pinenuts to take home and eat,” explained Wuzzie George (Northern Paiute). She continued: “The water is the mountain’s juice. It comes out of the mountain, so we ask the mountain for some of its juice to make us feel good and happy. Just the old people do this.”

Born around 1883, Wuzzie George grew up among the marshlands of the Carson River in northwestern Nevada. She was a Cattail-Eater, but had kin who were Trout-Eaters. Most of her people had moved away from the region, giving up traditional subsistence patterns for new livelihoods working as ranch hands or in the service industry near Fallon, Stillwater, or some of the other towns around Carson City.

Wuzzie’s family, however, remained rooted in their homeland, where for millennia the Paiutes had perfected a highly successful, varied subsistence system in what outsiders deemed a wasteland—the Great Basin. Formed through the glaciation processes of the Pleistocene epoch, the region was once home to a large inland sea which geologists call Lake Lahontan. Over time, climactic changes, and aridification more specifically, resulted in the lake’s extinction. Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake are the only remnants of Lahontan and form twin nucleai of Northern Paiute culture.

Although the region appears to be a harsh, unrelenting environment at first glance, a closer study reveals an impressive diversity of flora and fauna, albeit ones adapted to the region. As Wuzzie explained, pinenuts were a mainstay and during the autumn were roasted, shelled, and ground into a flour that was then added to water with herbs to form a highly nutritious (and by all accounts delicious) gruel or stew. In winter, willow-screen weirs and dip nets were used to catch cutthroat trout and other fish during their spawning runs. Jackrabbits and ground squirrels were hunted or trapped while roots such as camas supplemented the protein-heavy diet. In February, when spring came, the marshlands became a busy haven for migratory birds making their way back north. That was also when the cattails produced new shoots and the surrounding hillsides bloomed, offering an array of seeds, greens, and cabbages. Finally, summer rounded out the seasons, bringing buckberries, Indian rice grass, and cattail pollen and leaves.

The Northern Paiutes used all the resources available to them wisely as food sources but also for clothing, shelter, and other necessities such as cooking and water vessels, baskets, matting, and even watercraft. For example, Wuzzie explained how she and her husband cut tule reeds, tied them into bundles with ropes of cattail, and then joined the bundles to form a canoe-like boat, which was then used to reach inaccessible parts of the marshlands where certain plants grew and waterfowl nested. Just as ingenious were the rabbit-pelt cloaks, sagebrush-bark shirts, spikerush stem-braided spoons, chokecherry-framed cradleboards, and willow-woven water jugs. And then there were the cattail houses that were so sturdily constructed that some were over 50 years old, built during Wuzzie’s childhood.

Wuzzie’s passing in 1984, heralded the end of an era, as she was one of the few Northern Paiutes who continued practicing the old ways. However, Wuzzie’s wisdom, the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) she held, was passed on both orally and in carefully recorded ethnographies and photographic essays. As we face a deepening environmental crisis that portends a daunting future for our children’s children, those Paiute lessons, along with the TEK from North America’s myriad Indigenous peoples, are perhaps more important now than ever before.

In this issue of Tribal College Journal, we explore food, energy, water systems (FEWS) and how tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) across North America are leading the way in devising innovative solutions, rooted in TEK, to pressing problems. In the feature article, “Empowering Indigenous Communities,” Yael Perez and Kathy Isaacson maintain that “Indigenous thinking is uniquely suited to advancing a systems approach, fostering resilience and adaptability in a world facing complex and interconnected challenges.” They illuminate how the Native FEWS Alliance, spearheaded by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), is developing the infrastructure that brings together Indigenous minds to problem solve and create meaningful opportunities and training for TCU students.

While AIHEC takes a broad, intertribal approach, individual TCUs are working at the grassroots, tackling everything from food sovereignty to renewable energy. Take for instance United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) in Bismarck, North Dakota, where investments in solar technology and training date back to 2008 and are now blooming in profound ways, as illuminated in the article, “Solar Power to the People.” The college’s “Solar Roller,” a mobile trailer outfitted with solar panels, has the ability to power myriad events, including the United Tribes International Powwow, which earned the distinction of being the first solar-powered powwow in history. UTTC has emerged as a solar energy leader in North Dakota, and the college’s campus is now working towards carbon neutrality, all while providing new academic programs and pathways for its student body.

Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC) has also made impressive strides in solar energy. In 2022, NICC installed solar arrays at all three of its campuses and now 35% of its energy requirements are met by renewables. It’s all part of a wider FEWS effort the college is pursuing. The feature article, “Measurable and Meaningful,” also showcases how NICC is making strides in Indigenous food production through gardening courses and state-of-the-art greenhouses, as well as in environmental monitoring through timelapse photography that chronicles changes in the Missouri River’s riparian ecosystem.

And speaking of the Missouri, no one was hit harder by changes in its riparian system than the Three Affiliated Tribes of western North Dakota. In 1953, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed the Garrison Dam, which flooded traditional Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara lands, devastating traditional crop varieties and prime agricultural lands. It has taken generations to adapt and restore traditional FEWS. And today Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) is leading the way. Through its one-of-a-kind seed sovereignty project grounded in TEK, NHSC has rematriated heirloom seeds and even installed a seed vault to ensure they will be preserved and protected for generations to come.

The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is spearheading another unique and groundbreaking program that’s likewise informed by TEK—the IAIA Tribal Beekeeping and Pollinator Stewardship Program. As program specialist Melanie M. Kirby explains, pollinators like honeybees are in precipitous decline largely due to human causes. It’s our responsibility to turn the tide and TEK is the key. Kirby notes that we must serve as responsible stewards, but we should also study and learn from the pollinators themselves. Perhaps their greatest lesson is that it takes a community to survive.

We hope this issue of Tribal College Journal adds to the growing chorus that what the world needs now is TEK. And thank you Wuzzie for leaving us with knowledge that will persevere forever.

Bradley Shreve, PhD, is the editor of Tribal College Journal.

REFERENCES

D’Azevedo, W.L. (Ed.). (1986). Great Basin (Vol. 11). In W.C. Sturtevant (Series Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

Wheat, M.M. (1967). Survival Arts of the Paiutes. Reno: University of Nevada Press.