[upbeat folk music]
[gentle acoustic music]
- Inga: Three sisters is a method
of growing plants in your garden.
So what the three sisters are,
it's corn, beans, and squash or pumpkins.
And the reason that they grow together
is 'cause they go together.
It's another companion plant.
So what happens is, you're gonna be planting
all of these varieties together, so the corn stalks will grow up,
and that will be your trellis for your beans to grow up.
The beans are gonna fix nitrogen into that soil,
and that's gonna be beneficial to all the other plants.
When the squash is growing around the corn and the beans,
the leaves act like a canopy,
so they're essentially mulching out any of the weeds.
This is a technique that's been used
for generations and generations,
and it's one that my folks taught me as well.
It's a great way to utilize space,
and it's just kind of a fun way to garden.
[upbeat folksy music]
Hey, Kyle. - Hey, Sheko'li Swakwe.ku'.
- Nice to see you. - So, welcome.
Sheko'li is hello
and Swakwe.ku' is greetings in Oneida.
My name is Tekali'wakk in Oneida.
It means Two Matters Connected. - Oh!
- Y'all can call me Kyle Wisneski.
I'm the supervisor here at Tsyunhehkwa.
- Well, thank you for having me.
I'm really excited to spend the day with you
and just see what's going on here.
Can you tell me a little bit about the Oneida Nation
and why it's important that you're doing agriculture here?
- The importance of Tsyunhehkwa to the Oneida people
is the reintroduction of our indigenously,
organically grown foods.
So we wanna produce safe foods for our people,
and then being able to also can those foods
and have those healthy foods year-round.
It's very important to us.
- Are you growing anything that's very unique
for your culture?
- The main staple at Tsyunhehkwa is our O.na'ste corn.
This white corn that we're standing by right here
is only grown in a couple places in the world.
- Really?
- So it's very indigenous to the Oneida people.
It's something that is very unique to us,
and there's no other non-Indigenous farmer
that is able to grow this corn.
So that is the reason why Tsyunhehkwa is here,
is to reintroduce that white corn to the community.
And we invite anybody and everybody
in the community to our site.
- Well, I would love to kind of take a look around.
It's a beautiful fall day.
I'd love to just kind of look at all the different things
you've got going on.
- Yeah, absolutely, let's take a walk.
We're gonna be heading to the corn drying facility.
We also say, where the corn sleeps for the winter.
We also believe that all plant life,
especially the corn, has a spirit.
So traditionally, these corns and all these foods
would come into your lodge, traditionally.
- Okay.
- This is one of the most sacred places
that we have on the farm,
and this is where we say the corn sleeps for the winter.
- That is beautiful; I love it.
- This is the drying room,
and I want to talk to you about the braiding process.
- Yeah.
- So after we pick the corn out of the field,
we husk it down to our three strongest husks,
and we create this braid.
There's 65 cobs on the braid, and they'll sit in here to dry
for approximately a month and a half.
- Wow, this seems labor-intensive.
- Very labor-intensive;
it takes about 25 minutes to 30 minutes to do a braid.
If you're a beginner, we're talking about 45 minutes
to complete one braid.
- It would take me a lot longer than that.
- The reason we braid the corn this way
is because of the high moisture content.
So it comes off the field at about 40% to 45% moisture,
and we really have a concern about mold
within the first 24 hours.
- Sure; and so a typical field corn,
that's gonna come off a lot less moisture.
- A lot less, around 20%,
so they don't have to worry about it at all.
- So this is important,
to hang 'em all up, get 'em nice and dry,
and then this is really the staple
for a lot of the foods that, traditionally, was in your diet.
Is that correct?
- Yeah, so this is the main staple in our diet,
along with our three sisters.
So the corn, beans, and squash.
- And this corn is different
because of the protein content, right?
- Right, right.
So we have in between 18% to 24% protein in the corn,
along with many antioxidants and nutrients as well
for your benefit. - So what is, like, field corn?
- Field corn is anywhere from 2% to 4%.
- So this is a huge source of protein.
- Talking four to six times the amount of protein.
- So this is a great foundation for your diet?
- Absolutely, yep.
- Well, this is really fantastic.
Well, can I help you hang up some braids?
- Yeah, absolutely, let's try.
[upbeat folksy music]
Welcome to our processing unit.
I want you to meet Reuben; he's gonna talk about shelling,
cleaning the corn, and processing.
- Okay, so I wanna see how they did it traditionally.
- Okay, we would twist it off of the husk,
and we would just sit there
with our hands like this, bare hands.
Generally, we would sit in a circle
and do something like this.
- Many hands make light work. - Oh, yes, certainly.
And now, with modern technology caught up with us,
and as every aspect of society nowadays, and of processing.
We've got this machine.
What I'm doing here first
is getting off, like, some of the kernels
that might be decayed or--
- Marred. - Cracked.
And then we have this machine here now.
A little noisy, but it works very good.
[machine rumbling]
[gentle folksy music]
- So now we're into the hemp that you're gonna use for fiber.
- Correct. - Interesting.
So, the fiber can be used in a lot of different products.
- Kyle: Yes, we're also growing fiber
to create some process for ropes and different things like that.
- You know, this has been really interesting
to be able to spend the morning with you,
seeing all these different projects you're working on.
And I just have to ask you, when you're growing these things
that are native to your culture, how does that make you feel?
That you get to connect with your ancestors?
- Absolutely, it's getting your hands dirty into the ground,
makes the connection, I believe.
You know, and having that connection with that ground
outcrops into the community, you know?
Showing that my excitement
really gets the community excited,
and just having that opportunity
to bring those traditional foods back to the people is an honor.
- And doing it in the same way that your ancestors did.
- Doing it the same way,
as well as thinking of other innovative ways as well.
I think it's important to stay true to your culture,
but the demand is so big in our community
that we have to figure out ways to get that product out to them.
- Right, well thank you for spending the morning with me.
I know that you've got things to do,
and I'm looking forward to having lunch with you later on.
But now it's time for us to head over
and find out about how Lynn is raising grass-fed beef.
[upbeat folk music]