S.NA Wednesday evening in the Rosebud Reserve, members of Siċaŋġu Nation 12 tables to form U car at South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. Tables in the Siċaŋġu Harvest market loaded with homemade foods for sale: tortilla, cooked beans, pickles, and make fresh lemon juice.
The market is one of the many ways that increases non -profit from reaching it Traditional and healthy foods This also comes with a Climate effect is low. Lacota, who was Siċaŋġu, was one of the countries of seven countries, traditional fishermen and gathering, but today, today, but today, Siċaŋġu Co is not profitable Both new and old traditions to achieve its mission.
The market is one of the group’s group’s driving business, which also includes mushroom cultivation and bison herd. Siċaŋġu also works on housing, education and programs that support physical and spiritual wellness. But the food came first.
“We started food because he is very universal. Michael Brett, who led the program in its initial stages, not only as need but as a cultural and family power mainly.” People meet together to build relationships. “
The food inequality that Siċaŋġu works can be traced to eliminate the Biscuits by white settlers during the nineteenth century. For many Lacotta, the busson is closer to the family and plays An integral part of their physical and spiritual lives. Millions of Buson used to wander around these plains, but when the colonists paid west Slaughtering of animals collectivelyBoth to make room for the cattle herds that they brought with them, disrupting the way of Lakota life and forcing them to reserves.
Strange living for health and fighting
On the market, a member of Siċaŋġu Co Frederick Fast Horse appears off his mushroom and raised to passers -by. According to an important story that moved in History of LacotaFast Horse says Lakota was one day the inhabitants of caves, and the mushroom was a key to their survival. These critical fungi are more than just calories, as Fast Horse believes that mushrooms are part of what helped Lacuta remains in good health for centuries, even the effects of colonialismThat turned the nation’s diet into extreme dependence on dairy and processed meat. He said: “Each one fungus actually coincides with a specific organ within your body.”
In addition to being the world of skilled fungi and vanity, Fast Horse is the chef in a non -profit school, where it re -introduces culturally important components for students. Fast Horse makes breakfast and lunch for about 70 students and employees every day. The typical fare is very simple, he says: dishes made from a handful of ingredients, as well as broth and spices.
In cooperation with the school leadership, Fast Horse develops nutritional guidelines that reflect more traditional foods and agricultural practices. This method of eating reaches “living outside the ground” – this means eating “all the foods around us already, and all you develop, and very simplified ways to prepare and eat food,” said Fast Horse.
The diet they release in school is not important in culturally; It is also best for students’ health, according to Fast Horse, who criticizes the modern industrial food system.
It also happens that the diet that tends more on mushrooms and plants is more suitable for the climate than the typical American diet, as cow meat is consumed four times more than the global average. between 12 % and 20 % of global emissions It comes from meat farms and dairy products. While the goal of Siċaŋġu Co is not explicit to eating less meat, it aims to enhance access to traditional foods. This includes all of the low emissions and mushrooms that are locally harvested, and bison raising a very small scale, He treated the name of “relatives”In a way that does not resemble the factory farm.
The original Buson is a family
Rosebud Reservation is home to The largest Besson lice is ownedWith more than a thousand animals wandering 28,000 acres (11,000 hectares). Buson are routers, such as cattle, which means that they are also, methane, but Bison offers a variety of benefits of the ecological system Thanks to the way they live on the ground.
while Cattured herds also grazing Neuron, the differences are blatant. Karen Moore, a member of Siċaŋġu Nation, who runs the food driving initiative and lives in reservation, describes how cows tend to focus together, and sometimes they feed on one type of plant until they are exhausted. BIison is likely to cover more Earth when you graze, eat a variety of plants, which have a nice effect on the ecosystem.
Last year, animals were donated from the nation’s flock to the school. With this meat, Fast Horse says, it has been able to replace 75 % of the red meat that the school had bought.
However, making students eat more foods of cultural importance are not without challenges. Fast Horse says: If one of the famous students decides that they do not like a specific dish, then all other children follow his followers. It avoids the problem by trying to make foods more acceptable – for example, by grinding mushrooms into small pieces. He said: “They get the flavor, but they do not see the actual mushrooms.”
Another member of Siċaŋġu, MayCE Low Dog, knows the community cooking classes that are directed to the participants in how to use traditional ingredients in their dishes.
The work pays its fruits. Moore said: “It seems that more people are in an attempt to eat strangers, and not necessarily like tomatoes and cucumber,” said Moore. “It was really exciting to see.” Her co -workers chanted from the Pisto with the stinging pamphlets, made of plants that were abandoned.
Local plant harvesting is an important part of the group’s work. Moore said that the nation “was in a crisis for hundreds of years,” but harvesting their food is part of “a return to self -reliance.”
On the morning of the fast days during my visit, they invite me Moore and Low Dog to join them to harvest the local plants that they will dry and turn into herbal tea, whether for the farmers market or a community -backed agricultural program that supports food shares some residents. Tea is a way to re -contact traditional foods even if they are not the skill of themselves.
The stones wander under the frames as we pull the main road, and slowly wrap on the banks of the pond. Along the way, Moore and Low Dog keep their eyes peeled for the useful plants for tea. For both of them, feed is a newer skill. While walking, they consult with each other around different plants, making sure their right choice and that everything is ready for harvesting. It is a skill that they purposely learn from each other and their elders.
Moore reaches the bottom to collect some Sika, or wild mint, for tea. It will definitely leave behind about half of the factory, to ensure that the plant continues to grow on banks, so there is more when they return again on a later day.
Conclusion of communication and society
Victoria Contreras has been presented to the high school sovereignty initiative. Now, two years later, it runs the Siċaŋġu Harvest market, and I learned to be more intended to integrate the original ingredients into their meals. She said, “I am actively looking for something I can switch, or a recipe I can try.”
In addition to expanding societal knowledge of the traditional components, the harvest market and other programs collected together the community. Sharon Laboint, who helps her daughter, Sadi, says with her alienation in selling friendships and reviving old communications. It is a feeling shared by many sellers there on Wednesday.
Michael Brett, who helped get the group out of the ground, remembers that some members of the nation were not sure of the group in the first days. He said: “I think people have doubts that things will go away, because this is the direction,” as many programs that appear in the reservation tend to be temporary. There are challenges, including crop cultivation under the harsh weather conditions in South Dakota, and the conditions that will become more severe in the changing climate.
Many of the challenges facing the nation of Siċaŋġu are the reason that the sovereignty of food is very important. “They are here to know how to be a sovereignty because one day, the food will become very expensive for our people,” said Brande’s charging, which is part of others from others. She owns the house, as she teaching her children how to grow their food. “Food prices rise, but our wages are not.”
The non -profit organization in Siċaŋġu will have to remain smart for survival. “There will always be something else that society will have and adapt to that,” said Brett. “This is just a fact.”
This story is part of an ongoing series On a fair diet and a friend of climate, it is produced in cooperation with Guardianand Nexus Media NewsAnd Yes! magazineWith funding from Press Network solutionsConsultative support from Garrett Broad (Rowan University) and public participation through Global solution notes in the Drawdown project
