And another follow-up: In response to an email to him, Dr. Gary Nabhan - who early in his career was key to locating ongoing cultivation of a Panicum hirticaule cultivar in Sonora, Mexico/9 - kindly indicated an older key reference on Native American agriculture and food in the lower Colorado and Gila River valleys - Edward Castetter and Willis Bell's 1951 "Yuman Indian Agriculture."/10 Among the information in that volume are mentions and a brief discussion of use and management of Echinochloa crus-galli by not only the Mohave, but also neighboring Native American peoples - the Yuma, Cocopa, and Maricopa.
Basically, E. crus-galli - again in the Mojave language, 'anki - was managed in tidal areas of the rivers, with the grain used for food. (Of course, the main staple being varieties of corn.) There was also mention of E. colona. (In literature on barnyard millet, E. crus-galli is indicated as the wild form of the domesticated E. esculenta, or Japanese [barnyard] millet, and E. colona the source for the domesticated E. frumentacea, or Indian barnyard millet - but apparently that's still a matter of discussion.) There is also mention of Panicum hirticaule. Interestingly, I found no mention by Castetter and Bell of the tall (7 ft.) variety of "ankee" described in the 1899 USDA publications cited earlier./1/2 Was this variety lost to the Mohave and their neighbors? Have any accessions been maintained by any USDA station? The flow of the Colorado River and the agro-ecology of the region described in the book changed markedly after the completion of the Hoover Dam (or Boulder Dam, as it was referred to in the book) in 1935 Basically the seasonal flooding of riverine areas that supported traditional agriculture and subsistence strategies ceased, DO, EL, MI, US NAMA Notes (numbering cont'd): 9. See discussion and references under "PANICUM HIRTICAULE or P. SONORUM" in my post to this list on 30 Oct. 2022 https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-October/000090.html 10. Castetter, Edward F., and Willis H. Bell, Yuman Indian Agriculture : Primitive Subsistence on the Lower Colorado and Gila Rivers, University of New Mexico Press, 1951. The full text of this book is accessible online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006771195 On Sat, Jul 13, 2024 at 1:22 PM Don Osborn <d...@milletsalliance.org> wrote: > A very quick follow up. FIrst of all, erratum in the previous posting: the > year of publication for Thomas Williams' bulletin on millets was 1899, not > 1988. > > Also, whatever the fate of the Mohave 'anki millet, the "ankee" or "ankee > millet" name persist. It figures in Elaine Nowick's nice compilation on > common names for plants in the Great Plains./7 One also encounters it in > various webpages dealing with barnyard millet outside of North America, > including one at the Atlas of Living Austraila, that associates the name > with E. esculentis./8 > > Anyway, "ankee" is part of the vocabulary of millets, which I didn't even > know until yesterday. > > Best to all, > > Don > > DO, EL, MI, US > NAMA > > Notes (numbering cont'd): > 7. Nowick, Elaine, Historical Common Names of Great Plains Plants, Vol 1, > ''Common Names'', Zea Books, 2015 > https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/188096594.pdf > 8. Atlas of Living Australia, "Ankee millet" (accessed 13 July 2024) > bie.ala.org.au/species/https%3A//id.biodiversity.org.au/instance/apni/887000 > (NB- the Ohwi 1962 source cited is at > https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bunruichiri/20/1/20_KJ00002992741/_pdf/-char/en > but I do not find "ankee" in the text) > > > On Sat, Jul 13, 2024 at 12:36 PM Don Osborn <d...@milletsalliance.org> > wrote: > >> The millet-of-the-month calendar features barnyard millet(s) in July. As >> we know, this is a complex of wild, gathered, and cultivated species in the >> genus Echinochloa. >> >> While looking up some material, I came across some older discussions of >> this group in which there was mention of "ankee" or "ankee millet." In >> particular, three publications, using similar text and the same drawings, >> from 1899-1901 (at the time of these publications, what we now know as >> Echinochloa was classified as Panicum),./1/2/3 These evidently concerns an >> Echinochloa species, likely a variety of E. crus-galli, that is very tall >> and grown mostly in wetter or inundated soils. >> >> Ankee is, or was until the 1960s, grown by the Mohave / Mojave people, >> who use(d) the grains for food./4 The name "ankee" is evidently a borrowing >> from 'anki in their language./5 >> >> Further research would fill out some details, including the important >> matters of how and when ankee came to the area (E. crus-galli is described >> as a plant from Asia), and its current status. >> >> Together with the so-called Sonoran millet (Panicum hirticaule) - a >> species native to North America - ankee is another example of a millet >> being grown by Native Americans in wetland areas bordering rivers in what >> is now the southwest US and northwest Mexico. One should note also that the >> Mohave people were subjected to confinement to a reservation somewhat away >> from their native area (altho some apparently remained in their original >> home) and were subjected to assimilationist policies after 1890./6 . >> >> As always, any feedback or further information is appreciated. >> >> Don >> >> Don Osborn, PhD >> (East Lansing, MI, US) >> North American Millets Alliance >> >> Notes: >> 1. Williams, Thomas A., "Millets," Farmers' Bulletin No. 101, Government >> Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1988, pp. 14-15 >> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Millets_%28IA_CAT87201514%29.pdf >> 2. ''Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture'', USGPO, >> 1899, pp. 277-278 https://archive.org/details/yoa1898/page/277/mode/2up >> 3. Pammel, L.H., Jules Buel Weems, and Harry Foster Bain, The Grasses of >> Iowa, Iowa Geological Society, 1901, p. 135 >> https://archive.org/details/grassesofiowa01pamm/page/135/mode/1up >> 4. Stewart, Kenneth M. “Mohave Indian Gathering of Wild Plants.” >> ''Kiva'', vol. 31, no. 1, 1965, pp. 46–53. JSTOR, >> http://www.jstor.org/stable/30247560 >> 5. Munro, Pamela, Nellie Brown, and Julie G. Crawford, "A Mojave >> Dictionary," UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics, No. 10, 1992. >> https://linguistics.ucla.edu/publications/opl_10.pdf >> 6. "Mohave people," Wikipedia (accessed 13 July 2024) >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohave_people >> >> >>
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