The introductory texts reproduced here were written by the original Feeding America team to contextualize the books that were selected for inclusion as part of the 2001 digitization project.
Zuni Breadstuff
By Frank Hamilton Cushing.
New York, Museum Of The American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1920.
Native American contributions to American culinary history are ubiquitous and important. Unfortunately, they have never been adequately recognized nor documented, especially in the popular literature, until more recent times.
However, scholars, anthropologists and others, have helped preserve these traditions. Few books have done as thorough and comprehensive a study as this one. The author, Frank Hamilton Cushing, lived as an adopted member of the Zuni tribe from 1879 to 1884. During this time he examined and recorded information respecting not only the food products of the Zuni but also their methods of food preparation, and the myths, ceremonies, and daily customs pertaining thereto.
This is an invaluable document of Zuni foodways in the late 19th century. The practical matters of growing, harvesting, brewing, and preparing food are all explored along with a sense of daily eating habits and festivals. Chapter XVIII, More Indian Meals, describes one feast beginning with the sheets and rolls of paper-bread or he'-we - the sheets dully symbolizing the green earth and blue sky in their colors; the rolls, not less, the six chief hues of the rainbow - piled high on more than one flat basket-tray. The importance of corn is amply demonstrated throughout the book, ending with a chapter on the Corn Festival.
The original of this book is quite scarce, but because of its importance, it has been reprinted from time to time.
