The Three Sisters: The Sustainers of Life

[Special from the Green Bay Botanical Garden blog]

By Mikayla Albrecht, Marketing & Communications Intern – Green Bay Botanical Garden

From the Dust Bowl to epidemics of plant diseases, learning regenerative agricultural practices has been a process of tremendous trial and error for the Western world post-colonization. Meanwhile, indigenous communities have successfully cared for the land for centuries, nourishing their people and respecting the earth’s generosity.

The Oneida Nation

The Oneida Nation is a part of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. They’re originally from the State of New York in the Finger Lake Region, but were removed from New York and resettled on Menominee land in what is now Green Bay in 1822. Like many other native communities, they’ve long practiced the tradition of the Three Sisters, creating larger harvests and nurturing the land they sow.

The Three Sisters: A Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Origin Story

Once upon a time very long ago, there were three sisters who lived together in a field. They were quite different from one another in their size and also in their way of dressing. The littlest sister was so young that she could only crawl. She was dressed in green. The second sister wore a dress of bright yellow and she liked to run off by herself. The third was the eldest sister, standing always very straight and tall above the other sisters and trying to guard them. She wore a pale green shawl, and she had long yellow hair that tossed about her head in the breezes.

There was only one way in which the three sisters were alike: they loved one another very dearly, and they were never separated. They were sure that they would not be able to…

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