Meskwaki community works to save 'tremendous' amount of indigenous corn flattened by derecho

Des Moines Register

TAMA, Ia. — In a community garden behind the Meskwaki Health Clinic, Shelley Buffalo is picking, shucking, parboiling, shelling and sun-drying as much indigenous corn as she can on a single, humid Saturday.

Hundreds of corn stalks in the Kinship Garden lie flat to the ground, never recovering from the high-speed, straight-line winds of the Aug. 10 derecho that devastated large swaths of Iowa, including Tama County.

But one plot of corn, she notes, is standing tall. One community member planted seeds in a traditional grid pattern, and packed up the dirt around each of the stalks as they grew. Their cobs grew larger, too — each a different mosaic of pale yellow, deep maroon, purple and blue kernels.

“His corn was the least damaged, and it’s because he used an old-school Meskwaki method of planting and hilling,” said Shelley, 52, the local food coordinator for the Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative.

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Shelley Buffalo shucks an ear of indigenous corn before parboiling it on the Meskwaki Settlement on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2020 in Tama. The corn is an important part of the Meskwaki culture and one that Buffalo is working to bring back into their cuisine on the settlement.

Following the storm, Shelley and other community members are rushing to harvest the flattened corn before it rots in tangled piles on the ground. Their labor- and time-intensive method, passed down for generations, of drying kernels in the sun for three days preserves the corn to keep fresh in storage for up to three years, she said.

“Over the course of this week, we have harvested and processed and preserved a tremendous amount," Shelley said Aug. 22.

The derecho, which shredded the garden shed and knocked down trees and power lines throughout the Meskwaki settlement, compounded losses caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative consolidated its three gardens on the settlement as a result of decreased staffing during the pandemic. The budget cuts resulted from lost revenue at the Meskwaki casino, which shut down in March but has since reopened with a number of safety protocols in place.

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Community meals and the Meskwaki Powwow were canceled to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, so much of the garden’s bounty will go to feed senior citizens.

The project also maintains a seed library for future harvests, which Shelley said will be more resilient as a result of this year’s tumult.

“The seeds that we will save from this year’s season, they’re going to have a memory of this,” she said. “The plants are learning from all of the environmental changes that they face. That becomes part of their own survival and resilience.”

Two miles down the road and up a heavily wooded dirt drive, Shelley’s mother, Ruth Buffalo, and stepfather, Charlie Old Bear, are shelling another batch of corn from the same garden.

Their three dogs and two cats lounge outside the large two-story home, built by the Meskwaki Nation, where they have lived since 1997.

A thick branch, snapped by the derecho, is hanging upside-down over the garage, daring to drop lower and puncture the roof at any moment. Another large tree trunk leans menacingly above a gas tank. Multiple windshields and car windows on the property were shattered by flying debris.

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Amid a field of broken corn stalks on August 22 in Tama, Shelley Buffalo harvests indigenous corn in her garden at the Meskwaki Settlement that was knocked over by the August 10 derecho. Buffalo was pushing to harvest as much of the corn that was toppled by the storm before it went bad, "Part of being human on this earth is we have to be humbled and reminded it is a privilege to be here," Buffalo said of the damage the storm did.

Ruth, 80, and Charlie, 83, lost power for four days.

The public works department quickly deployed its heavy machinery to clear roads and driveways after the storm. In addition to its own public works program, the Meskwaki Nation has its own constitution, laws, police force, court system and school. Known also as the Sac & Fox of Mississippi in Iowa, it is the only federally recognized tribe in Iowa and privately owns about 8,000 acres that make up the settlement.

Lawrence SpottedBird, the Meskwaki Nation’s executive director, told Iowa Public Radio last week that Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas and Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma sent people and supplies to help the clean-up effort.

Iowa politicians have reacted, too. Last week, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer urged President Donald Trump to grant the Meskwaki Nation’s request for an expedited disaster declaration.

In a separate letter to Trump, Finkenauer wrote that roughly 200 homes on the settlement were damaged, causing the displacement of roughly 600 people. The 1st District congresswoman visited tribal leaders Aug. 20.

Trump had not approved the tribe's request for assistance as of Thursday afternoon, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency website.

Ruth said the storm created an urgent need for food, too. After giving her hands a break from shelling, she prepared to head back to the Kinship Garden to help shuck more corn.

“I’m going to go to battle with that corn that’s on the ground,” she said. “There’s people out here that could use it right away.”

Shelley Buffalo, right, and her mother Ruth Buffalo, harvest indigenous corn on August 22 on the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama. The corn was knocked over by the derecho on August 10.

The effort to cultivate more indigenous foods on the settlement is a way to restore spiritual ties to land stolen by the United States government, Shelley said.

“We were forcibly removed from these practices, and that created a complete dependency on whoever controlled the resources,” she said. “For us, the food relationships are also spiritual relationships. So this restoration of our ancestral foods is a huge part of decolonizing our lives. We’re taking our food back.”

Regan O’Hanlon co-manages the Kinship Garden with Shelly. O’Hanlon also handles outreach to the settlement school and senior services.

Already stretched thin during the pandemic, the two women have put in countless hours since the derecho to keep any food from going to waste.

The last step of the corn harvest is to let the kernels dry in the sun. Shelley Buffalo lays out buckets of the kernels on tables in her garden on the Meskwaki Settlement on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2020 in Tama. Buffalo said the process usually takes about three days and would then be used in large community meals. This year though, because of the pandemic, the meals have been cancelled so Buffalo said the corn will be given to the senior center.

They’re “completely exhausted and burned out,” Shelly said, but they still return to the garden day after day.

“For me, this is very healing to do this,” Shelley said as she stoked the fire under a cast iron cauldron full of boiling corn. “Even when I’m having just awful, awful days, I come out here to the garden and get busy. It’s just the place I want to be.”

Shelby Fleig covers Des Moines city government for the Register. Reach her at shelbyfleig@dmreg.com or 515-214-8933.

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