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| 'Small gifts from the cornfield' Photo copyright Kris Barney |
Kris Barney 'Remembering the Great Diné Foodways'
By Kris Barney, Dine', Censored News, Oct. 29, 2025
There are a lot of wild foods out on the land that we traditionally gathered and cultivated. Even wild potatoes were a food source. Deer meat, elk, desert bighorn, pronghorn antelope, porcupines, bobcats, mountain lion, rabbits, pack rats, mice, prairie dogs and other animals were hunted and their meat dried and stored for winter use.
Piñons, various berries, acorns, juniper berries, cattail hearts, yucca fruit, cactus fruits, sumac berries, wild walnuts, the lists go on for foragable foods and medicine plants used to treat all kinds of ailments were made and infused with fats, pinyon sap and used medically and medicinally.
There were no stores, no dependency on outside help. We've become accustomed to these changes in our diet and in a small way I still adhere to a somewhat traditional diet for myself and my family by eating what I grow. Life in the modern world makes us think too of creative ways to feed ourselves and we need to only look back at a few generations to see we have tools and foods all around us.
My grandma used to make mutton and goat jerky, dry steamed corn, preserve corn for long-term storage, dry apricots and peaches, dry cantaloupe melons, dry herbs and bulbs collected in the springtime; wild parsley, greens like wáá, mariposa lily, wild onions, dry out strips of winter pumpkin/squash and used all kinds of food preservation techniques. She even collected wild grass seed from Ndn ricegrass to save later and she grounded that to make flour and small cakes.
There are a lot of wild foods out on the land that we traditionally gathered and cultivated. Even wild potatoes were a food source. Deer meat, elk, desert bighorn, pronghorn antelope, porcupines, bobcats, mountain lion, rabbits, pack rats, mice, prairie dogs and other animals were hunted and their meat dried and stored for winter use.
Piñons, various berries, acorns, juniper berries, cattail hearts, yucca fruit, cactus fruits, sumac berries, wild walnuts, the lists go on for foragable foods and medicine plants used to treat all kinds of ailments were made and infused with fats, pinyon sap and used medically and medicinally.
There were no stores, no dependency on outside help. We've become accustomed to these changes in our diet and in a small way I still adhere to a somewhat traditional diet for myself and my family by eating what I grow. Life in the modern world makes us think too of creative ways to feed ourselves and we need to only look back at a few generations to see we have tools and foods all around us.
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| Kris Barney's farm. Photo copyright Kris Barney |
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| Kris' mom. Photo copyright Kris Barney |
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| Kris' farm. Photo copyright Kris Barney |
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| 'Baby May foraging for her breakfast' Photo copyright Kris Barney |
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| Glass gem corn. Photo copyright Kris Barney, Dine' Thank you Kris for allowing Censored News to share your good words and beautiful farm photos. Donate to Kris Barney: $KristopherBarney - Cash app lrbarney73@gmail.com - PayPal https://venmo.com/Kristopher-Barney-1 - Venmo Article and photos copyright Kris Barney, Censored News |
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