Rick Strong wrote:

> Actually,  the tribes may have had some agriculture;  I do not know the context
> of the discussion you are citing but it should not be presumed that all Native
> Americans of the Lewis and Clark era were hunters and gatherers irrespective of
> their prior contacts with the European encroachment.  By the time of the Lewis
> and Clark expedition, huge portions of  the Native American   population had
> already been substantially decimated by disease such as small pox.  Which tribes
> were they describing?   Rick

The tribes of the upper Missouri grew the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash,
long before the time of Lewis and Clark.  Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara.  The book
"Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden" is a fascinating description of their farming.  The
Pueblo Indians have been growing corn in the Southwest for at least 900 years.

Lynnet