10 March 2008

Red Maids


There is something about Red Maids that makes me whoop and holler. Leaving the market yesterday I belted out a scream, "Turn a U-ie!" 
"Whad-ya-see?" He asked me.
"Red Maids, for sure. Bunches of them," I exclaimed. 
You see, they don't last long, and a lot of years they don't even show. There has to be the right amount of moisture and sunshine. So he turned around and pulled over to the side. I jumped out of the truck and ran up the hill. When I had a positive ID, I turned around with thumbs up, and ran back to the truck for my camera. 
All this is very exciting for us, not just because it's a pretty flower but also for our work.
Red Maid seeds were collected by the Native Indians as a food source, and one of the things that I do for a living is examine plant matter under a microscope to find signature plant stones in soil. If the Red Maids have such a particular plant stone, I can then look at different soils to determine if they ever had Red Maids growing in them. In areas where there is a known site with Red Maid plant stones, one might have another piece of evidence that indians were proto-agriculturists. 
Pretty nifty!

2 comments:

  1. I had no idea you were such a scientist!
    They are lovely.
    They ate the seeds? Like in bread and stuff or just ate them? Interesting.

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  2. Hi Alicia,

    They did cook the seeds into bread, but primarily they would crush them into a mush and roll the mush into little balls to pop'em in their mouths. Protein snacks!

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Thanks for sharing!