We see them in countless classic Westerns, riding swiftly across the windswept prairies. They wear sweeping feathered headdresses and hunt thundering herds of bison. This cinematic image of the Native American is deeply etched into the global subconscious. Decades of movies and television shows have taught us to see the original inhabitants of North America as purely carnivorous nomads who lived almost exclusively on meat.
Yet, this dramatic portrayal is largely a myth. Hollywood took a brief, historically anomalous lifestyle and turned it into an eternal truth.
The horse-riding, buffalo-hunting lifestyle was not an ancient tradition. It flourished for barely two hundred years. Before the arrival of Europeans, hunting was a hobby or a supplement for most tribes rather than a sole means of survival. The dramatic shift began when Spanish explorer Coronado traveled through the West in the sixteenth century. Some of his horses escaped, multiplying rapidly across the Great Plains. When local tribes learned to ride these animals, their world changed.
Soon after came European firearms. The combination of the horse and the rifle made killing buffalo incredibly easy. Tribes like the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho abandoned their ancient fields to follow the herds. They became nomadic, depending entirely on a single animal for food, clothing, and shelter. This era of the great bison hunters was spectacular, but it was also a historical detour.
Long before the age of the horse, agriculture was the true heartbeat of the continent. Consider the Choctaw people. Historically, they built sturdy homes of wood, mud, and cane. They did not live in animal-skin tipis. Their daily meals, served from earthen pots, were vegetarian stews overflowing with corn, pumpkin, and beans. They baked bread from corn and acorns. Women wore beautifully embroidered dresses made of plant fibers, while men wore cotton breeches. Choctaw people never even adorned their hair with feathers.
Their deep connection to the soil defined their spiritual lives. The Choctaws believed that corn was a divine gift from Hashtali, the Great Spirit who resides within the noon-day sun. Their traditional stories of the afterlife describe a giant playground where the ultimate reward is a never-ending supply of sweet melons.
Other tribes shared this profound reverence for plants. A Cherokee creation legend describes an early era of absolute peace where humans, animals, and plants lived in complete equality. According to the story, the needs of all were met without killing. Humans only became susceptible to disease when they grew aggressive and began eating animals. In response, friendly plants offered themselves as both food and medicine to heal human ailments.
Further south, ancient Aztec, Mayan, and Zapotec children ate entirely vegetarian diets until they reached the age of ten. Parents believed this practice built robust, disease-resistant bodies. Spanish explorers were astonished to find that these people lived twice as long as Europeans. Traditional healers in these cultures still advise the sick to seek healing by returning to the arms of Mother Corn. They recommend atole, a comforting, warm drink made from simmered corn flour, water, and cinnamon or chocolate.
This agricultural expertise shaped the global menu. Indigenous farmers cultivated nearly half of the plant foods grown across the world today. It is difficult to conceive of Italian cuisine without tomatoes, Ireland without potatoes, or Hungary without paprika. Yet all of these staples originated in the Americas. Indigenous agriculturalists developed and shared an incredible array of foods, including sweet potatoes, avocados, green beans, pumpkins, and chocolate. Squanto, the famous Pawtuxent Indian of the seventeenth century, did not just save the Pilgrims from starvation. He introduced them to a sophisticated system of companion planting and seed cultivation that would form the foundation of American farming.
Even as the buffalo-hunting craze swept the plains, many tribes refused to abandon their crops. The Osage, Pawnee, Mandan, and Wichita peoples maintained permanent farming settlements. They chose wood and earth over animal skins. They preferred woven cotton, basketry, and clay pottery over leather pouches.
The nineteenth-century Indian historian George Catlin watched the rapid expansion of the commercial buffalo trade with growing dread. He warned that relying solely on one animal was incredibly dangerous. European traders offered whiskey in exchange for buffalo robes and tongues, fueling a massive slaughter. In 1832, Catlin witnessed six hundred Sioux hunters kill fourteen hundred bison, taking nothing but their tongues to trade for alcohol.
Catlin’s warnings proved tragically accurate. When the great herds were systematically wiped out, the nomadic tribes had no agricultural safety net. They suffered immensely.
In contrast, agrarian tribes like the Choctaw and Cherokee managed to adapt and rebuild. Even when forced from their ancestral lands along the devastating Trail of Tears, they carried their agricultural genius with them. They transformed their new homes in Oklahoma, once dismissed by explorers as barren, into a thriving breadbasket of wild grapes, plums, and cultivated crops.
The cinematic image of the feather-crowned warrior chasing a bison is a powerful piece of American mythology. But it obscures a much richer, gentler history. The true heritage of the Americas is found in the soil, the seeds, and the seasonal harvests. It is found in a deep respect for all living things and a dietary wisdom that kept populations healthy for generations.
Today, the descendants of these ancient farmers are looking backward to move forward. Reclaiming traditional, plant-based diets is more than a health choice. It is a way to honor an ancient philosophy that saw plants as friends and the earth as a generous mother. By stepping away from the meat-centric habits introduced by European contact, we can rediscover the bright path of peace that flourished long before the first horse ever stepped onto the Great Plains.
Bibliographic Information
- Title: Native Americans and Vegetarianism
- Subtitle: (Originally published in the Vegetarian Journal, September 1994)
- Author: Rita Laws, Ph.D.
- Publisher: International Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Web-archived edition); originally published by The Vegetarian Resource Group
- Publication Year: 1994 (Digital version last updated April 18, 2001)
- Edition: Digital Archival Edition
- ISBN: Page reference unavailable / Not applicable (Journal Article Reprint)
- Historical Period Covered: Pre-Columbian Era, 16th Century (Coronado’s expedition), 17th Century (Squanto’s era), 18th Century (French colonial accounts), 19th Century (Trail of Tears, Catlin’s observations, 1890 Ghost Dance), and the late 20th Century.
- Main Subject Areas: Native American History, Ethnobotany and Agricultural History, Colonialism and Ecological Devastation, Indigenous Pediatric Nutrition, Animal Welfare and Ecofeminism, and Cultural Assimilation.
(Ref: Chapters 1 & 4)