The Ohio Country Episode 3: Shawnee life on the land

By Neenah Ellis,

Published July 22, 2024 at 5:35 PM EDT

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"Jeremy Turner of the Shawnee Tribe, who is featured in episode three of WYSO's "The Ohio Country" podcast, points to where he suggested a longhouse once stood during an event in 2022 sponsored by Xenia-based nonprofit Caesar's Ford Theatre; Turner is a member of the nonprofit's board of directors. Turner gave a tour of an 18th-century Shawnee village near modern-day Springfield, and in the background are fields of row crops along the Mad River floodplain; it’s where corn has been planted for hundreds, if not thousands of years — first by Shawnee, then Europeans. — Jeremy Turner of the Shawnee Tribe, who is featured in episode three of WYSO's "The Ohio Country" podcast, points to where he suggested a
longhouse once stood during an event in 2022 sponsored by Xenia-based nonprofit Caesar's Ford Theatre; Turner is a member of the nonprofit's
board of directors. Turner gave a tour of an 18th-century Shawnee village near modern-day Springfield, and in the background are fields of
row crops along the Mad River floodplain; it’s where corn has been planted for hundreds, if not thousands of years — first by Shawnee, then
Europeans.

Shawnee people have a sophisticated and collaborative involvement with the environment.

In this episode — across four seasons — we talk with three American Indian historical interpreters about the Shawnee lifeway in the Ohio River Valley.

Talon Silverhorn, left, talks to a crowd at Hale Farm while tending to a boiling pot of maple sap.

We start in early spring with Talon Silverhorn (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma) and Shelly Silverhorn (Navajo Nation), demonstrating the late 18th-century Shawnee way of making maple sugar at the Hale Farm Maple Sugar Festival in Summit County.

People have been turning tree sap into sugar for centuries, including historic Ohio tribes like the Delaware, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Wyandotte, and others like the Shawnee.

In a single sugar season, a Shawnee family would produce essentially all the sugar they'll need for a year, about a pound per person. In 2019, researchers found that the average American eats 57 pounds of sugar yearly.

Talon Silverhorn said sugaring is still done by Shawnee people today. Instead of boiling the sap over a fire in brass pots like he was, people use stovetops or outdoor propane boilers with big, wide, flat pans that help the sap reduce quickly.

The amount of sugar that a Shawnee person would have used for a year is displayed during a tour at Hale Farm.

Food systems and sovereignty

To learn more about Shawnee Farming techniques, check out this episode of the podcast Farm to Taber with Historian Susan Sleeper-Smith.

From the episode description:

“When sustainability advocates talk about Indigenous agriculture, it's often framed as folksy, timeless, hyperlocal, and incompatible with the modern world. Nothing could be further from the truth!”

Also, watch this "Native American Food Sovereignty, Explained" video from our friends at PBS for more information about the past, present, and future of American Indian food systems.

A note on the use of the Shawnee Language in this episode and podcast

Later in this episode, Talon Silverhorn introduces himself in the Shawnee language. To protect the integrity of the Shawnee language, we decided not to include a transcription or translation of that introduction. People in the Ohio River Valley have appropriated the Shawnee language for financial benefit, used it disrespectfully, or mangled the pronunciation. Today, the three federally recognized Shawnee tribes have language programs and choose to share their written and spoken language to varying degrees with their citizens and the public to prevent further misappropriation.