Shawnee and Miami people (among numerous other people from American Indian nations) intentionally burn land, which has helped create a sustainable mosaic of ecosystems in the Ohio River Valley over the millennia.
But when settlers, traders, and colonists came to the Ohio Country, they did not embrace that practice. And today, researchers and conservationists want to bring it back, saying it would improve Ohio's soil health and ecological diversity.
Research on Indigenous prescribed fire in the Ohio River Valley
Two experts we interviewed in this episode, Mike Gonella and Dave Nolin, have published research about Indigenous prescribed fire in our region.
- Gonella included chapters in his dissertation about the Effects of dormant season Indigenous harvesting and burning on 173 growth and reproduction of dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum L., Apocynaceae) and the Effects of Indigenous Miami harvesting and burning regimes on 124 growth and reproduction of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca L., Asclepiadaceae). You can find his full dissertation here.
- Nolin’s paper called Ecological Impacts of Anthropogenic Fire in Southwestern Ohio, USA, Documented from Public Land Survey Records from 1802 and 1803, was published in 2023. Read it here. In conjunction with the academic paper, he released an interactive GIS map called 1800 NATIVE LANDSCAPES OF DAYTON, OHIO REGION (see below).
- Nolin also co-presented with Talon Silverhorn (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma) at a "Roots of Stewardship: Native Land Management and Settlement Patterns in the Dayton, Ohio Region" event this April that the Beaver Creek Wetlands Association put on.
- Also, check out this Illinois Prarie 101 guide from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for a comprehensive history and information about the future of prairie burning in our region.
Significance of Fire (and fire-dependent species) for the Miami, Ojibwe, and Shawnee
The place-based Myaamia lunar calendar, developed centuries ago in what is now Ohio and Indiana, connects two months in the fall with burns. The first month is the grass-burning moon, or šaašaakayolia kiilhswa – from Sept. 5 to Oct. 3 this year. The second month is the smoky-burning moon or kiiyolia kiilhswa. It’s Oct. 3 to Nov. 2 this year.
The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma's Myaamia Ethnobotanical Database (mahkihkiwa), a collection of plant references derived from over a decade of research and interviews regarding the historical and contemporary use of plants by the Myaamia People, also includes numerous plants that
are fire-dependent.
Our colleague, WYSO Environment and Indigenous Affairs Reporter Adriana Martinez-Smiley, recently published a feature about Miami (Myaamia) fire practices.
The White Oak tree (a fire-dependent species) is important to the Shawnee. The leaf of the White Oak is on the Shawnee Tribe’s flag, and the tribe’s ceremonial grounds are on a 155-acre cultural preserve in White Oak, Oklahoma. However, due to a lack of prescribed fire, the White Oak and other plants and animals that depend on it are declining in the Shawnee homeland today.
Some of the photos in this story come from a trip that Chris Welter took to Northern Minnesota in 2022 with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. Chris and other journalists from around the country met with non-native conservationists and people from the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe), who are working together to reintroduce burning practices at the University of Minnesota’s Cloquet Forestry Center. Read more about that initiative here.