The Wendat grow the ‘three sisters’ – beans, squash and corn – which makes up over half of our food. We pound dried and shelled corn into flour. It is baked under hot ashes to make bread to which we add dried fruits. To sagamité, (corn soup) we add fish, meat and squash. For flavour, dried fruits and pieces of deer meat are added. Other foods we use are wild berries, nuts and maple syrup. Sunflowers are grown for their oil, which we use to garnish food and to rub on our bodies. Gathered food is important in our Wendat diet. Ripe fruits, nuts and berries, bulrush roots and maple sap are all collected and added to the diet. Hemp is also collected, and used for nets, ropes and baskets.

The women of the village plant the three main crops on raised hills. About every two years the soil becomes depleted and new fields are cultivated. In the fall, corn is harvested and hung from poles in the longhouse to dry. Beans are dried and stored with the corn in bark or wooden containers.

The men fish using nets and weirs (underwater enclosures) and wooden spears with barbed boneheads. They catch whitefish, trout, sturgeon, pike and catfish that are dried and smoked.

Hunting takes place in the spring and fall, mostly for deer that give us hides as well as meat. Hunters make noise and drive the deer into enclosed areas. (There is a drawing by Champlain of such a deer hunt in his Voyages 1632) The meat is smoked and used as a main dish at feasts and celebrations. We also hunt beaver with snares, arrows and clubs. The beaver is killed for fur as well as meat. We now hunt beaver to trade for metal goods with the French. I worry that so many beaver are being killed that the beaver population will soon disappear from our land.

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