Winter 2009 Featured Story

The Good Earth

The Dedication of the Amos Owen Garden

By the time the sun came up on Friday, September 19, the Amos Owen Garden of American Indian Horticulture at Minnesota State University, Mankato was ready.

Ron Schirmer had been at the site until after dark the night before. He had spent the day at the quarry with a colleague, hauling more than one hundred twenty- to forty-pound rocks up to a cargo van in the parking lot, then driving back to the University and unloading them near the site of the garden, just east of the Student-Ostrander Bell Tower. It was after 5 p.m. by the time they had finished unloading the last of the rocks, and Schirmer, an anthropology professor, still had to dig a trench and arrange the stones around the ring of black dirt. But as the sun set behind Trafton Science Center, his spirits were high.

It had only been a year since the Amos Owen Garden, displaced from its original location by the construction of the Leonard A. Ford Hall addition to Trafton Science Center, had found a new home in the shade of the cottonwood trees on the southeast side of campus. Its first crop had just been harvested—a colorful collection of beans—and the squash were still ripening on the vines. With a new sign announcing the garden's presence and a ring of rocks distinguishing it from the rest of the campus landscaping, the time was right for an official dedication.

In fact, the dedication was long overdue.

The garden, which had been planted originally in 1990 by anthropology Professor Emeritus Mike Scullin, had been dormant for two years. Its namesake, Dakota spiritual leader Amos Owen, had been dead for eighteen years. And the event that had demonized the city of Mankato for generations of Dakota, the hanging of thirty-eight men, was more than 140 years in the past.

But on September 19, 2008, with Amos Owen's children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren among the students, faculty members and administrators in attendance, the new garden plot was dedicated. Not with official speeches, symbolic ribbon cuttings or grand pomp and circumstance, but with drumming, chanting, a traditional tobacco blessing led by the University's assistant director of American Indian Affairs Dave Larsen, and an expression of gratitude from Amos Owen's sons, Art and Ray.

"We thank you for making this something that is very sacred to us," Art Owen said. "The future of our people will come from projects like this."

Amos Owen's connection to Mankato began in 1958. It was then that he met Bud Lawrence, who lived in Mankato but who liked to fish and camp with his family near Owen's home at Prairie Island, near Red Wing. The two men became close, and Lawrence encouraged Owen, the spiritual leader of the Dakota people at Prairie Island, to visit Mankato.

It was a radical notion. Owen, like most Dakota people, had long avoided the city. At one point, it had been a sacred place for the Native Americans in the area because the blue clay in the earth was an important part of their traditions. But then, in December 1862, thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged in Mankato as punishment for the Dakota Conflict—the largest mass execution in U.S. history. And from that point on, Dakota people avoided Mankato at all costs. Even one hundred years later, it was too painful to be there. "They would drive through in the middle of the night if they had to," Lawrence remembers. "They wouldn't go in the stores here, or stay in the hotels."

But in 1965, Amos Owen came to Mankato. He brought his tribal council meetings to the local YMCA, where he met another longtime friend, Jim Buckley. With Lawrence, Buckley and several others, Owen helped plan the first Mah-Kato Powwow in 1972 as "a way to bring back a lost culture," Lawrence says. Ione Owen, Wally and Gertrude Wells, Norman and Edith Crocks, Amos and Rose Crooks, Hereditary Chief Ernest Wabasha and Vernell Wabasha, and "Big" Dave Larsen were also involved in the 1972 Powwow.

No one knew if any American Indians would actually show up, but Owen wholeheartedly threw his support behind the venture. Partly because of his backing, and partly because they were curious, a good number came. "Amos was the spiritual leader, and he had tremendous influence on other Dakota," Lawrence says. "He helped spread the word about our Powwow."

The Powwow grew every year after that, as did Owen's prominence in Mankato. He presented at local grade schools, twice served as the grand marshal of the Bend in the River Days parade, and was often invited to be a guest speaker at Minnesota State Mankato. "I remember people kidding him about becoming mayor of Mankato," Buckley says. "He was here that much."

It wasn't easy for Owen to get to Mankato. He didn't drive, and his family had no extra resources to speak of. Lawrence and Buckley both remember offering him money for the expense of the trips, but Owen always refused. When he finally did accept a small sum, he turned around and gave it away to friends and family almost immediately. "That's just how he was," Lawrence says. "That was the way he did it."

Ron Schirmer never worked with Amos Owen. He never met Mike Scullin, who had left the University before Schirmer arrived in the fall of 2003. But Schirmer, an anthropologist who specializes in paleoethnobotany (essentially, the archeology of food and its importance to the cultures of past peoples) and whose research has included extensive work in the Prairie Island community, was a natural fit to take over the tending of the garden.

But in the midst of all the transitions, the ground lay fallow during the summer of 2004 and was then planted out by another University organization, Campus Kitchens, in the spring of 2005. In the meantime, the University had also announced that it would be breaking ground for an addition to the Trafton Science Center—and that the ground being broken was the same ground that had served as the Amos Owen Garden. Schirmer would have to find a new site.

Schirmer remembers walking around campus one warm day looking for an appropriate spot. As he wandered, he ran into Bud Lawrence. Knowing that Lawrence and Owen had been close, he asked him what he thought of planting the garden in the large green area just east of the Ostrander-Student Bell Tower, adjacent to Warren Street. "I showed Bud the spot I was thinking about and he nodded," Schirmer says. "He said, 'Oh, that's perfect. It's right by Amos's cottonwood tree."

Indeed, the site that Schirmer had selected was bordered to the west by a stand of cottonwood trees. One of them had been planted in honor of the Dakota leader, and a plaque memorializing his life had been placed beneath it. "Cottonwoods were his favorite tree," Lawrence says. "He's buried beneath one on the Prairie Island Reservation."

When the door to his office on the third floor of Trafton North is open, Ron Schirmer has a clear view of the Amos Owen Garden of American Indian Horticulture. All he could see last fall was a lot of rich black dirt, a few flourishing hills of squash, and the light reflecting off the limestone rocks circling the garden. The view will be even better next year. Tall stalks of maize will tower over the beans, squash and native grasses. Sunflowers may even be leaning toward the sun.

Schirmer has spent considerable time thinking about the garden, and about what it means to the University, the community and, most importantly, to the Dakota people. He says he prayerfully considered the design of the garden, settling on a circle divided into four distinct quadrants—an important symbol for Native Americans. "The symbolism is important here," Schirmer says. "I wanted this to be symbolic of the native people it honors."

His intention is to plant only those cultivars (specific varieties of cultivated plants) that the Dakota would have planted. He has been collecting seeds from past Native American gardens: The squash seeds that were planted last spring had been saved from the original Amos Owen Garden, but the others have been gathered from a variety of sources. There's the Ponca red popcorn, a 3-inch cob ringed with brilliant red kernels. There are the Mandan red beans and the Mandan blue-black corn, also on a cob just big enough to fit in the palm of your hand. "That's what corn used to look like," Schirmer says as he holds the cob up to the light. "These seeds are incredible! They're just so cute. I love to look at them."

Schirmer takes the seeds seriously. Although most are only a couple of years old, they are descended from plants that are thousands of years old. He won't plant all of them, keeping some as pure "voucher specimens" in case of accidental crosspollination—a real risk with maize, in particular. And although he knows that it isn't truly traditional, he'll start the maize seeds early in the University greenhouse. "These need to be started in a controlled environment," he says. "These are very old, and we can't be careless with them. That would be disrespectful."

Eventually, Schirmer would also like to use traditional Native American tools to tend the garden. Last spring, he used the same steel shovels, hoes and rakes that most American gardeners, including Native Americans, currently use. In the future, he'd like to recreate the actual tools that would have been used 1,200 years ago: a bison scapula hoe, for example, an antler rake. "It's important to me to be traditional," he says. "Part of honoring this tradition is in doing it the right way."

He knows that when he asks his friends at Prairie Island for the bones he will need to make the tools, they'll chuckle softly and tease him just a bit. "They'll laugh and say, 'What are you up to, kid?'" Schirmer says. "And sure, it will be more challenging to do it this way. But I don't believe that challenge is something that we should shy away from. These are people who have been facing challenges for thousands of years. This seems like the least I can do."

For many Native Americans, a reconciliation of what happened in Mankato in December 1862, began with the Mah-Kato Powwow thirty-six years ago. Before that, the memory of that event was a gaping wound; holding a sacred ceremony here helped begin the healing process. In the early days, Mike Scullin would bring some of the fruits of his garden to the Powwow to distribute to the Native Americans in attendance; Schirmer hopes his small plot will also yield enough to share as well.

Schirmer considers the new Amos Owen Garden another way to continue that ongoing process of healing. He sees it as an opportunity to re-enliven a tradition that connects the people with the earth, which in turn connects them to their identity. "When traditions become alive, they become powerful," he says. "A tradition that is not practiced is not a tradition."

It's a great honor, Schirmer says, that Amos Owen's descendants came to the dedication of the garden. It speaks both of the progress that has been made and of the importance of this tradition to the Dakota people. It's an even greater honor, however, that the Dakota people honored the garden with the tobacco blessing, one of the most sacred blessings that they offer. "That they let us see that, let us be a part of that—that they were even willing to be at the ceremony and that they wanted to thank us, that's a huge, huge deal," Schirmer says.

The garden is an intensely personal project for Schirmer, who also teaches a full load of courses, works with a dozen active master's students, and advises about twenty-five undergraduates. He also spends a great deal of time researching ancient sites in the Prairie Island community near Red Wing, continuing a relationship with the people there that started when he was a graduate student. The Mdewakanton Dakota have been so supportive of his efforts that they recently gave a substantial gift to the Minnesota State Mankato Foundation to help further Schirmer's work.

But both the garden, and the gift from the people of Prairie Island, are bigger than Schirmer himself. They also represent conscious efforts by both the University and the Native Americans to reach out to each other in a respectful and understanding way. The Mdewakanton Dakota could have written a check directly to Schirmer; they didn't. Instead, they wanted to officially solidify their relationship not only with him but also with the University. "They wanted to make the donation here," Schirmer says. "They know that this is how the healing is going to happen."

And the University, in turn, knows it must respond with respect and understanding as well. That's why Schirmer's knowledge of the culture and respect for the traditions has been so important. "We have to be able to show that we understand what happened and that we know it was painful," he says. "We have to show them that we want to make it right."

Amos Owen's legacy can be seen in many parts of Mankato. The annual Powwow, for example, exists because of him. So does the Heritage Room at South Central College. He was influential in the creation of both Reconciliation Park and Land of Memories Park. Even the naming of Dakota Meadows Middle School came out of Owen's involvement in this community. "He helped our community become more accepting," Jim Buckley says. "He broke a big barrier when he opened the door for the Indians to come back to Mankato without fear."

Schirmer's greatest hope is to honor Owen's efforts with the garden. He knows that it's a small plot and will never yield a great harvest. But his long-term goal is to share the crops with native peoples. "We can't grow an awful lot in this small garden," he says. "But what we do grow, we will redistribute."

He's already starting to do that, albeit on a limited basis. On September 19, during the dedication of the Amos Owen Garden, Schirmer presented a bowl filled with the first fruits of the garden: beans. He passed the bowl around to those in attendance and encouraged everyone to partake. "I asked them to keep the seeds and to come back next year to help us plant the garden," he says.

Sara Gilbert Frederick is a writer and editor in Mankato.