Mystery: Who Brought Beans to the Lenape and Mahicans in the 1300s?

[GreatGazoo]

Many have heard of "Three Sisters" plantings, the technique which thwarted deer by planting corn, beans and squash together. The Lenape made the ground into a series of mounds and planted the 3 crops together with fish guts (a source of nitrogen) in the center of each mound. Squash leaves are enormous so as the vines spread, the leaves obscured the dappled ground. Deer are instinctually fearful of any potential injuries to their legs and hooves so they will not step on ground which they cannot see. Thus the squash leaves and uneven ground deter them.

But recently it has become better known that beans were not part of these plantings before the 1300s. And this is where it gets interesting.

Beans are known by very similar names in languages around the world -- fasule (Albanian), fazole (czech), fasgiolu (corsican), faba (latin), fasulye (turkish), etc. And they ship exceedingly well once dried. Like corn, beans can be planted or eaten, and drying them makes them unpalatable to many insects and rodents. They were so commonly used as a form of money that to this day we call accountants "bean counters." For some period of time they may have been the most widely traded commodity on earth.

So it looks like someone brought them across the Atlantic in the 1300s. And the most likely suspects are the Mali and the French.

The French

Contrary to CW, the French were fishing along the coast of modern Maine in the 1300s. Many of them were either stranded or "went native" to join a people that call themselves the Mi-kmaq which is pigeon French for "this and that." European scholars date the first contact between these people and the French to 1520 but indigenous experts place it earlier because they are not bound by the Colombus-first maxims. From at least the voyages of Erik the Red onward, Europeans had secret fishing spots and secret maps. One researcher (Charles Mann IIRC) aptly observed "Columbus was not the first but rather the last to discover the Americas" meaning that Colombus was the one who made public maps and let the secret out.

The Mali

The Mali (or any other North African culture that had access to Islamic navigation aids and mathematics) are an even more controversial possibility. Europeans, again, dismiss these theories outright and insist that Verrazzano did not see what he reported in the area of modern Massachusetts in July of 1524:

We were able to see a large number of people, who had apparently come down to observe our approach, but they fled as soon as we arrived at the shores. We tried to reassure them with all manner of friendly gesture. A few of the braver finally came forth, and expressed great joy at seeing us. They expressed amazement at our way of dressing, our appearance and the colour of our skin... The men and women are dark-skinned, not unlike Ethiopians, and have thick, black hair which they tie behind their necks. They are well-built, and of medium to above-average height when compared to us. They have broad chests and strong arms and legs, and on the whole, are very well proportioned. Their eyes are large and black, and have a quick and watchful look to them. Though they do not seem extraordinarily strong, they are swift and resistant runners.

The Columbus-first gang insists that these were just dark skinned indians, not Africans, but Verrazzano is specific. He is not talking about a people who tend toward medium tones and may have darkened further by the abundant (?) sunshine of Massachusetts. He says "Ethiopian" and he details their features. We now know that the overwhelming majority of people in the Americas before 1492 descended from four distinct genetic groups -- Korean, Polynesian, Japanese and Central Asian. None of those peoples would be described as African by someone as well traveled as Verrazzano.

The power and culture of the Mali is documented in Islamic literature as early as 1068. Other evidence proves the Mali had a vibrant culture and adequate proficiency in global navigation during the period in question:

(The) Timbuktu Manuscripts written in Sudani script (a form of Arabic) from the Mali Empire showing established knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. Today there are close to a million of these manuscripts found in Timbuktu alone.... The Mali Empire later formed on the upper Niger River, and reached the height of power in the 14th century.[41] Under the Mali Empire, the ancient cities of Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali#History

Famously, Norwegian researcher Thor Heyerdahl made a voyage to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples -- the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a large papyrus reed boat.

The Mali (?) via the Taino

One last theory, a step more complex: The Taino, most famous for resisting Columbus, originate in the upper Amazon River delta and they made regular, perhaps annual, trips of the eastern coast of North America. We know that they intermarried with the Wappingers (in NY) as early as 1000BCE and that a group of them came to stay with the Wappingers in the 1300s. So that theory would be that brought beans with them and that beans were new to them in this period since it was not a food/seed they had brought previously. If the Taino brought the beans then the Mali are the most likely source since French fishermen are not known to have traveled to the Amazon in the 1300s.

These remain only theories. Data points. I am fascinated with this stuff and we are making great strides to better understand this period of history thanks to advances in genetics, linguistics and anti-racism.

I of course welcome any input or criticism others may have.

[Wicked Blue]

1. The legumes known in the Old World were broad beans, chickpeas,

lentils and peas, along with some less important vetch varieties. Pigeon peas came from the Indian subcontinent, soybeans, mung beans and adzuki were domesticated in Asia, and cowpeas in sub-Saharan Africa.

The beans we commonly eat today - kidney, navy, lima, pinto, runner - are part of the genus Phaeseolus, which originated in the Americas. They did not originate in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Middle East. It's not impossible that French or Malian explorers obtained Phaseolus beans from South America and introduced them to natives on the Atlantic coast. However Phaseolus beans could not have been imported from the Old World to the Americas.

Wikipedia:
The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, Peru, dated to around the second millennium BCE.[8] Genetic analyses of the common bean Phaseolus show that it originated in Mesoamerica, and subsequently spread southward.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean )
...
Five kinds of Phaseolus beans were domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples, selecting pods that did not open and scatter their seeds when ripe: common beans (P. vulgaris) grown from Chile to the northern part of the United States; lima and sieva beans (P. lunatus); and the less widely distributed teparies (P. acutifolius), scarlet runner beans (P. coccineus), and polyanthus beans. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean )

Also: https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037d-2b20-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content

Wikipedia:
Broad beans have a long tradition of cultivation in Old World agriculture, being among the most ancient plants in cultivation and also among the easiest to grow. While their wild ancestor has not been identified and their origin is unknown, charred legumes of a possible wild-type progenitor have been identified at the Natufian site of the el-Wad Terrace.Carbonised domestic faba bean remains were discovered at three adjacent Neolithic sites in Israel's Lower Galilee (Yiftah'el, Ahi'hud and Nahal Zippori). Based on the radiocarbon dating of these remains, scientists now believe that the domestication of the crop may have begun as early as 8,250 BCE.

[GreatGazoo]

2. Thanks for all of that!

I am narrowing it down to varieties which would thrive in temperate climates and which had vining / climbing forms. I grow beans here and know firsthand that even the one which are good in this area (NY) need soil temps above 65F, closer to 70F to germinate. This limits the season. Once beans are established you can pick them all season and the plant will replace them. Great, but our season is limited by the lack of sufficient heat until mid-May or later.

I am thinking now that finding the Haudenosaunee name(s) for the specific climbing beans they use(d) would be a clue to where they came from. The arrival of new seeds is a fundamental part of their spirituality as told in the myth of Sky Woman. I could also have another look at the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Also, thanks to your input, I need to look at how corn arrives here from its origins in west central Mexico well before beans. Which leads me to looking at which plant could be adapted to colder climates the fastest. Corn is a selectively bred modification of teosinte, a grass. Seems likely that grasses are generally more cold hardy than vining legumes but I will check.

[WestMichRad]

3. Thanks to both of you, Gazoo and Blue, for the informative exchange.

Quite fascinating. Educational threads like this make DU a wonderful resource, IMHO.

[Wicked Blue]

4. My pleasure. I'm fascinated by where plants originated.

I have a book, Green Immigrants by Claire Shaver Haughton (1978, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.) that has a great deal of information on the subject. It might still be in some libraries.

[GreatGazoo]

5. I have reached out to some tribe member linguists and asked

for the name, and meaning of that name, for the exact beans used in 3 Sisters. Will update if that leads to a breakthrough.

I love this stuff. Started when I married a Cherokee LNP and was contacted by Hopi (!) elders who saw me in a vision during a ceremony at Four Corners. It's crazy sounding stuff that I might not believe if it didn't keep happening. I have a fair chance of figuring this bean thing out. I have been researching Henry Hudson off an on for about 5 years and that led to more questions and some of the timeline of Erik the Red, the French, Verrazzano and Mali that have in the OP. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that you don't have the box for. The more piece that fall into place the more you want the rest.

This is my source for the "Taino came to the Hudson River and intermarried" stuff. I have two of his books. Unique perspective that is missing from many versions of American history. He is a Prof at Marist:

And I absolutely LOVE Kimmerer's work and perspective. I may reach out to her if I can't crack this through other sources:

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