JC> Some of these discussions in cyberspace can get real interesting. I have
  > a gentleman from the UK on "another line" who is asking about information
  > on someone (from the UK) who was _supposedly_ an Oregon Trail wagonmaster
  > (which dates him around the 1840s-1850s) who returned to England and then
  > came _back_ to the U.S. to "teach the Indians east of the Mississippi to
  > be farmers". I responded that I thought it curious that the man would
  > teach farming to Indians that had known about farming for years. I
  > suppose, however, that the Indians this man was teaching had "lost" the
  > traditional culture.
I've heard that the Indians in Central America were the greatest
agriculturalists in the world at the time Columbus started stealing the
Americas. They were, at the time, experimenting with, and creating new
varieties of, plants on a regular basis.
Of course that doesn't say anything about the plains Indians.  Many of
the northern plains Indians had, in fact, given up agriculture,
preferring a hunting/gathering life style.  Some of those groups have
oral history records of having made that choice.
                                 Sondra
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