What 800-Year-Old Seeds and a Hopi Dryland Farmer Teach Us About Adaptation & Hope
When Hopi farmer Michael Kotutwa Johnson speaks of seeds, he refers to them as “children.” So when a colleague brought him corn seeds that had been preserved for 800 years – hidden in a cave near historical Hopi villages around Glen Canyon – it was like welcoming children home.
Dr. Johnson describes himself as a 250th-generation traditional Hopi dryland farmer. Since he was a boy, he has been growing corn, beans, squash and melons without irrigation on the Little Colorado Plateau in northeastern Arizona where the average annual rainfall is only 6-10 inches. Seeds play an intimate role in Hopi farming and culture.
“Seeds for Hopi people, and other Indigenous societies, are at the heart of who we are,” explains Dr. Johnson. “You see, for us, seeds are the very essence of life. Our society depends on corn and seeds. They are not just material objects; seeds are a life force.”
For two years, Dr. Johnson experimented with planting the gifted seeds at different depths and growing conditions to coax the corn to grow in an environment that had changed over 80 decades, a parallel he draws to his own culture.
“The seeds are like us,” Dr. Johnson says, “they need to be able to adapt to an ever-increasingly changing environment. Their continued adaptation in the places they were originally grown is vital to our culture and the health of the communities to ensure our survival and cultural identity.”
Dr. Johnson was eager to see if, after so long, these seeds would produce corn.
From a Hidden Cave to Hopi Farmland
In the summer of 2023, Dr. Johnson received corn seeds from a colleague who came by them through a friend that had discovered them while exploring a cave during a kayaking trip through the Glen Canyon area back in the 1960s, as the area was being flooded to form modern-day Lake Powell. The man kayaked extensively as the waters rose, which offered a brief window of time that allowed him to access a cave on the canyon wall. Inside, he found whole cobs of corn buried in the red sand.
Burying whole cobs is a traditional Hopi technique for preserving corn. The area where the seeds were found holds a rich history, with over 2,000 archaeological sites dating back to the Basketmaker era (A.D. 1-500) and the Pueblo II and Pueblo III expansion (A.D. 900-1300). The seeds are estimated to be over 800 years old.
“I welcomed this gift because these maize-corn seeds returned home to one of the 21 Pueblos and in this case Hopi, after 800 years of hiding in a cave,” says Dr. Johnson. “Upon receiving these seeds, I wanted to see how these children would adapt at Hopi after being absent from their home.”
The textbook practice for growing corn is to plant seeds 2 inches deep, where the soil won’t dry quickly. Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, plants his Hopi corn seeds at 6 to 16 inches into the ground and does not water them during the summer. He relies on monsoon rains and the environment to provide the conditions to help them sprout and grow into food crops.
Last summer, Dr. Johnson planted the gifted seeds using traditional Hopi practices, but the sprouts did not manage to break through the soil surface.
Before replanting, he considered the prior conditions that these seeds would have adapted to – a time when the Colorado River was running through the area – and so he replanted them again, at a much shallower depth of one to two inches. Miraculously, the seeds germinated and began to sprout, but it was too late in the growing season for them to mature.
Despite the setback, Dr. Johnson told himself: “I will try again next year as these seeds also bring hope and with that faith for the next generation of Pueblo farmers.”
On his third trial this past summer, Dr. Johnson planted 8-10 corn kernels per hole at a few different locations at a depth of one to two inches deep. Of the seeds planted, 2 or 3 germinated and sprouted at each location. Then, with much nurturing – placing a can around them for protection, installing mesh wiring to keep rabbits out, and visiting them often – he saw the tasselling of the plant and small corn ears beginning to form. He allowed for the ears to fully mature. While some were consumed by insects, he was able to harvest four cobs off of three mature plants. One, in particular, was very special.
“One cob came up perfect, with strawberry-red corn kernels all the way up the ear, something that is very hard to grow in our climate without worms attacking them,” Dr. Johnson explains, who was happily surprised by the picture-perfect cob.
Corn like this is very special to the Hopi. “We call this the Corn Mother, and we use them in baby naming ceremonies, to symbolize a spiritual connection to the Earth and Hopi corn.”
Dr. Johnson kept the perfect corn cob as a reminder of what he helped nurture. Although curious about their taste, he didn’t eat any of the remaining corn and, instead, dried and shucked the three other ears to save the precious kernels. The new, but very old, corn seeds would be planted again next year to learn even more about what memories and adaptations they hold.
Prioritize Diversity to Promote Resiliency
As an assistant specialist with the Indigenous Resiliency Center, Dr. Johnson advocates for the integration of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and tribal farming in helping Arizona address its growing water crisis.
By highlighting Hopi dryland farming, among other Indigenous agricultural practices, Dr. Johnson shows how it can play a larger role in the desert Southwest agriculture as the state focuses on growing climate-smart food crops that can survive with less water and in ever-changing seasons. A key to this, he points out, is biodiversity and place-based knowledge.
In the U.S., commodity crops – such as corn and soybeans – have risen to prominence as dominant crops due to their extensive use in processed foods, livestock feed, and biofuel production. However, the selection of a few productive monocultures has come at a cost.
A mere 12 plants and 5 animal species account for approximately 75% of global food production. This heavy reliance on a limited range of crop varieties and animal species has led to the fragility in the food system, malnutrition and chronic diseases, and the gradual neglect of many local biodiverse plants, seeds, and food crops that have been adapted to meet environmental conditions like drought, flooding, and extreme heat.
In contrast, while Indigenous people make up less than 5% of the world’s population, they protect 80% of global diversity and still farm traditional crops bred for diversity, nutrition, taste, quality and climate resilience; crops such as tepary beans, amaranth, agave, Native vegetables, squash, and maize/corn.
Dr. Johnson stresses the need for a place-based approach to growing crops: “Most indigenous crops grown in these environments have been desert-adapted because they found their place naturally. Place-based knowledge is key for adaptability and resilience. Recently, a study was published on 23 Tribal Nation climate change adaptation plans. Their frame of reference in developing plans was to look for the data to adapt to climate change, not stop it. If we are missing the adaptation piece, we are not getting it and are going to make the same mistake over and over again.”
He points to experimenting with domestic crops through wider spacing and using less water, and partnering with large farms. He imagines the possibility of a desert-adapted tomato, lettuce, or even alfalfa. However, he is also quick to point out that there needs to be more to the discussion than economics and highest-yield production.
“We need to focus on quality, not just quantity. The original harm to Indigenous communities was the systematic destruction of our food systems. What we survived on was taken away, and food was given to us that we are not used to. Tribal communities, like the Gila River Indian Community, have the highest rates of diabetes on the globe due to the destruction of their traditional agriculture. We need to focus on the quality of our food. So why not let the desert provide the nutrients we need to survive, like it has been doing for millenia?” asks Dr. Johnson.
“We have tremendous intimacy with our seeds that comes from planting, nurturing, and harvesting our crops,” adds Dr. Johnson. “The seeds are who we are and are considered living beings, not just commodities. We need to switch how we look at food from a consumer point of view.”
Climate change has, and will, affect crop sustainability and production. More diverse crops with a wider range of traits will be better able to perform under changing environmental conditions, which is important given the expected changes that Arizona, and farmers, have yet to see.
Dr. Johnson is working to convince more people to grow food with Indigenous time-tested practices, which can provide hope where climate change and loss of biodiversity are stretching water supplies thin. The transition for climate action, he contends, will require a shift of thinking and respect for the Indigenous populations that have practiced agriculture in North America for thousands of years.
Bringing Seed Relatives Back Home
The resurgence of 800-year-old seeds and returning them home highlights another dimension of seeing seeds as living beings, and a great need: the rematriation of Indigenous seeds to their ancestral homelands and their original caretakers.
“Rematriation is defined as ‘Returning to the Sacred Mother,’ ” explains Dr. Johnson. “A mother looks after the welfare of her children in the same way Indigenous people should look after their seeds.
“Indigenous seeds have often suffered the same plight as Indian children whose language and culture were forcibly taken [at Indian boarding schools] not too long ago. The seeds have been taken from our communities, given a new name, and forced to grow in places they are unfamiliar with,” says Dr. Johnson.
Indigenous seeds have often been taken and tested genetically for traits such as drought resistance and height without providing monetary compensation to the Native communities where the seeds and their genetic materials originated.
As fewer Hopi people are practicing traditional dryland farming, Dr. Johnson looks to the seeds for assurance: “I hold out hope that our Indigenous relatives can help instill values, faith, and even discipline that I contend our society is missing. I believe we have a moral obligation to rematriate these relatives.”
Challenges exist to seeing this happen, such as laws that benefit seed companies by protecting their patents and trade secrets, and some Indigenous seeds remain permanently housed in museums or seed centers.
Despite these obstacles, Dr. Johnson understands that Indigenous seeds are key to Native health, and the unexpected return of ancestral seeds reignites his hope, as it shows the resiliency of seed and culture. “The lesson here is that seeds have memory. With much love and nurturing, they came back home.”
