Healthier Living Through Traditional Indian Ways
By Vicki L. Gerdes

  As any health care professional can tell you, a healthier lifestyle will improve both the length and quality of one’s lifespan. On the White Earth Reservation in White Earth, Minnesota, a group of about a dozen women has come together to promote healthier living through education in traditional methods of farming, foraging, food preparation and preservation, use of medicinal herbs and natural health and beauty aids, and nutrition and renewable resources, to name a few.

Known as Minwamanji’o, this group of American Indian women meets approximately once a week to share ideas and fellowship as well as to make salves, face creams, tinctures and other products with all-natural ingredients. The group also goes on foraging expeditions together, gathering seeds, berries and herbs to be used in cooking healthy, organic meals. “My grandchildren collect herbs and berries right alongside us,” said group member Marge Warren. “That’s where it starts—with tribal members teaching our children; they learn by watching us.”

“It’s good exercise,” added Pam Kroulik, noting that many plants usually regarded as weeds growing in the wild actually have a medicinal application—or a culinary one. “What most people would think of as weeds—you often find out that we can eat them,” she continued. Kroulik’s own home east of White Earth village is actually construct-ed using bales of straw—which provide a thick natural insulation that acts to keep the home cool in summer and warm in winter.

Straw bales are also being used in the construction of the new Minwamanji’o Center, built on the site of the old mission. Part of the funding to construct the center came from a grant through the Northwest Initiative Fund. Support for the group’s efforts has also come from the White Earth Tribal Council, White Earth Health Division, White Earth Diabetes Project, Aki Planning Circle, University of Minnesota Extension Service offices in Becker, Clearwater and Mahnomen counties, Pathways to Education, White Earth Master Gardeners, Northwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership, White Earth Chemical Dependency Program, Giziibii Resource Conservation & Development and White Earth Biology.

“The tribal council has been very supportive,” noted Stephanie Williams, who first became involved with the group through Project Grow, an initiative begun several years ago to help provide gardens for reservation residents. “About 437 families participated in it,” she said—which proved that there was a definite interest in natural foods and healthier eating. “We started this group on our own, but the tribe saw the benefit of what we were doing and kept me on (to work with the project) full time.”

In addition to growing gardens and foraging for food, seeds and herbs, the group has also formed a natural foods-buying club. About once a month, a member of the club travels to the Blooming Prairie Natural Foods store in Minneapolis to purchase natural foods for everyone in the group, according to member Evelyn Monserud. “If there’s a large enough order the store will deliver (to White Earth),” she added, though Williams noted that a minimum order of $750 is required.

The group has also built about five greenhouses for raising their own natural foods, herbs and flowers. They began planting flowers around the White Earth community about three years ago, as a beautification project. “It’s nice to see that some other people are picking it up and starting to plant flowers on their own,” Kroulik noted.

Some of the group’s activities have included canning and basketry workshops, a maple sugar camp in the spring, and herbal medicine workshops that teach how to identify, prepare and use various herbs for medicinal purposes, Warren said. “The other gardening clubs also invite us to their meetings to share information about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” she added. “Most of us are master gardeners,” Monserud noted.

Though most of the group’s membership comes from the Ojibwe community around White Earth, “we’re looking to get more people involved,” Warren said. “Our meetings are open to anyone who’s interested,” Kroulik added. “Our goal is to get the word out and share the benefits of getting back to a healthier lifestyle with the community. We are keepers of the earth. We need to learn how to take care of the earth; it will always give something back.”

For more information, call Pam Kroulik at (218) 983-4325, Stephanie Williams at (218) 983-3130, or e-mail Williams at mukwa@tvutel.com

Vicki Gerdes is a staff writer/prime life editor for Detroit Lakes Newspapers, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Reprinted with permission of the author. First appeared in the February 16, 2003 edition of the Detroit Lake Newspapers.