"Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation once hosted "The Return of the Rain Seed,” featuring music and dance from India. The tribe has encouraged its high school students to participate in an economics education program called SEED (Savings, Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment). Now the Cherokees are getting to the root of the matter with an heirloom plant project.

Seeds from plant varieties grown by Cherokees for generations are available to tribal members on a limited basis. These are plants cultivated before the Cherokees and other tribes were uprooted to Oklahoma from the eastern United States.

They include corn, gourds, beans and squash, some suitable for eating and others more appropriate for decoration. Unlike hybrid seeds developed by agribusiness conglomerates, these seeds are the outgrowth of original plantings in the days before forced removal."

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Editorial: Seedtime: Cherokees return to their roots (The Oklahoman 3/9)

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