07/08/2026
One of the most overlooked yet essential tools in traditional Indigenous agriculture is the planting stick/spade.
The information in qouation and shared here comes from Clayton Brascoupé, a respected mixed Haudenosaunee and Ojibwe traditional gardener, educator, and heirloom seed keeper who has spent decades preserving Indigenous agricultural knowledge.
Using the knowledge, measurements, and observations Clayton generously shared with me, I made my own planting stick from hickory, following the form of the original Six Nations example as closely as possible.
Clayton wrote:
"The original one I saw was at the Museum of Man in Ottawa, Ontario, many years ago. The museum has since moved to Hull (now Gatineau), Québec, and was renamed the Museum of Civilization. The original specimen was labeled a 'spade,' though I have seen similar examples in the Southwest and South America used both for planting and for moving soil. I chose to call the ones I make planting sticks because that's how we've used them in our gardens since the early 1980s.
I obtained a copy of the accession record with the measurements and have reproduced them to the dimensions of the original. The original was made at Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, and, if I remember correctly, was crafted by an Onondaga maker.
The planting sticks I've seen made in Michigan today generally have a more rounded blade than mine. The original had a noticeably squarer blade. The shorter example shown has over 30 years of use and has only worn down a couple of inches despite being made from hard rock maple. The longer one has been in use for about 10 years."
*End Brascoupe qoute*
Early European observers described very similar wooden agricultural implements among the Haudenosaunee and other northeastern peoples.
Father Joseph-François Lafitau (1724) wrote:
"They do not use the plough... all they need is a piece of bent wood three fingers wide, attached to a long handle, which serves them to hoe the earth and stir it lightly."
Father Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1744) likewise described the women's agricultural tool as:
"A bent piece of wood, three fingers wide, fixed to a long handle."
An even earlier account from Gabriel Sagard (1632) describing Huron agriculture notes:
"...they sow their corn thus in the same holes and spots, which they freshen with their little wooden spade, shaped like an ear with a handle at the end."
Together, these early descriptions demonstrate that simple wooden planting and cultivating tools were a fundamental part of Indigenous agriculture long before the widespread adoption of metal implements. Built from durable hardwoods such as maple and hickory, these tools proved remarkably effective.
Many thanks to Clayton Brascoupé for preserving and sharing this important knowledge of traditional Haudenosaunee gardening. It was a privilege to learn from his research and to build my own planting stick based on the original example and the information he so generously provided. Clayton and I have a good symbiotic relationship; he purchases my art, I purchase his garden goods, and we both exchange research and documentation. This is how a good relationship last, Reciprocity
