Planting by the Moon
Oneida Sound Recording
Description: A joke story about planting told by Jefferson Baird to Dennison Hill and read by Amos Christjohn.
Written text: Internlinear Translation (PDF)
Tip: Save the interlinear translation pdf to your computer and open it in Adobe Acrobat where you can click the lines and phrases to play embedded sound recordings.
English Translation
New Moon
Once there was an Oneida man arrived at the home of a white man somewhere around and they must have known each other since the white man said, “I’m really glad you came by so you can help me plant potatoes.” He said, “Nothing to it. I’ll help you but didn’t you know that it’s not good to plant potatoes and squashes in the new moon?” The white man said, “I didn’t know that since I’ve never heard of anyone planting at night. I plant in the daytime when the time comes for planting.”
More Texts
This traditional Oneida story is one of several. For more, see our listing of Oneida Sample Texts.
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Meet Forrest Brooks, our resident advocate to uplift the Oneida language. As a lifelong learner of Haudenosaunee original ways of thinking, being and doing, he's passionate about sharing Indigenous culture.