The jungle was inhospitable. We made it hospitable.
They grew lima beans. It was the protein that didn’t run away.
Small bushy annual plants that needed constant tending. It was a perennial vine that grew high in the trees.
During harvest season, it required a huge labor force. The pods twisted open in the dry season. It rained beans from the sky.
They stole the beans from the commons to control. How can you steal from that which is not possible to possess?
They wore armaments and carried vicious weapons. Those were planting tools.
Here is an axe, so sharp and ready
to kill those who dare.That is a mattock. It relieved the tension of our clay soils to accommodate the beans.
Here you see sharp spears ready to pierce.
Three at a time. That is a dibble. We throw three seeds at once. Each of them land in a drill in a row created by our three dibbles.
Look at their helmets they wore so strong. Those are cotyledons protecting the root from washing free of the soil.
Their noses were exposed. That is the radical which is the first root to create the bond between earth and sky.
Their eyes and faces were painted. Nature created the patterns on the skin of the bean. The beans spoke to us. We responded in an honorable way.
Who knows what they were thinking? There were no thoughts. We met at the junction of human and plant consciousness.
Today we experience
the story of a time gone by. Today we experience a time still alive. The beans have left our home feeding hundreds of cultures across all space and time.
This clay vase tells it all. We stored the mother of lima beans in there.
The bean warriors We are not.
Come alive. Talk to the beans.
By Kenneth Asmus
Assault of The Bean Warriors Pot From The Art Institute from Chicago
Moche, North coast of Peru, 100 BCE-500 CE Ancient Portraits in Clay
