The Three Sisters
Also known as: Dionhekon, De-o-ha-ko, Our Life Supporters, Corn, Beans, and Squash
Mythological Narrative
The inseparable spirits of corn, beans, and squash, the crops Haudenosaunee farmers plant together, remembered as sisters and thanked as the sustainers of the people.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## Spirits of sustenance
Parker's Seneca material names the spirits of sustenance Dion'he'kon and describes them as the inseparable spirits of the corn, the bean, and the squash, sometimes called the three sisters; the old people, he writes, told of hearing them talk together in the fields where they grow side by side. The planting method itself, corn as a pole for climbing beans with squash spreading over the ground beneath, is the agricultural system of the Haudenosaunee and many other Indigenous nations of the Northeast, and it remains in use.
## Where they come from
Many Haudenosaunee cosmologies connect the three crops with the grave of Sky Woman's daughter, the twins' mother, from whose body the food plants grow; others credit Sapling with making them. Tellings differ on the details.
## Thanked today
The Three Sisters are named in the Thanksgiving Address and honoured in harvest observances; this site mentions those publicly shared practices without describing ceremonial detail.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding The Three Sisters.
You Might Also Like
Centeotl
The Aztec god of maize and sustenance. Centeotl represents the sacred maize plant that sustained Mesoamerican civilization.
Dew Eagle
The great eagle of the upper air in Seneca tradition, who lives above the clouds, gathers dew in its feathers, and watches over the people, coming down when calamity threatens.
Earth Holder
The chief of the Sky World and husband of Sky Woman, who in many tellings uproots the great celestial tree, opening the hole through which she falls.
Flint
The hard-minded twin grandson of Sky Woman, born in a way that costs their mother's life, who in Haudenosaunee tradition shapes the earth's difficult features in contest with his brother Sapling.