Farm Tools

Farm Tools
the Sappony Way
by
Kara Stewart
Farm Tools the Sappony Way was written by Kara Stewart, a Sappony
tribal member, for the Sappony tribe. 2006, 2011.
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The Sappony, like many rural people in the southeastern United States,
depended on agriculture, or farming, for a living. Tobacco was the
primary subsistence crop for the Sappony, along with corn and wheat.
The Sappony insignia, found on the cover of this book, features a tobacco
leaf in the center, flanked by corn and wheat. The insignia also includes
seven stars that represent the seven families, or clans, of the Sappony
watched over by God, as do the seven feathers tied together. The three
arrowheads were historically the Sappony trading symbol with the
colonists.
Today, tobacco and other types of farming in the Piedmont region are no
longer economically viable. Tribal members have pursued higher
education, become skilled in a variety of fields, and currently work in
many professions other than farming, including education, medicine,
finance, business and technology.
The farming tools in this book are a valued part of the Sappony heritage
and agricultural history.
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What is this tool and what was it used for?
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This is a corn shucking peg. It was used to shuck (pull husks from) ears
of corn harvested from the fields. Corn was fed to livestock, such as pigs,
cows and horses, and also used to make cornmeal for farming families.
What do you think cornmeal was used for by farming families?
Cornmeal was used as a breading to fry foods, and was used to make corn
muffins, cornbread and other delicious treats!
How was the corn shucking peg used?
The corn shucking peg was held in the hand like this:
so the corn husks could be easily stripped off with the pointed end of the
tool.
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What is this farm tool and what was it used for?
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The photograph shows a plow. Plows were used to till the soil to prepare
it for planting crops like corn, wheat, tobacco, vegetables and other crops.
Plows were pulled by a mule or a horse up and down the fields in long
rows to make furrows for planting.
The mule or horse was hooked to the plow by a singletree (the T-shaped
wooden rod in the front of the plow). Singletrees came in different sizes,
depending on the farmer’s needs. This photograph below shows four
different sizes of singletrees.
Singletrees were attached to the plow with shackles. Depending on
which singletree a farmer needed, either a straight or a crooked shackle
was used to attach the singletree to the plow. The photograph below
shows a straight shackle on the left and a crooked shackle on the right.
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What is this and what was it used for?
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The photograph shows a corn knife. A corn knife was used to cut down
stalks of corn in the fields. The corn stalks with the ears of corn on them
were then placed in a shock, or stack, to cure out (dry out). When the
corn was dry, it was ready to be shucked (have the husks pulled off) with
the shucking peg.
The Sappony hand made corn knives using carved wooden sticks for the
handles, with a metal blade nailed to the stick.
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What was this tool used for?
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This tool was used for tobacco farming. It was used to hold up tobacco
leaves so farmers could put soil around the tobacco stalk without the soil
getting on the leaves. The process of putting soil around tobacco stalk is
called siding up. This tool was used to hold up the lower leaves during
siding up so that soil would not cover up the leaves.
This particular tool in the photograph is over fifty years old and was used
by several generations of Sappony farmers!
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What is this?
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The photograph shows a hand-carved wooden ax handle. Many Sappony
farmers made their own ax handles by carving them from a piece of
wood. A sharp metal ax head, bought from a store, was fitted into the
wide end of the handle.
Axes have long been used all over the world, mostly to chop wood, and
are still widely used today.
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What is this tool and what was it used for?
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This is a wood saw. It was used to saw logs into small pieces for firewood
to use in the home.
Were all Sappony homes heated by firewood?
Yes. Oil wasn’t readily available or affordable, but wood was plentiful and
much less expensive. This was true of most agricultural communities in
southeastern United States, no matter if the people were Indian, White or
African American.
Are Sappony homes heated by firewood today?
A variety of fuel resources, such as natural gas, electricity, oil, and wood
stoves are available to everyone today, including the Sappony.
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What is this tool and what was it used for?
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Although it is not homemade, this bracing bit was used for boring, or
drilling, holes. A bracing bit such as this was used before power tools
such as electric drills were invented.
How was it used?
To use the bracing bit, you held the round end in one hand and cranked
the other handle around and around to make the pointed end screw down
into the wood, drilling a hole.
What do you think farmers might have needed to drill holes in?
Walls of buildings used to be held together by wooden pegs fitted tightly
into holes, not by screws and nails as is done today. Many families built
their own houses and barns using a bracing bit to bore holes for the pegs
to hold the walls together. Holes also needed to be drilled into wooden
boards to make wagon frames and beds. There were many uses for a
bracing bit on a farm!
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What is this?
What did farmers use it for?
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This is a tobacco planter. Tobacco planters like this were in use by
Sappony farmers starting in about the 1930’s. This horse- or mule-drawn
tobacco planter enabled farmers to plant more tobacco faster with two
people dropping plants simultaneously. You can see the two seats and
there is a tray for the plants in front of each seat.
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Now you know about some of the farm tools used by the Sappony. What
do you think it would have been like to be a Sappony farmer?
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