Indian Lore Merit Badge

Click here for the official guidelines from the Boy Scouts of America for the Indian Lore Merit Badge.

Native Americans lived off the land and each tribe has had its own ways of doing so over the millennia. In developing your understanding of man’s connection to nature, including his sources of food, studying the various methods and techniques used by Native Americans can be of tremendous value.

While this badge does not specifically relate to self-watering container gardening, it does relate to the issues of food sourcing and sustainability, which are two of the underlying principles of our Learn & Grow programs. By understanding how Native Americans have traditionally lived in harmony with the land, you can better see the relationships among home and community gardening, large-scale commercial agriculture, sustainability, nutrition, and public health issues.

Where an option for this badge is to make and decorate three items used by a specific tribe, consider items used in cultivation, food-gathering, and hunting. For this badge, you can also opt to learn and show how a tribe traditionally cooked or prepared food and make three food items. If you are already building and maintaining a self-watering container garden, as well as working on this badge, consider growing Native American food plants in your garden to supply at least one or some of the ingredients used in the Native American dishes you will prepare for this badge.

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