Crops, Our First Wagon

Figure 38Reproduced from sketch by Goodbird. On the left is post newly placed with foliage intact. On the right is post with foliage omitted to show how top was bound down over rails.

Figure 38

Reproduced from sketch by Goodbird. On the left is post newly placed with foliage intact. On the right is post with foliage omitted to show how top was bound down over rails.

This fence was nearly or quite shoulder high to a woman, or about four feet; and the posts were about two feet apart, so that even a traveller going afoot could not squeeze his way between them.

The first wagon owned in my tribe belonged to Had-many-antelopes. My father hired him for a pair of trousers to haul in the corn from our gardens, one year. Had-many-antelopes fetched in three wagon loads from my garden; the field I mean, marked with my name; and three more wagon loads from the fieldA, in Turtle’s garden. From the fieldB, in Turtle’s garden, the family fetched the corn that year, for that field we had planted all to sweet corn; not gummy corn, but corn planted to half-boil and dry, for winter.

When two-fields adjoined the dividing space, or ground that ran between them, we called maạdupatska´; it was always about four feet wide.

The word really means, I think, a raised ridge of earth. We still use the word in this sense. Down by the government school house at Independence, our agent has run a road; and the earth dug out of the roadway has been piled along the side in a low ridge to get rid of it. This ridge, running along the side of the road, we call maạdupatska´.

But the maạdupatska´ dividing two gardens in old times was never raised in a ridge. It was nothing but a four-foot-wide dividing line. Nothing grew on it. Each gardener hoed her half of the maạdupatska´ to keep it clean of grass and weeds. We were particular about this; we did not want to have any weeds in our gardens.

I do not mean that I, for example, was accustomed to hoe exactly one half of the maạdupatska´ that bordered my garden, leaving exactly the other half to my neighbor. I merely hoed as needed, and my neighbor did likewise; but the work was pretty equally divided, each woman recognizing that she should do her share.

Sometimes, however, the owner of a garden would come to her next neighbor and say, “I do not want you to have any hard feelings, nor speak against me; but I want to plant the maạdupatska´ that divides our gardens, in squash;” or instead of squash, she might want to plant it in sunflowers or beans.

Permission being given, she would plant as she had requested; and thereafter, of course, she would hoe all the maạdupatska´, because she had a crop standing on it. But even then the ground would not be hers, and her neighbor might refuse the permission asked.

I have said that it might be asked to plant squash, or beans, or sunflowers. A gardener never asked to plant corn on the maạdupatska´ that bordered her field. Rows of corn hills should be about four feet apart; and as this was the width of the maạdupatska´, even a single row of hills would have crowded the corn; but beans or squashes or sunflowers planted on the maạdupatska´ did not do so.

The first crop on new ground was always the best, though the second was nearly as good. The third year’s crop was not so good; and after that,each year, the crop grew less, until in some seasons, especially in a dry summer, hardly anything was produced.

The owners then stopped cultivating the garden and let it lie for two years; the third year they again planted the garden and found it would yield a good crop as before. During the two years their garden lay fallow, the family owning it would plant their season’s crop elsewhere.

In my father’s family we owned garden lands both on the east and on the west side of the village, as I have told you in explaining the two maps made for you. This made it easy, if need arose, to work one garden while we let the other rest. There were families in the village who owned more fields even, than did my father’s household.

Sometimes when a woman died, her relatives did not trouble themselves to work her garden for a couple of years, but just let it rest; then they would begin planting it again, and the ground was sure to bring forth a good crop. I think our custom of fallowing ground may have arisen in this way. When a woman died leaving a garden, and her relatives did not at once take possession, it was found that a two years’ rest increased the yield; and so the custom of fallowing, perhaps, arose. Every one in the village knew the value of a two years’ fallowing.

Ground that was newly broken produced good crops for a long time. Our family’s west side garden once got to producing very poor crops; and we let it lie untilled for two years. I do not recollect how long it was before we let it rest again.

There was no rule how long we should use land before we fallowed it; nor was there any rule that we should let it rest for just two years. We merely knew that two years’ rest brought a poorly producing field back into good condition.

Sometimes a woman died and her garden was abandoned by her relatives, who perhaps had more land than they could use. For this and other causes, there were always some of the cultivated lands of the village lying vacant. We never had all our fields in use every year; there were always some lying untilled, either for fallowing, or for some other reason.

If a woman died and her relatives did not care to till her garden, it was free to any one who cared to make use of it. However, if a woman desired to take possession of such an abandoned field, it was thought right that she should ask permission of the dead owner’s relatives. Permission might be asked of the dead woman’s son, or daughter, her mother, her husband’s sister, or of the husband himself.

The woman did not wait two years before asking; if she wanted the dead woman’s field, she just went to the relatives and asked for it.

When the owner of a field died, I never heard that her relatives ever sold it; if they did not care to use it themselves, they gave it to some one who did, or let it lie abandoned.

The fields that lay on the west side of our village got frosted more easily than those on the east side. Indeed, our west-side gardens suffered a good deal from frost.

The reason was that the ground along the Missouri was lower on the west side of the village; and fields that lay on lower ground, we knew, were more likely to get frosted than those on higher ground. Gardens on the higher grounds east of the village were seldom touched by frost.

Fields lying on lower ground catch frost more easily than those that lie higher. On a warm day, the ground becomes warmed; but at night cool air comes up out of the ground, and we can see that where it meets the warm air above, it creates a kind of snow [hoar frost].

Also, some days the wind is high; and toward evening it dies down. The hot airs are then sucked down into the ground and cause moisture to rise up out of the ground in steam. Afterwards, if the cool air comes up out of the ground and meets that hot air, it makes a kind of snow on the weeds and corn, killing them. But you can not see this steam until the cold air arises; then it becomes visible.

Did young men work in the fields? (laughing heartily.) Certainly not! The young men should be off hunting, or on a war party; and youths not yet young men should be out guarding the horses. Their duties were elsewhere, also they spent a great deal of time dressing up to be seen of the village maidens; they should not be working in the fields!

But old men, too old to go to war, went out into the fields and helped their wives. It was theirs to plant the corn while the women made the hills; and they also helped pull up weeds.[22]

When their sweethearts were working in the fields, young men often came out and talked to them, and maybe worked a little. However, it was not much real work that they did; they were but seeking a chance to talk, each with his sweetheart.

When the first green corn was plucked, we Indian women often broke off a piece of the stalk and sucked it for the sweet juice it contained. We did this merely for a little taste of sweets in the field; we never took the green stalks home to use as food at our meals.

Did old men do this, you ask? (laughing.) How could they, with their teeth all worn down? Old men could not chew such hard stuff!

No, just women and children did this—sucked the green corn stalks for the juice.

In the early part of the harvest season, when we plucked green corn to boil, we gathered the ears first; afterwards we gathered the green stalks from which the ears had been stripped. These stalks with the leaves on them we fed to our horses, either without the lodge, or inside, in the corral.

We commonly husked our corn, as I have said, out in the fields, piling up the husks in a heap. After the corn was all in, we drove our horses to the field to eat both the standing fodder and the husks that lay heaped near the husking place. Horses readily ate corn fodder, and by the time spring came again, there was little left in the field; not only were the husks devoured, but most of the standing stalks were eaten off nearly or quite to the ground.

Weeds that we cut down in hoeing a field, we let lie on the ground if they were young weeds and bore no seeds nor blossoms, but if the weeds had seeded, we bore them off the garden about fifteen or twenty yards from the cultivated ground and left them to rot.

In olden times we Indian women let no weeds grow in our gardens. I was very particular about keeping my own garden clean all the time.

We never bothered to burn weeds; but in the spring we always cleaned up our fields before planting. We pulled up the stubs of corn stalks and roots, and piled them with the previous year’s bean vines and sunflower stalks, in the middle of the garden and burned them; this was commonly done at the husking place, where the husks had been piled. There was not a great deal of refuse left from the corn crop, however, as the horses had eaten most of it for fodder in the previous fall; but bean vines they would not eat.

I never saw any one fire their corn stalks in the fall. Our yearly clean-up was always in the spring, when every field must be raked and cleaned before planting.

We Hidatsas did not like to have the dung of animals in our fields. The horses we turned into our gardens in the fall dropped dung; and where they did so, we found little worms and insects. We also noted that where dung fell, many kinds of weeds grew up the next year.

We did not like this, and we therefore carefully cleaned off the dried dung, picking it up by hand and throwing it ten feet or more beyond the edge of the garden plot. We did likewise with the droppings of white men’s cattle, after they were brought to us.

The dung of horses and cattle raised sharp thistles, the kind that grows up in a big bush; and mustard, and another plant that has black seeds. These three kinds of weeds came to us with the white man; other weeds we had before, but they were native to our land.

Our corn and other vegetables can not grow on land that has many weeds. Now that white men have come and put manure on their fields, these strange weeds brought by them have become common. In old times we Hidatsas kept our gardens clean of weeds. I think this is harder to do now that we have so many more kinds of weeds.

I do not know that the worms in the manure did any harm to our gardens; but because we thought it bred worms and weeds, we did not like to have any dung on our garden lands; and we therefore removed it.

Our corn, we knew, raised a good many worms. They came out in the ears; it was the corn kernels that became the worms. Wood also became worms. Leaves became worms. All these bred worms of themselves.

I knew also, when I was a young woman, that flies lay eggs, that after a time the eggs move about alive; and that later these put on wings and fly away. Whether all flies do this, I did not know, but I knew that some do.

Many worms appeared in our gardens in some years; in other years they were fewer.

Did buffaloes or deer ever raid our gardens? (laughing.) No. Buffaloes have keen scent, and they could wind an Indian a long way off. While they could smell us Indian people, or the smoke from our village, there was no danger that they would come near to eat our crops.

Antelopes lived out on the plains, in the open country; they never came near our fields.

Rocky Mountain sheep lived in the clay hills, in the very roughest country, where cedar trees and sage brush grow.

Black-tailed deer lived far away in the Bad Lands, in the little round patches of timber that are found there, where the country is very rough. They were not found near our village, nor in such places as those in which we planted our gardens.

White-tailed deer, however, lived in the heavy timber that lines the banks of the Missouri river. A few are still found on this reservation. However, though haunting the woods near our gardens, these deer never molested our crops; they never ate our corn ears nor nibbled the stalks.

I have said that we made the threshing booth under the drying stage of an old tent cover.

Buffalo hides that we wanted to use for making tent covers, were taken in the spring when the buffaloes shed their hair and their skins are thin. The skin tent cover which we then made would be used all that summer; and the next winter, perhaps, we would begin to cut it up for moccasins. The following spring, again, we could take more buffalo hides and make another tent cover.

Not all families renewed a tent so often. Some families used a tent two years, and some even a much longer time; but many families used a tent cover but a single season. It was a very usual thing for the women of a family to make a new tent cover, in the spring.

Old tent covers, as I have said, were cut up for moccasins, or they were put to other uses. There was always a good deal of need about the lodge for skins that had been scraped bare of hair; and the skins in a tent cover were, of course, of this kind. Every bed in the earth lodge, in old times, was covered with an old tent cover.

Skins needed in threshing time were partly of these bed covers, taken down from the beds. Often the piece of an old tent cover from which we had been cutting moccasins would be brought out and used. Then we commonly had other buffalo hides, scraped bare of hair, stored in the lodge, ready for any use.

Buffaloes were plentiful in those days, and skins were easy to get. We had always abundance for use in threshing time.

The government has changed our old way of cultivating corn and our other vegetables, and has brought us seeds of many new vegetables and grains, and taught us their use. We Hidatsas and our friends, the Mandans, have also been removed from our village at Like-a-fishhook bend, and made to take our land in allotments; so that our old agriculture has in a measure fallen into disuse.

I was thirty-three years old when the government first plowed up fields for us; two big fields were broken, one between the village and the agency, and another on the farther side of the agency.

New kinds of seeds were issued to us, oats and wheat; and we were made to plant them in these newly plowed fields. Another field was plowed for us down in the bottom land along the Missouri; and here we were taught to plant potatoes. Each family was given a certain number of rows to plant and cultivate.

At first we Hidatsas did not like potatoes, because they smelled so strongly! Then we sometimes dug up our potatoes and took them into our earth lodges; and when cold weather came, the potatoes were frozen, and spoiled. For these reasons we did not take much interest in our potatoes, and often left them in the ground, not bothering to dig them.

Other seeds were issued to us, of watermelons, big squashes, onions, turnips, and other vegetables. Some of these we tried to eat, but did not like them very well; even the turnips and big squashes, we thought not so good as our own squashes and our wild prairie turnips. Moreover, we did not know how to dry these new vegetables for winter; so we often did not trouble even to harvest them.

The government was eager to teach the Indians to raise potatoes; and to get us women to cultivate them, paid as much as two dollars and a half a day for planting them in the plowed field. I remember I was paid that sum for planting them. After three or four years, finding the Indians did not have much taste for potatoes and rather seldom ate them, our agent made a big cache pit—a root cellar you say it was—and bought our potato crop of us. After this he would issue seed potatoes to us in the spring, and in the fall we would sell our crop to him. Thus, handling potatoes each year, we learned little by little to eat them.

The government also broke up big fields of prairie ground, and had us plant corn in them; but these fields on the prairie near the hills I do not think are so good as our old fields down in the timber lands along the Missouri. The prairie fields get dry easily and the soil is harder and more difficult to work.

Then I think our old way of raising corn is better than the new way taught us by white men. Last year, 1911, our agent held an agricultural fair on this reservation; and we Indians competed for prizes for the best corn. The corn which I sent to the fair took the first prize. I raised it on new ground; the ground had been plowed, but aside from that, I cultivated the corn exactly as in old times, with a hoe.

The first pots, or kettles, of metal that we Hidatsas got were of yellow tin [brass]; the French and the Crees also traded us kettles made of red tin [copper].

As long as we could get our native clay pots, we of my father’s family did not use metal pots much, because the metal made the food taste. When I was a little girl, if any of us went to visit another family, and they gave us food cooked in an iron pot, we knew it at once because we could taste and smell the iron in the food.

I have said that we began cooking food in an iron kettle in my father’s family when I was about eighteen years old; but the great iron kettle that lies in Goodbird’s yard was given us by an Arikara woman before I was born.

Tobacco was cultivated in my tribe only by old men. Our young men did not smoke much; a few did, but most of them used little tobacco, or almost none. They were taught that smoking would injure their lungs and make them short winded so that they would be poor runners. But when a man got to be about sixty years of age we thought it right for him to smoke as much as he liked. His war days and hunting days were over. Old men smoked quite a good deal.

Young men who used tobacco could run; but in a short time they became short of breath, and water, thick like syrup, came up into the mouth. A young man who smoked a great deal, if chased by enemies, could not run to escape from them, and so got killed. For this reason all the young men of my tribe were taught that they should not smoke.

Things have changed greatly since those good days; and now young and old, boys and men, all smoke. They seem to think that the new ways of the white man are right; but I do not. In olden days, we Hidatsas took good care of our bodies, as is not done now.

The old men of my tribe who smoked had each a tobacco garden planted not very far away from our corn fields, but never in the same plot with one. Two of these tobacco gardens were near the village, upon the top of some rising ground; they were owned by two old men, Bad Horn and Bear-looks-up. The earth lodges of these old men stood a little way out of the village, and their tobacco gardens were not far away. Bear-looks-up called my father “brother” and I often visited his lodge.

Tobacco gardens, as I remember them, were almost universal in my tribe when I was five or six years of age; they were still commonly planted when I was twelve years old; but white men had been bringing in their tobacco and selling it at the traders’ stores for some years, and our tobacco gardens were becoming neglected.

As late as when I was sixteen, my father still kept his tobacco garden; but since that day individual gardens have not been kept in my tribe. Instead, just a little space in the vegetable garden is planted with seed if the owner wishes to raise tobacco.

The seed we use is the same that we planted in old times. A big insect that we call the “tobacco blower” used always to be found around ourtobacco gardens; and this insect still appears about the little patches of tobacco that we plant.

The reason that tobacco gardens were planted apart from our vegetable fields in old times was, that the tobacco plants have a strong smell which affects the corn; if tobacco is planted near the corn, the growing corn stalks turn yellow and the corn is not so good. Tobacco plants were therefore kept out of our corn fields. We do not follow this custom now; and I do not think our new way is as good for the corn.

Tobacco seed was planted at the same time sunflower seed was planted.

The owner took a hoe and made soft every foot of the tobacco garden; and with a rake he made the loosened soil level and smooth.

He marked the ground with a stick into rows about eighteen inches apart. He opened a little package of seed, poured the seed into his left palm, and with his right sowed the seed very thickly in the row. He covered the newly sowed seed very lightly with soil which he raked with his hand.

When rain came, and warmth, the seeds sprouted. The seed having been planted thickly, the plants came up thickly, so that they had to be thinned out. The owner of the garden would weed out the weak plants, leaving only the stronger standing.

The earth about each plant was hilled up about it with a buffalo rib, into a little hill like a corn hill. It was a common thing to see an old man working in his tobacco garden with one of these ribs. Young men seldom worked in the tobacco gardens; not using tobacco very much, they cared little about it.

An old man, I remember, named Arrow-head-earring, or Ma´iạ-pokcahec, had a patch of tobacco along the edge of a field on the east side of the village. He was a very old man. He used a big buffalo rib, sharpened on the edge, to work the soil and cultivate his tobacco. He caught the rib in his hands by both ends with the edge downward; and stooping over, he scraped the soil toward him, now and then raising the rib up and loosening the earth with the point at one end—poking up the soil, so to speak.

He wore no shirt as he worked; but he had a buffalo robe about his middle, on which he knelt as he worked.

My father always attended to the planting of his tobacco garden. When the seed sprouted he thinned out the plants, weeded the ground and hilled up the tobacco plants later with his own hands.

Tobacco plants often came up wild from seed dropped by the cultivated plants. These wild plants seemed just as good as the cultivated ones. There seemed little preference between them.

Tobacco plants began to blossom about the middle of June; and picking then began. Tobacco was gathered in two harvests. The first harvest was of these blossoms, which we reckoned the best part of the plant for smoking. Old men were fond of smoking them.

Blossoms were picked regularly every fourth day after the season set in. If we neglected to pick them until the fifth day, the blossoms would begin to seed.

This picking of the blossoms my father often did, but as he was old, and the work was slow and took a long time, my sister and I used to help him.

I well remember how my sister and I used to go out in late summer, when the plants were in bloom, and gather the white blossoms. These I would pluck from the plants, pinching them off with my thumb nail. Picking blossoms was tedious work. The tobacco got into one’s eyes and made them smart just as white men’s onions do to-day.

We picked, as I have said, every fourth day. Only the green part of the blossom was kept. The white part I always threw away; it was of no value.

To receive the blossoms I took a small basket with me to the garden. There were two kinds used; one was the bark basket that we wove, and of which you have specimens; the other kind was made of a buffalo bull’s scrotum, with hair side out.

Such a basket as the latter was a little larger than the crown of a white man’s hat, the hat band being about the same diameter as the rim that we put on the basket. It had the usual band to go over forehead or shoulders. I bore the basket in the usual way on my back; or I could swing it around on my breast when actually picking, thus making it easy to drop the blossoms into it.

More often, however, I took the basket off and set it on the ground when plucking blossoms. I would make a little round place in the soft soil with my hands and set the basket in it, so that it would stand upright. The basket did not collapse, for the skin covering was tough and rigid, not soft.

I often used the scrotum basket also for picking choke-cherries or June berries. It was more convenient when berrying to carry the basket swung around on my breast. Going home with the basket filled with berries, I bore it in the usual way on my back.

My father usually worked with us; and indeed it was to help him, because he was old, that we picked the blossoms at all. It was slow work.I did not expect to gather more than a fourth of a small basketful every four days; and as the blossoms shrunk a good deal in drying, a day’s picking looked rather scant.

When we fetched the blossoms home to the lodge, my father would spread a dry hide on the floor in front of his sacred objects of the Big Birds’ ceremony; they were two skulls and a sacred pipe, wrapped in a bundle and lying on a kind of stand. We regarded these objects as a kind of shrine. Nobody ever walked between the fire and the shrine as that would have been a kind of disrespect to the gods. My father spread the new-plucked blossoms on the hide to dry. Lying here before the shrine, it was certain no one would forget and step on the blossoms.

It took quite a time to dry the blossoms. If the weather was damp and murky for several days, my father, on appearance of the sun again, would move the hide over to a place where the sun shining through the smoke hole, would fall on the blossoms. The smoke hole, being rather large, would let through quite a strong sunbeam, and the drying blossoms were kept directly in the beam.

When the blossoms had quite dried, my father fetched them over near the fireplace, and put them on a small skin, or on a plank. We commonly had planks, or boards, split from cottonwood trunks, lying in the lodge; they had many uses.

My father then took a piece of buffalo fat, thrust it on the end of a stick and roasted it slowly over the coals. This piece of hot fat he touched lightly here and there to the piled-up blossoms, so as to oil them slightly, but not too much. He next moved the skin or board down over the edge of the fire pit, tipping it slightly so that the heat from the fire would strike the blossoms. Here he left them a little while, but watching them all the time. Now and then he would gently stir the pile of blossoms with a little stick, so that the whole mass might be oiled equally.

This done my father took up the blossoms and put them into his tobacco bag. The tobacco bag that we used then was exactly like that used to-day, ornamented with quills or bead work; only in those days old men never bothered to ornament their tobacco bags, just having them plain.

When my father wanted to smoke these dried blossoms, he drew them from his tobacco bag and chopped them fine with a knife, a pipeful at a time. Cured in this way, tobacco blossoms were called ạduatạkidu´cki. They were smoked by old men unmixed.

The blossoms were always dried within the lodge. If dried without, the sun and air took away their strength.

About harvest time, just before frost came, the rest of the plants were gathered—the stems and leaves, I mean, left after the harvesting of theblossoms. My father attended to this. He took no basket, but fetched the plants in his arms.

He dried the plants in the lodge near the place where the cache pit lay. For this he took sticks, about fifteen inches long, and thrust them over the beam between two of the exterior supporting posts, so that the sticks pointed a little upwards. On each of these sticks he hung two or three tobacco plants by thrusting the plants, root up, upon the stick, but without tying them.

When dry, these plants were taken down and put into a bag; or a package was made by folding over them a piece of old tent cover; and the package or bag was stored away in the cache pit.

When the tobacco plants were quite dry, the leaves readily fell off. Leaves that remained on the plants were smoked, of course; but it was the stems that furnished most of the smoking. They were treated like the blossoms, with buffalo fat, before putting into the tobacco pouch; we did not treat tobacco with buffalo fat except as needed for use, and to be put into the tobacco pouch, ready for smoking.

I do not remember that my father ever saved any of the blossoms to store away in the cache pit, as he did the stem, or plant tobacco. Friends and visitors were always coming and going; and when they came into the lodge my father would smoke with them, using the blossoms first, because they were his best tobacco. In this way, the blossoms were used up about as fast as they were gathered.

Before putting the tobacco away in the cache pit, my father was careful to put aside seed for the next year’s planting. He gathered the black seeds into a small bundle about as big as my fingers bunched together, or about the size of a baby’s fist, wrapping them up in a piece of soft skin which he tied with a string. He made two or three of these bundles and tied them to the top of his bed, or to a post near by, where there was no danger of their being disturbed.

We had no way of selecting tobacco seed. We just gathered any seed that was borne on the plants. Of course there were always good and bad seeds in every package; but as the owner of a tobacco garden always planted his seed very thickly, he was able to weed out all the weak plants as they came up, as I have already explained.

A tobacco plant, pulled up and hung up in the lodge, we called o´puti: opi, tobacco, and uti, base, foundation, substantial part.

The Mandans and Arikaras raised tobacco exactly as we did, in little gardens.

We used to sell a good deal of tobacco to the Sioux. They called it Pana´nitachani, or Ree’s tobacco.

A bunch six or seven inches in diameter, bound together, we sold for one tanned hide.

My father’s tobacco garden, when I was a little girl, was somewhat larger than this room; and that, as you measure it, is twenty-one by eighteen feet. I have seen other tobacco gardens planted by old men that measured somewhat larger; but this was about the average size.

If any one went into a tobacco garden and took tobacco without notifying the owner, we said that his hair would fall out; and if any one in the village began to lose his hair, and it kept coming out when he brushed it, we would laugh and say, “Hey, hey, you man! You have been stealing tobacco!”

What? You say you got this tobacco out of Wolf Chief’s garden without asking? (laughing heartily.) Then be sure your hair will fall out when you comb it. Just watch, and see if it doesn’t!

I have said that my father softened the soil of his tobacco garden with a hoe. After the plants began to grow, the hoe was not used, either for cutting the weeds or for hilling up the plants. I have said that the weak plants were culled out by hand, and that the strong plants were hilled up with a buffalo rib.

When I was a little girl every tobacco garden had a willow fence around it.

I remember very well seeing such fences built. Post holes were made by driving a sharp stake into the ground with an ax; the stake was withdrawn, and into the hole left by it, a diamond willow was thrust for a post; on this willow were left all the upper branches with the leaves. A rail was run from the post to its next neighbor, at the height of a woman’s shoulder, and stayed in place by bending over the leafy top of the willow post, and drawing it around the rail, then twisting it down and around the body at the post in a spiral manner. If the leafy top of the post was long enough, and slender enough, it might, after being wrapped spirally about the post, be even drawn out and woven into the fence.

Below the top rail at a convenient distance, there ran a second rail, bound to the post with bark. Besides these rails, branches and twigs, and as I have said, the tops of the posts themselves, were interwoven into the fence to make it as dense as possible.

The posts of the fence stood about two and a half feet apart, making, with the rails and the interwoven twigs, a barrier so dense that even a dog could not push through it.

There was an opening left to enter the garden, closed by a kind of stile—bars of small poles thrust right and left between the posts; against these bars were leaned one or two bull berry bushes, which were removed when the owner wanted to enter.

If a weak place was found in the fence, it was strengthened with a bull berry bush thrust into the ground and leaned against the fence or woven into it.

I have said that we used a basket made of the scrotum of a buffalo bull, for picking tobacco blossoms.

A fresh scrotum was taken, and a rim or hoop of choke-cherry wood was bound around its mouth; choke-cherry limbs are flexible and easily bent. The hoop was sewed in place with sinew passing through the skin and around the hoop spirally.

Figure 39Reproduced from sketch by Goodbird.

Figure 39

Reproduced from sketch by Goodbird.

A thong was bound at either end to opposite sides of the hoop, and the whole was hung upon the drying stage, or at the entrance to the earth lodge in the sun. The skin was then filled with sand until dry, when it was emptied, the thong removed, and a band, or leather handle, was bound on one side of the hoop, at places a few inches apart, and the basket was ready for use.

The scrotum is the toughest part of the buffalo’s hide. When dried it is as hard and rigid as wood.

Figure 39is a sketch by Goodbird showing what the basket was like.

Figure 40

Down in the bottoms along the Missouri near Independence school house are the gardens—now abandoned—used by the neighboring families when they first came to this part of the reservation, about 1886.

The fields are plainly marked in the underbrush and trees from the fact that they are relatively open. Goodbird accompanied me to the several locations and I made maps of the fields, which I include infigure 40. While not accurately surveyed—I had to pace off the distances—the fields are fairly accurately represented by the maps.

Figure 40,I, is a diagram in vertical section of the land surface in which the gardens lie. Toward the right is seen the basin of the Missouri river.

At the extreme left is a bit of the prairie that abuts the foothills. Between are two level terraces, one eighty yards, the other and lower, one hundred and seventy-five yards in width. Four of the gardens lie in the eighty-yard terrace; fieldA, of Small Ankle;Bof Big Foot Bull;Eof Crow’s Breast, andH, a small bit of ground used by the Small Ankle family for a squash garden. GardensCof Small Horn;Dof Leggings;Fof Crow’s Breast; andGof Cedar Woman, lie in the lower and wider terrace.

With one exception the fields are called by the names of the male heads of the families, a custom that probably began at the time allotments were first made.

The relative positions of the fields are not as shown in the figure, except ofAandB, the gardens of Small Ankle and Big Foot Bull. These are separated by a wagon road that descends to the lower terrace, as indicated on the map.

Doubtless the two terraces have been made by over-flow waters. It is likely that both are still subject to overflow at long intervals, especially the lower. The soil is light and sandy, but black and rich. The overflow of the river would seem to suggest that the land would be fertilized by silt deposited upon it; but my Indian informants seem to attach no significance to this. Fields were located near the Missouri “because the soil there is soft and easily worked, and does not become dry and burn up the crops.”

Gilbert L. Wilson.

FOOTNOTES[1]Washington Matthews,Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey.[2]Gilbert L. Wilson,Myths of the Red Children. Ginn and Company, 1907.[3]George H. Pepper and Gilbert L. Wilson,An Hidatsa Shrine and the Beliefs Respecting It. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, 1908.[4]Gilbert L. Wilson,Goodbird, the Indian: His Story. Fleming H. Revell Co. 1914.[5]“In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought up from beneath the ground by the Mandan people.“Now the corn, as we believe, has an enemy—the sun who tries to burn the corn. But at night, when the sun has gone down, the corn has magic power. It is the corn that brings the night moistures—the early morning mist and fog, and the dew—as you can see yourself in the morning from the water dripping from the corn leaves. Thus the corn grows and keeps on until it is ripe.“The sun may scorch the corn and try hard to dry it up, but the corn takes care of itself, bringing the moistures that make the corn, and also the beans, sunflowers, squashes, and tobacco grow.“The corn possesses all this magic power.“When you white people met our Mandan people we gave to the whites the name Maci´, or Waci´, meaning nice people, or pretty people. We called them by this name because they had white faces and wore fine clothes. We said also ‘We will call these people our friends!’ And from that time to this we have never made war on white men.“Our Mandan corn must now be all over the world, for we gave the white men our seeds. And so it seems we Mandans have helped every people. But the seed of our varieties of corn were originally ours.“We know that white men must also have had corn seed, for their corn is different from ours. But all we older folk can tell our native corn from that of white men.”—Wounded Face(Mandan)[6]Corn sucker, i. e., the extra shoot or stem that often springs up from the base of the maize plant.[7]Buffalobird-woman says she planted six to eight kernels to a hill. Just what pattern she used she could not tell until she went out with a handful of seed and planted a few hills to revive her memory. The three patterns shown infigure 7will show how she laid the grains in the bottom of the several hills.—Gilbert L. Wilson[8]“Twice in the corn season were scarecrows used; first, when the corn was just coming up; and again when the grain was forming on the ear and getting ripe.”—Edward Goodbird[9]In August, 1910, Buffalobird-woman related the story of “The Grandson,” in the course of which she said in explanation of reference to a watchers’ stage:“I will now stop a moment to explain something in the other form of this tale.“According to this way of telling it, there was a garden and in the middle of the garden was a tree. There was a platform under the tree made of trunks and slabs; and there those two girls sat to watch the garden and sing watch-garden songs. They did this to make the garden grow, just as people sing to a baby to make it be quiet and feel good. In old times we sang to a garden for a like reason, to make the garden feel good and grow. This custom was one used in every garden. Sometimes one or two women sang.“The singing was begun in the spring and continued until the corn was ripe. We Indians loved our gardens and kept them clean; we did not let weeds grow in them. Always in every garden during the growing season, there would be some one working or singing.“Now in old times, many of our gardens had resting stages, or watchers’ stages, such as I have just described. We always made our gardens down in the woods by the river, because there is better ground there. When we cut off the timber we would often leave one tree standing in the garden. Under this tree were erected four forked posts, on which was laid a platform. This made the stage; in the tree overhead we often spread robes and blankets for shade.“This resting stage was small. It was just big enough for two persons to sit on comfortably. Corn was never dried on it; it was used for a singing and resting place only. It was reached by a ladder. Its height was about four and a half feet high.“This resting stage or watchers’ stage was built on the north side of the tree so that the shade of the tree would fall upon it. Robes were laid on the floor of the stage to make a couch or bed. Sometimes people even slept on this platform—sometimes a man and his wife slept there.“This resting stage we used to rest on after working in the garden; and to sing here the songs that we sang at this season of the year, and which I have called watch-garden songs. A place to cook in was not far away on the edge of the garden. It was a kind of booth, or bower. With a stake we made holes in the ground in a circle, and into the holes thrust willows. The tops of these willows we bent toward the center and joined together to make a bower. Over the top we threw a robe. We built a fire beneath to cook by.“Our gardens I am describing were those at Like-a-fishhook village; and they were on the Missouri on either side of the village. They were strung along the river bank for a mile or more on either side of the village.”[10]In redrawing Goodbird’s sketch this calf-skin has been omitted, that the construction of the stage floor might be shown.[11]“My wife is drying half-boiled corn on the ear this year. This way we find makes the dried corn sweeter, but takes longer to dry it. We cook it in winter by dropping the ear, cob and all, into the pot. This method of drying corn was known also in old times.”—Edward Goodbird[12]Buffalobird-woman means that the buskers arrived in the fields in the morning to begin the day’s labors. More than one corn pile might be husked in a single day.—Gilbert L. Wilson[13]Water Chief having strolled into the cabin while Buffalobird-woman was dictating, here interrupted with the following:“The owner of a field would come and notify the crier of some society, as the Fox or Dog society, or some other. The crier would go on the roof of the society’s lodge and call, ‘All you of the Fox society come hither; they want you to husk. When you all get here, we will go to that one’s garden and husk the corn!’“We young men of the society all gathered together and marched to the field to which we were bidden. In old times we took our guns with us, for the Sioux might come up to attack us. As we approached the field we began to sing, that the girls might hear us. We knew that our sweethearts would take notice of our singing. The girls themselves did not sing.“At the corn pile in each garden would be the woman owner and maybe two or three girls. On our way to some field, if we passed through other fields with corn piles at which were girls, each young man looked to see if his sweetheart was there; and if he saw her he would yell, expecting that she would recognise his voice.“Sometimes two societies husked at one corn pile. Any of the societies might be asked. If the pile was too big for one society, another society was asked, if the owner could afford the food for the feast.“Different societies would be husking in different gardens all at the same time.“Sometimes a group of young men belonging to different societies were asked to come and husk. This was chiefly at small gardens; the societies were usually asked to come and husk the big corn piles of the larger gardens.“If a society went early, they got through just after midday. By early I mean nine o’clock in the morning.“When we had finished husking one pile, we went to another. We worked late, by moonlight, even.“Some man of the family and his wife would be out all night and watch by the corn if they had not gotten all the husked ears borne in to the village. Also while the pile awaited husking watchers stayed by to protect against horses.”[14]“Corn in old times was gathered in September. A basket was carried on the back and the corn was tossed into it over the shoulder, or the basket was set on the ground and filled. This work was done by the women. The corn having been plucked, the owner of the field notified people what food she wanted to serve—meat or boiled corn-and-beans—and young men came to husk the corn. A pile might be three or four feet high and twenty feet long. The men huskers sat on one side of the pile and the women on the other. The big ears were strung in braids. A braid was long enough to reach from the thigh around under the foot and up again to the other side of the thigh. A husker would try the newly made braid with his foot as he held the ends in his hands. Unless this was done a weak place in the string might escape notice and the braid break, and all the others would then laugh.“Small ears were tossed into one place. Four or five women would carry off these ears in baskets; they bore the filled baskets right up the ladder to the top of the drying stage. The braided strings were often borne home on the backs of ponies, ten strings on a pony. They were hung like dead snakes on the railings above the floor of the stage to dry.“Boys and young men went to the husking bees because of the fun to be had; they wanted to see the girls!”—Edward Goodbird(related in 1909).[15]“Sometimes for fun we lads used to take long poles with nooses on the end and snare off one ear of a braid of corn as it hung drying; for the braids were soft when fresh. An ear broken off, we would run off and make a fire and parch the corn. This was when we were little fellows, ten or eleven years old. The owner would run after us, and if he caught one of us, whipped him. However, this was our custom; and the owner and the boy’s father both looked upon it as a kind of lark, and not anything very serious.”—Edward Goodbird[16]In 1910 Buffalobird-woman gave an interesting and detailed account of the making of a clay pot. A newly made pot, she explained, was rubbed over with boiled pounded-corn meal; and she added this rather humorous variation of the recipe above:“This mush, or boiled, pounded-corn meal was made thus:“A clay pot was three-quarters filled with water and put on the fire to boil. Meanwhile, twelve double handfuls of corn were pounded in the corn mortar; usually we pounded three or four double handfuls at a time. This began after breakfast; it was work and made us women sweat. The corn was hard, ripe corn, yellow or white.“These twelve double handfuls were thrown into the pot of now boiling water, and boiled for half an hour. As there was no grease in the pot, we had to stir the contents with a smooth stick to keep from sticking.“As the corn boiled a scummy substance would rise to the top. To this the woman cooking would touch the point of her horn spoon, and carry it to her tongue and lick it off. When she could taste that it was sticky enough, she knew that it was time to add beans. It took, as I have said, about half an hour for the corn to boil to this point.“She now added some spring salt. This is alkaline salt which we gathered about the mouth of springs. It was white. The woman put some of this salt in a cup and made a strong liquor—in old times instead of a cup she used a horn spoon. She now added the salt liquor to the mess. It took about enough of this white salt to make a heaping tablespoonful to one pot of this corn mess. As the salt liquor was poured into the pot, the woman held her hand over the mouth of the cup, so that if any pieces of grass or other refuse were in it, they would be strained out by her fingers.“The corn when it is pounded does not pound evenly; and so when it was put into the pot, the finer part of the meal was cooked first. This rose to the top, and in old times was skimmed off. The coarser parts of the meal took longer to cook; but the skimmed-off part, when the other was done, was poured back into the pot again.“When the pounded corn meal had now all cooked and the salt had been added, the beans were put in—red, spotted, black, or shield-figured, we did not have white beans in very old times; they were brought in by white men. The pot was now let boil until the beans were done. Beans were always added to the pot.“A pot of corn meal and beans was [almost] always on the fire in the lodge. The boys of the lodge liked to come around when the corn was cooking and dip horn spoons into the thick, rising liquor, and lick it off as I have described the woman doing as she cooked.“It was this sticky, rising liquor taken off the boiling corn to keep and return to it, that was used to rub over a newly made pot. When this was done, the pot was ready to boil corn in.“After using a pot, it was usually rubbed over with the residue of the boiled corn meal, or mush, because this made the pot look better and last longer.“The skimmed-off liquor from a pot of boiling corn meal was also fed to a baby whose mother had died, and whose family could not hire a woman to nurse it.”[17]Measuring from center of corn hill to center of next corn hill.—G. L. W.[18]“I have raised white beans mostly of late years because it is easier to sell them to white men. This summer, however (1913), I planted several acres also to other kinds of our Hidatsa beans, red, black, spotted.“I find that the black beans have yielded best, next the red, then the spotted, last of all the white. I have observed before that this is true; that black beans yield the most.”—Wolf Chief[19]Slough grass, a species of Spartina.[20]Buffalobird-woman here means a three-section stage. A stage of four sections would be forty feet or more in length.—G. L. W.[21]“The first that rakes are mentioned in the stories of my tribe so far as I know, is in the tale of ‘The Grandson.’ There is a little lake down near Short River where lived an old magic woman, whom we call Old-woman-who-never-dies. There is a level piece of ground near by, about five miles long by one and a half mile wide. This flat land was the garden of Old-woman-who-never-dies. Her servants were the deer that thronged the near-by timber. These deer worked her garden for her. All buck deer have horns; and with their horns the deer raked up the weeds and refuse of Old-woman-who-never-dies’s garden.“Now deer shed their horns. Old-woman-who-never-dies got these shed horns and bound them on sticks and so we got our first rakes. Her grandson saw what she did and afterwards taught the people to make rakes also.“In later times we learned to make rakes of ash wood instead of horns; but we still reckon the teeth to mean the tines of a deer’s antler. Sometimes deer have six, sometimes seven tines on an antler. So we make our ash rakes, some with six, some with seven teeth.“If the Grandson had not seen what his grandmother did, we Hidatsas would never have known how to make rakes, either of horn or of ash wood.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).[22]“In my tribe in old times, some men helped their wives in their gardens. Others did not. Those who did not help their wives talked against those who did, saying, ‘That man’s wife makes him her servant!’“And the others retorted, ‘Look, that man puts all the hard work on his wife!’“Men were not alike; some did not like to work in the garden at all, and cared for nothing but to go around visiting or to be off on a hunt.“My father, Small Ankle, liked to garden and often helped his wives. He told me that that was the best way to do. ‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘help your wife in all things!’ He taught me to clean the garden, to help gather the corn, to hoe, and to rake.“My father said that that man lived best and had plenty to eat who helped his wife. One who did not help his wife was likely to have scanty stores of food.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).

[1]Washington Matthews,Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey.

[2]Gilbert L. Wilson,Myths of the Red Children. Ginn and Company, 1907.

[3]George H. Pepper and Gilbert L. Wilson,An Hidatsa Shrine and the Beliefs Respecting It. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, 1908.

[4]Gilbert L. Wilson,Goodbird, the Indian: His Story. Fleming H. Revell Co. 1914.

[5]“In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought up from beneath the ground by the Mandan people.“Now the corn, as we believe, has an enemy—the sun who tries to burn the corn. But at night, when the sun has gone down, the corn has magic power. It is the corn that brings the night moistures—the early morning mist and fog, and the dew—as you can see yourself in the morning from the water dripping from the corn leaves. Thus the corn grows and keeps on until it is ripe.“The sun may scorch the corn and try hard to dry it up, but the corn takes care of itself, bringing the moistures that make the corn, and also the beans, sunflowers, squashes, and tobacco grow.“The corn possesses all this magic power.“When you white people met our Mandan people we gave to the whites the name Maci´, or Waci´, meaning nice people, or pretty people. We called them by this name because they had white faces and wore fine clothes. We said also ‘We will call these people our friends!’ And from that time to this we have never made war on white men.“Our Mandan corn must now be all over the world, for we gave the white men our seeds. And so it seems we Mandans have helped every people. But the seed of our varieties of corn were originally ours.“We know that white men must also have had corn seed, for their corn is different from ours. But all we older folk can tell our native corn from that of white men.”—Wounded Face(Mandan)

[5]“In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought up from beneath the ground by the Mandan people.

“Now the corn, as we believe, has an enemy—the sun who tries to burn the corn. But at night, when the sun has gone down, the corn has magic power. It is the corn that brings the night moistures—the early morning mist and fog, and the dew—as you can see yourself in the morning from the water dripping from the corn leaves. Thus the corn grows and keeps on until it is ripe.

“The sun may scorch the corn and try hard to dry it up, but the corn takes care of itself, bringing the moistures that make the corn, and also the beans, sunflowers, squashes, and tobacco grow.

“The corn possesses all this magic power.

“When you white people met our Mandan people we gave to the whites the name Maci´, or Waci´, meaning nice people, or pretty people. We called them by this name because they had white faces and wore fine clothes. We said also ‘We will call these people our friends!’ And from that time to this we have never made war on white men.

“Our Mandan corn must now be all over the world, for we gave the white men our seeds. And so it seems we Mandans have helped every people. But the seed of our varieties of corn were originally ours.

“We know that white men must also have had corn seed, for their corn is different from ours. But all we older folk can tell our native corn from that of white men.”—Wounded Face(Mandan)

[6]Corn sucker, i. e., the extra shoot or stem that often springs up from the base of the maize plant.

[7]Buffalobird-woman says she planted six to eight kernels to a hill. Just what pattern she used she could not tell until she went out with a handful of seed and planted a few hills to revive her memory. The three patterns shown infigure 7will show how she laid the grains in the bottom of the several hills.—Gilbert L. Wilson

[8]“Twice in the corn season were scarecrows used; first, when the corn was just coming up; and again when the grain was forming on the ear and getting ripe.”—Edward Goodbird

[9]In August, 1910, Buffalobird-woman related the story of “The Grandson,” in the course of which she said in explanation of reference to a watchers’ stage:“I will now stop a moment to explain something in the other form of this tale.“According to this way of telling it, there was a garden and in the middle of the garden was a tree. There was a platform under the tree made of trunks and slabs; and there those two girls sat to watch the garden and sing watch-garden songs. They did this to make the garden grow, just as people sing to a baby to make it be quiet and feel good. In old times we sang to a garden for a like reason, to make the garden feel good and grow. This custom was one used in every garden. Sometimes one or two women sang.“The singing was begun in the spring and continued until the corn was ripe. We Indians loved our gardens and kept them clean; we did not let weeds grow in them. Always in every garden during the growing season, there would be some one working or singing.“Now in old times, many of our gardens had resting stages, or watchers’ stages, such as I have just described. We always made our gardens down in the woods by the river, because there is better ground there. When we cut off the timber we would often leave one tree standing in the garden. Under this tree were erected four forked posts, on which was laid a platform. This made the stage; in the tree overhead we often spread robes and blankets for shade.“This resting stage was small. It was just big enough for two persons to sit on comfortably. Corn was never dried on it; it was used for a singing and resting place only. It was reached by a ladder. Its height was about four and a half feet high.“This resting stage or watchers’ stage was built on the north side of the tree so that the shade of the tree would fall upon it. Robes were laid on the floor of the stage to make a couch or bed. Sometimes people even slept on this platform—sometimes a man and his wife slept there.“This resting stage we used to rest on after working in the garden; and to sing here the songs that we sang at this season of the year, and which I have called watch-garden songs. A place to cook in was not far away on the edge of the garden. It was a kind of booth, or bower. With a stake we made holes in the ground in a circle, and into the holes thrust willows. The tops of these willows we bent toward the center and joined together to make a bower. Over the top we threw a robe. We built a fire beneath to cook by.“Our gardens I am describing were those at Like-a-fishhook village; and they were on the Missouri on either side of the village. They were strung along the river bank for a mile or more on either side of the village.”

[9]In August, 1910, Buffalobird-woman related the story of “The Grandson,” in the course of which she said in explanation of reference to a watchers’ stage:

“I will now stop a moment to explain something in the other form of this tale.

“According to this way of telling it, there was a garden and in the middle of the garden was a tree. There was a platform under the tree made of trunks and slabs; and there those two girls sat to watch the garden and sing watch-garden songs. They did this to make the garden grow, just as people sing to a baby to make it be quiet and feel good. In old times we sang to a garden for a like reason, to make the garden feel good and grow. This custom was one used in every garden. Sometimes one or two women sang.

“The singing was begun in the spring and continued until the corn was ripe. We Indians loved our gardens and kept them clean; we did not let weeds grow in them. Always in every garden during the growing season, there would be some one working or singing.

“Now in old times, many of our gardens had resting stages, or watchers’ stages, such as I have just described. We always made our gardens down in the woods by the river, because there is better ground there. When we cut off the timber we would often leave one tree standing in the garden. Under this tree were erected four forked posts, on which was laid a platform. This made the stage; in the tree overhead we often spread robes and blankets for shade.

“This resting stage was small. It was just big enough for two persons to sit on comfortably. Corn was never dried on it; it was used for a singing and resting place only. It was reached by a ladder. Its height was about four and a half feet high.

“This resting stage or watchers’ stage was built on the north side of the tree so that the shade of the tree would fall upon it. Robes were laid on the floor of the stage to make a couch or bed. Sometimes people even slept on this platform—sometimes a man and his wife slept there.

“This resting stage we used to rest on after working in the garden; and to sing here the songs that we sang at this season of the year, and which I have called watch-garden songs. A place to cook in was not far away on the edge of the garden. It was a kind of booth, or bower. With a stake we made holes in the ground in a circle, and into the holes thrust willows. The tops of these willows we bent toward the center and joined together to make a bower. Over the top we threw a robe. We built a fire beneath to cook by.

“Our gardens I am describing were those at Like-a-fishhook village; and they were on the Missouri on either side of the village. They were strung along the river bank for a mile or more on either side of the village.”

[10]In redrawing Goodbird’s sketch this calf-skin has been omitted, that the construction of the stage floor might be shown.

[11]“My wife is drying half-boiled corn on the ear this year. This way we find makes the dried corn sweeter, but takes longer to dry it. We cook it in winter by dropping the ear, cob and all, into the pot. This method of drying corn was known also in old times.”—Edward Goodbird

[12]Buffalobird-woman means that the buskers arrived in the fields in the morning to begin the day’s labors. More than one corn pile might be husked in a single day.—Gilbert L. Wilson

[13]Water Chief having strolled into the cabin while Buffalobird-woman was dictating, here interrupted with the following:“The owner of a field would come and notify the crier of some society, as the Fox or Dog society, or some other. The crier would go on the roof of the society’s lodge and call, ‘All you of the Fox society come hither; they want you to husk. When you all get here, we will go to that one’s garden and husk the corn!’“We young men of the society all gathered together and marched to the field to which we were bidden. In old times we took our guns with us, for the Sioux might come up to attack us. As we approached the field we began to sing, that the girls might hear us. We knew that our sweethearts would take notice of our singing. The girls themselves did not sing.“At the corn pile in each garden would be the woman owner and maybe two or three girls. On our way to some field, if we passed through other fields with corn piles at which were girls, each young man looked to see if his sweetheart was there; and if he saw her he would yell, expecting that she would recognise his voice.“Sometimes two societies husked at one corn pile. Any of the societies might be asked. If the pile was too big for one society, another society was asked, if the owner could afford the food for the feast.“Different societies would be husking in different gardens all at the same time.“Sometimes a group of young men belonging to different societies were asked to come and husk. This was chiefly at small gardens; the societies were usually asked to come and husk the big corn piles of the larger gardens.“If a society went early, they got through just after midday. By early I mean nine o’clock in the morning.“When we had finished husking one pile, we went to another. We worked late, by moonlight, even.“Some man of the family and his wife would be out all night and watch by the corn if they had not gotten all the husked ears borne in to the village. Also while the pile awaited husking watchers stayed by to protect against horses.”

[13]Water Chief having strolled into the cabin while Buffalobird-woman was dictating, here interrupted with the following:

“The owner of a field would come and notify the crier of some society, as the Fox or Dog society, or some other. The crier would go on the roof of the society’s lodge and call, ‘All you of the Fox society come hither; they want you to husk. When you all get here, we will go to that one’s garden and husk the corn!’

“We young men of the society all gathered together and marched to the field to which we were bidden. In old times we took our guns with us, for the Sioux might come up to attack us. As we approached the field we began to sing, that the girls might hear us. We knew that our sweethearts would take notice of our singing. The girls themselves did not sing.

“At the corn pile in each garden would be the woman owner and maybe two or three girls. On our way to some field, if we passed through other fields with corn piles at which were girls, each young man looked to see if his sweetheart was there; and if he saw her he would yell, expecting that she would recognise his voice.

“Sometimes two societies husked at one corn pile. Any of the societies might be asked. If the pile was too big for one society, another society was asked, if the owner could afford the food for the feast.

“Different societies would be husking in different gardens all at the same time.

“Sometimes a group of young men belonging to different societies were asked to come and husk. This was chiefly at small gardens; the societies were usually asked to come and husk the big corn piles of the larger gardens.

“If a society went early, they got through just after midday. By early I mean nine o’clock in the morning.

“When we had finished husking one pile, we went to another. We worked late, by moonlight, even.

“Some man of the family and his wife would be out all night and watch by the corn if they had not gotten all the husked ears borne in to the village. Also while the pile awaited husking watchers stayed by to protect against horses.”

[14]“Corn in old times was gathered in September. A basket was carried on the back and the corn was tossed into it over the shoulder, or the basket was set on the ground and filled. This work was done by the women. The corn having been plucked, the owner of the field notified people what food she wanted to serve—meat or boiled corn-and-beans—and young men came to husk the corn. A pile might be three or four feet high and twenty feet long. The men huskers sat on one side of the pile and the women on the other. The big ears were strung in braids. A braid was long enough to reach from the thigh around under the foot and up again to the other side of the thigh. A husker would try the newly made braid with his foot as he held the ends in his hands. Unless this was done a weak place in the string might escape notice and the braid break, and all the others would then laugh.“Small ears were tossed into one place. Four or five women would carry off these ears in baskets; they bore the filled baskets right up the ladder to the top of the drying stage. The braided strings were often borne home on the backs of ponies, ten strings on a pony. They were hung like dead snakes on the railings above the floor of the stage to dry.“Boys and young men went to the husking bees because of the fun to be had; they wanted to see the girls!”—Edward Goodbird(related in 1909).

“Small ears were tossed into one place. Four or five women would carry off these ears in baskets; they bore the filled baskets right up the ladder to the top of the drying stage. The braided strings were often borne home on the backs of ponies, ten strings on a pony. They were hung like dead snakes on the railings above the floor of the stage to dry.

“Boys and young men went to the husking bees because of the fun to be had; they wanted to see the girls!”—Edward Goodbird(related in 1909).

[15]“Sometimes for fun we lads used to take long poles with nooses on the end and snare off one ear of a braid of corn as it hung drying; for the braids were soft when fresh. An ear broken off, we would run off and make a fire and parch the corn. This was when we were little fellows, ten or eleven years old. The owner would run after us, and if he caught one of us, whipped him. However, this was our custom; and the owner and the boy’s father both looked upon it as a kind of lark, and not anything very serious.”—Edward Goodbird

[16]In 1910 Buffalobird-woman gave an interesting and detailed account of the making of a clay pot. A newly made pot, she explained, was rubbed over with boiled pounded-corn meal; and she added this rather humorous variation of the recipe above:“This mush, or boiled, pounded-corn meal was made thus:“A clay pot was three-quarters filled with water and put on the fire to boil. Meanwhile, twelve double handfuls of corn were pounded in the corn mortar; usually we pounded three or four double handfuls at a time. This began after breakfast; it was work and made us women sweat. The corn was hard, ripe corn, yellow or white.“These twelve double handfuls were thrown into the pot of now boiling water, and boiled for half an hour. As there was no grease in the pot, we had to stir the contents with a smooth stick to keep from sticking.“As the corn boiled a scummy substance would rise to the top. To this the woman cooking would touch the point of her horn spoon, and carry it to her tongue and lick it off. When she could taste that it was sticky enough, she knew that it was time to add beans. It took, as I have said, about half an hour for the corn to boil to this point.“She now added some spring salt. This is alkaline salt which we gathered about the mouth of springs. It was white. The woman put some of this salt in a cup and made a strong liquor—in old times instead of a cup she used a horn spoon. She now added the salt liquor to the mess. It took about enough of this white salt to make a heaping tablespoonful to one pot of this corn mess. As the salt liquor was poured into the pot, the woman held her hand over the mouth of the cup, so that if any pieces of grass or other refuse were in it, they would be strained out by her fingers.“The corn when it is pounded does not pound evenly; and so when it was put into the pot, the finer part of the meal was cooked first. This rose to the top, and in old times was skimmed off. The coarser parts of the meal took longer to cook; but the skimmed-off part, when the other was done, was poured back into the pot again.“When the pounded corn meal had now all cooked and the salt had been added, the beans were put in—red, spotted, black, or shield-figured, we did not have white beans in very old times; they were brought in by white men. The pot was now let boil until the beans were done. Beans were always added to the pot.“A pot of corn meal and beans was [almost] always on the fire in the lodge. The boys of the lodge liked to come around when the corn was cooking and dip horn spoons into the thick, rising liquor, and lick it off as I have described the woman doing as she cooked.“It was this sticky, rising liquor taken off the boiling corn to keep and return to it, that was used to rub over a newly made pot. When this was done, the pot was ready to boil corn in.“After using a pot, it was usually rubbed over with the residue of the boiled corn meal, or mush, because this made the pot look better and last longer.“The skimmed-off liquor from a pot of boiling corn meal was also fed to a baby whose mother had died, and whose family could not hire a woman to nurse it.”

“This mush, or boiled, pounded-corn meal was made thus:

“A clay pot was three-quarters filled with water and put on the fire to boil. Meanwhile, twelve double handfuls of corn were pounded in the corn mortar; usually we pounded three or four double handfuls at a time. This began after breakfast; it was work and made us women sweat. The corn was hard, ripe corn, yellow or white.

“These twelve double handfuls were thrown into the pot of now boiling water, and boiled for half an hour. As there was no grease in the pot, we had to stir the contents with a smooth stick to keep from sticking.

“As the corn boiled a scummy substance would rise to the top. To this the woman cooking would touch the point of her horn spoon, and carry it to her tongue and lick it off. When she could taste that it was sticky enough, she knew that it was time to add beans. It took, as I have said, about half an hour for the corn to boil to this point.

“She now added some spring salt. This is alkaline salt which we gathered about the mouth of springs. It was white. The woman put some of this salt in a cup and made a strong liquor—in old times instead of a cup she used a horn spoon. She now added the salt liquor to the mess. It took about enough of this white salt to make a heaping tablespoonful to one pot of this corn mess. As the salt liquor was poured into the pot, the woman held her hand over the mouth of the cup, so that if any pieces of grass or other refuse were in it, they would be strained out by her fingers.

“The corn when it is pounded does not pound evenly; and so when it was put into the pot, the finer part of the meal was cooked first. This rose to the top, and in old times was skimmed off. The coarser parts of the meal took longer to cook; but the skimmed-off part, when the other was done, was poured back into the pot again.

“When the pounded corn meal had now all cooked and the salt had been added, the beans were put in—red, spotted, black, or shield-figured, we did not have white beans in very old times; they were brought in by white men. The pot was now let boil until the beans were done. Beans were always added to the pot.

“A pot of corn meal and beans was [almost] always on the fire in the lodge. The boys of the lodge liked to come around when the corn was cooking and dip horn spoons into the thick, rising liquor, and lick it off as I have described the woman doing as she cooked.

“It was this sticky, rising liquor taken off the boiling corn to keep and return to it, that was used to rub over a newly made pot. When this was done, the pot was ready to boil corn in.

“After using a pot, it was usually rubbed over with the residue of the boiled corn meal, or mush, because this made the pot look better and last longer.

“The skimmed-off liquor from a pot of boiling corn meal was also fed to a baby whose mother had died, and whose family could not hire a woman to nurse it.”

[17]Measuring from center of corn hill to center of next corn hill.—G. L. W.

[18]“I have raised white beans mostly of late years because it is easier to sell them to white men. This summer, however (1913), I planted several acres also to other kinds of our Hidatsa beans, red, black, spotted.“I find that the black beans have yielded best, next the red, then the spotted, last of all the white. I have observed before that this is true; that black beans yield the most.”—Wolf Chief

“I find that the black beans have yielded best, next the red, then the spotted, last of all the white. I have observed before that this is true; that black beans yield the most.”—Wolf Chief

[19]Slough grass, a species of Spartina.

[20]Buffalobird-woman here means a three-section stage. A stage of four sections would be forty feet or more in length.—G. L. W.

[21]“The first that rakes are mentioned in the stories of my tribe so far as I know, is in the tale of ‘The Grandson.’ There is a little lake down near Short River where lived an old magic woman, whom we call Old-woman-who-never-dies. There is a level piece of ground near by, about five miles long by one and a half mile wide. This flat land was the garden of Old-woman-who-never-dies. Her servants were the deer that thronged the near-by timber. These deer worked her garden for her. All buck deer have horns; and with their horns the deer raked up the weeds and refuse of Old-woman-who-never-dies’s garden.“Now deer shed their horns. Old-woman-who-never-dies got these shed horns and bound them on sticks and so we got our first rakes. Her grandson saw what she did and afterwards taught the people to make rakes also.“In later times we learned to make rakes of ash wood instead of horns; but we still reckon the teeth to mean the tines of a deer’s antler. Sometimes deer have six, sometimes seven tines on an antler. So we make our ash rakes, some with six, some with seven teeth.“If the Grandson had not seen what his grandmother did, we Hidatsas would never have known how to make rakes, either of horn or of ash wood.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).

“Now deer shed their horns. Old-woman-who-never-dies got these shed horns and bound them on sticks and so we got our first rakes. Her grandson saw what she did and afterwards taught the people to make rakes also.

“In later times we learned to make rakes of ash wood instead of horns; but we still reckon the teeth to mean the tines of a deer’s antler. Sometimes deer have six, sometimes seven tines on an antler. So we make our ash rakes, some with six, some with seven teeth.

“If the Grandson had not seen what his grandmother did, we Hidatsas would never have known how to make rakes, either of horn or of ash wood.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).

[22]“In my tribe in old times, some men helped their wives in their gardens. Others did not. Those who did not help their wives talked against those who did, saying, ‘That man’s wife makes him her servant!’“And the others retorted, ‘Look, that man puts all the hard work on his wife!’“Men were not alike; some did not like to work in the garden at all, and cared for nothing but to go around visiting or to be off on a hunt.“My father, Small Ankle, liked to garden and often helped his wives. He told me that that was the best way to do. ‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘help your wife in all things!’ He taught me to clean the garden, to help gather the corn, to hoe, and to rake.“My father said that that man lived best and had plenty to eat who helped his wife. One who did not help his wife was likely to have scanty stores of food.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).

“And the others retorted, ‘Look, that man puts all the hard work on his wife!’

“Men were not alike; some did not like to work in the garden at all, and cared for nothing but to go around visiting or to be off on a hunt.

“My father, Small Ankle, liked to garden and often helped his wives. He told me that that was the best way to do. ‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘help your wife in all things!’ He taught me to clean the garden, to help gather the corn, to hoe, and to rake.

“My father said that that man lived best and had plenty to eat who helped his wife. One who did not help his wife was likely to have scanty stores of food.”—Wolf Chief(told in 1910).

1.Herbert G. Lampson, A Study on the Spread of Tuberculosis in Families. 1913. $0.50.

2.Julius V. Hofman, The Importance of Seed Characteristics in the Natural Reproduction of Coniferous Forests. In press.

1.Esther L. Swenson, An Inquiry into the Composition and Structure ofLudus Coventriae;Hardin Craig, Note on the Home ofLudus Coventriae. 1914. $0.50.

2.Elmer Edgar Stoll,Othello: An Historical and Comparative Study. 1915. $0.50.

3.Colbert Searles,Les Sentiments de l’Académie Française sur le Cid: Edition of the Text, with an Introduction. 1916. $1.00.

4.Paul Edward Kretzmann, The Liturgical Element in the Earliest Forms of the Medieval Drama. 1916. $1.00.

5.Arthur Jerrold Tieje, The Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction prior to 1740. 1916. $0.75.

1.William Anderson, The Work of Public Service Commissions. 1913. $0.15.

2.Benjamin F. Pittenger, Rural Teachers’ Training Departments in Minnesota High Schools. 1914. $0.15.

3.Gerhard A. Gesell, Minnesota Public Utility Rates. 1914. $0.25.

4.L. D. H. Weld, Social and Economic Survey of a Community in the Red River Valley. 1915. $0.25.

5.Gustav P. Warber, Social and Economic Survey of a Community in Northeastern Minnesota. 1915. $0.25.

6.Joseph B. Pike, Bulletin for Teachers of Latin. 1915. $0.25.

7.August C. Krey, Bulletin for Teachers of History. 1915. $0.25.

8.Carl Schlenker, Bulletin for Teachers of German. 1916. $0.25.

9.William Watts Folwell, Economic Addresses. In press.

Back to Index Next