Figure 6Drawn from specimens in author’s collection.
Figure 6
Drawn from specimens in author’s collection.
To the mess I now added four or five double-handfuls of mixed meal, of pounded parched sunflower seed and pounded parched corn. The whole was boiled for a few minutes more, and was ready for serving.
I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed. I also used two parchings of corn; but I put more corn into the pot at a parching than I did of sunflower seed.
Pounding the parched corn and sunflower seed reduced their bulk so that the four parchings, two of sunflower seed and two of corn, made but four or five double-handfuls of the mixed meal.
Four-vegetables-mixed was eaten freshly cooked; and the mixed corn-and-sunflower meal was made fresh for it each time. A little alkali salt might be added for seasoning, but even this was not usual. No other seasoning was used. Meat was not boiled with the mess, as the sunflower seed gave sufficient oil to furnish fat.
Four-vegetables-mixed was a winter food; and the squash used in its making was dried, sliced squash, never green, fresh squash.
The clay pot used for boiling this and other dishes was about the size of an iron dinner pot, or even larger. For a large family, the pot might be as much as thirteen or fourteen inches high. I have described that in use in my father’s family.
When a mess of four-vegetables-mixed was cooked, I did not remove the pot from the coals, but dipped out the vegetables with a mountain-sheep horn spoon, into wooden bowls (figure 6.)
Sunflower meal of the parched seeds was also used to make sunflower seed balls; these were important articles of diet in olden times, and had a particular use.
For sunflower-seed balls I parched the seeds in a pot in the usual way, put them in a corn mortar and pounded them. When they were reduced to a fine meal I reached into the mortar and took out a handful of the meal, squeezing it in the fingers and palm of my right hand. This squeezing it made it into a kind of lump or ball.
This ball I enclosed in the two palms and gently shook it. The shaking brought out the oil of the seeds, cementing the particles of the meal and making the lump firm. I have said that frosted seeds gave out more oil than unfrosted; and that baby sunflower seeds gave out more oil than seeds from the big heads.
In olden times every warrior carried a bag of soft skin at his left side, supported by a thong over his right shoulder; in this bag he kept needles, sinews, awl, soft tanned skin for making patches for moccasins, gun caps, and the like. The warrior’s powder horn hung on the outside of this bag.
In the bottom of this soft-skin bag the warrior commonly carried one of these sunflower-seed balls, wrapped in a piece of buffalo-heart skin. When worn with fatigue or overcome with sleep and weariness, the warrior took out his sunflower-seed ball, and nibbled at it to refresh himself. It was amazing what effect nibbling at the sunflower-seed ball had. If the warrior was weary, he began to feel fresh again; if sleepy, he grew wakeful.
Sometimes the warrior kept his sunflower-seed ball in his flint case that hung always at his belt over his right hip.
It was quite a general custom in my tribe for a warrior or hunter to carry one of these sunflower-seed balls.
We called the sunflower-seed ball mapi´, the same name as for sunflower.
Sunflower meal, parched and pounded as described, was often mixed with corn balls, to which it gave an agreeable smell, as well as a pleasant taste.
Corn planting began the second month after sunflower-seed was planted, that is in May; and it lasted about a month. It sometimes continued pretty well into June, but not later than that; for the sun then begins to go back into the south, and men began to tell eagle-hunting stories.
We knew when corn planting time came by observing the leaves of the wild gooseberry bushes. This bush is the first of the woods to leaf in the spring. Old women of the village were going to the woods daily to gather fire wood; and when they saw that the wild gooseberry bushes were almost in full leaf, they said, “It is time for you to begin planting corn!”
Corn was planted each year in the same hills.
Around each of the old and dead hills I loosened the soil with my hoe, first pulling up the old, dead roots of the previous year’s plants; these dead roots, as they collected, were raked off with other refuse to one end of the field outside of the cultivated ground, to be burned.
This pulling up of the dead roots and working around the old hill with the hoe, left the soil soft and loose for the space of about eighteen inches in diameter; and in this soft soil I planted the corn in this manner:
I stooped over, and with fingers of both hands I raked away the loose soil for a bed for the seed; and with my fingers I even stirred the soil around with a circular motion to make the bed perfectly level so that the seeds would all lie at the same depth.
A small vessel, usually a wooden bowl, at my feet held the seed corn. With my right hand I took a small handful of the corn, quickly transferring half of it to my left hand; still stooping over, and plying both hands at the same time, I pressed the grains a half inch into the soil with my thumbs, planting two grains at a time, one with each hand.
Figure 7
Figure 7
I planted about six to eight grains in a hill[7](figure 7). Then with my hands I raked the earth over the planted grains until the seed layabout the length of my fingers under the soil. Finally I patted the hill firm with my palms.
The space within the hill in which the seed kernels were planted should be about nine inches in diameter; but the completed hill should nearly cover the space broken up by the hoe.
The corn hills I planted well apart, because later, in hilling up, I would need room to draw earth from all directions over the roots to protect them from the sun, that they might not dry out. Corn planted in hills too close together would have small ears and fewer of them; and the stalks of the plants would be weak, and often dried out.
If the corn hills were so close together that the plants when they grew up, touched each other, we called them “smell-each-other”; and we knew that the ears they bore would not be plump nor large.
We Hidatsa women were early risers in the planting season; it was my habit to be up before sunrise, while the air was cool, for we thought this the best time for garden work.
Having arrived at the field I would begin one hill, preparing it, as I have said, with my hoe; and so for ten rows each as long as from this spot to yonder fence—about thirty yards; the rows were about four feet apart, and the hills stood about the same distance apart in the row.
The hills all prepared, I went back and planted them, patting down each with my palms, as described. Planting corn thus by hand was slow work; but by ten o’clock the morning’s work was done, and I was tired and ready to go home for my breakfast and rest; we did not eat before going into the field. The ten rows making the morning’s planting contained about two hundred and twenty-five hills.
I usually went to the field every morning in the planting season, if the weather was fine. Sometimes I went out again a little before sunset and planted; but this was not usual.
The very last corn that we planted we sometimes put into a little tepid water, if the season was late. Seed used for replanting hills that had been destroyed by crows or magpies we also soaked. We left the seed in the water only a short time, when the water was poured off.
The water should be tepid only, so that when poured through the fingers it felt hardly warmed. Hot water would kill the seeds.
Seed corn thus soaked would have sprouts a third of an inch long within four or five days after planting, if the weather was warm. I know this, because we sometimes dug up some of the seeds to see. This soaked seedproduced strong plants, but the first-planted, dry seeds still produced the first ripened ears.
If warm water was not convenient, I sometimes put these last planted corn seeds in my mouth; and when well wetted, planted them. But these mouth-wetted seeds produced, we thought, a great many wi´da-aka´ta, or goose-upper-roof-of-mouth, ears.
It was usual for the women of a household to do their own planting; but if a woman was sick, or for some reason was unable to attend to her planting, she sometimes cooked a feast, to which she invited the members of her age society and asked them to plant her field for her.
The members of her society would come upon an appointed day and plant her field in a short time; sometimes a half day was enough.
There were about thirty members in my age society when I was a young woman. If we were invited to plant a garden for some sick woman, each member would take a row to plant; and each would strive to complete her row first. A member having completed her row, might begin a second, and even a third row; or if, when each had completed one row, there was but a small part of the field yet unplanted, all pitched in miscellaneously and finished the planting.
When our corn was in, we began planting beans and squashes. Beans we commonly planted between corn rows, sometimes over the whole field, more often over a part of it. Our bean and squash planting I will describe later; and I speak of it now only because I wish to explain to you how a Hidatsa garden was laid out.
The largest field ever owned in my father’s family was the one which I have said my grandmother Turtle helped clear, at Like-a-fishhook village, or Fort Berthold, as the whites called it. The field, begun small, was added to each year and did not reach its maximum size for some years.
The field was nearly rectangular in shape; at the time of its greatest size, its length was about equal to the distance from this spot to yonder fence—one hundred and eighty yards; and its width, to the distance from the corner of this cabin to yonder white post—ninety yards.
The size of a garden was determined chiefly by the industry of the family that owned it, and by the number of mouths that must be fed.
When I was six years old, there were, I think, ten in my father’s family, of whom my two grandmothers, my mother and her three sisters, made six. I have said that my mother and her three sisters were wives of Small Ankle, my father. It was this year that my mother and Corn Sucker died, however.
My father’s wives and my two grandmothers, all industrious women, added each year to the area of our field; for our family was growing. At the time our garden reached its maximum size, there were seven boys in the family; three of these died young, but four grew up and brought wives to live in our earth lodge.
In our big garden at Like-a-fishhook village, nine rows of corn, running lengthwise with the field, made one na´xu, or Indian acre, as we usually translate it. There were ten of these na´xus, or Indian acres, in the garden.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Some families of our village counted eight rows of corn to one na´xu, others counted ten rows.
The rows of the na´xus always ran the length of the garden; and if the field curved, as it sometimes did around a bend of the river, or other irregularity, the rows curved with it.
In our garden a row of squashes separated each na´xu from its neighbor.
Four rows of corn running widthwise with the garden made one nu´cami; and as was the na´xu, each nu´cami was separated from its neighbor by a row of squashes, or beans, or in some families, even by sunflowers.
Like those of the na´xus, the rows of the nu´camis often curved to follow some irregularity in the shape of the garden plot. (Seefigure 8.)
Hoeing time began when the corn was about three inches high; but this varied somewhat with the season. Some seasons were warm, and the corn and weeds grew rapidly; other seasons were colder, and delayed the growth of the corn.
Corn plants about three inches high we called “young-bird’s-feather-tail-corn,” because the plants then had blunt ends, like the tail feathers of a very young bird.
Corn and weeds alike grew rapidly now, and we women of the household were out with our hoes daily, to keep ahead of the weeds. We worked as in planting season, in the early morning hours.
I cultivated each hill carefully with my hoe as I came to it; and if the plants were small, I would comb the soil of the hill lightly with my fingers, loosening the earth and tearing out young weeds.
We did not hoe the corn alone, but went right through the garden, corn, squashes, beans, and all. Weeds were let lie on the ground, as they were now young and harmless.
We hoed but once, not very many weeds coming up to bother us afterwards. In my girlhood we were not troubled with mustard and thistles; these weeds have come in with white men.
In many families hoeing ended, I think, when the corn was about seven or eight inches high: but I remember when my mothers finished hoeing their big field at Like-a-fishhook village, the corn was about eighteen inches high, and the blossoms at the top of the plants were appearing.
A second hoeing began, it is true, when the corn silk appeared, but was accompanied by hilling, so that we looked upon it rather as a hilling time. Hilling was done to firm the plants against the wind and cover the roots from the sun. We hilled with earth, about four inches up around the roots of the corn.
Not a great many weeds were found in the garden at hilling time, unless the season had been wet; but weeds at this season are apt to have seeds, so that it was my habit to bear such weeds off the field, that the seeds might not fall and sprout the next season.
With the corn, the squashes and beans were also hilled; but this was an easier task. The bean hills, especially, were made small at the first, and hilling them up afterwards was not hard work. If beans were hilled too high the vines got beaten down into the mud by the rains and rotted.
Our corn fields had many enemies. Magpies, and especially crows, pulled up much of the young corn, so that we had to replant many hills. Crows were fond of pulling up the green shoots when they were a half inchor an inch high. Spotted gophers would dig up the seed from the roots of young plants. When the corn had eared, and the grains were still soft, blackbirds and crows were destructive.
Any hills of young corn that the birds destroyed, I replanted if the season was not too late. If only a part of the plants in a hill had been destroyed, I did not disturb the living plants, but replanted only the destroyed ones. In the place of each missing plant, I dug a little hole with my hand, and dropped in a seed.
We made scarecrows[8]to frighten the crows. Two sticks were driven into the ground for legs; to these were bound two other sticks, like outstretched arms; on the top was fastened a ball of cast-away skins, or the like, for a head. An old buffalo robe was drawn over the figure and a belt tied around its middle, to make it look like a man. Such a scarecrow would keep the crows away for a few days but when they saw that the figure never moved from its place, they lost their fear and returned.
A platform, or stage, was often built in a garden, where the girls and young women of the household came to sit and sing as they watched that crows and other thieves did not destroy the ripening crop. We cared for our corn in those days as we would care for a child; for we Indian people loved our gardens, just as a mother loves her children; and we thought that our growing corn liked to hear us sing, just as children like to hear their mother sing to them.[9]Also, we did not want the birds to come and steal our corn. Horses, too, might break in and crop the plants, or boys might steal the green ears and go off and roast them.
Our Hidatsa name for such a stage was adukati´ i´kakĕ-ma´tsati, or field watchers’ stage; from adukati´, field; i´kakĕ, watch; and ma´tsati, stage. These stages, while common, were not in every garden. I had one in my garden where I used to sit and sing.
A watchers’ stage resembled a stage for drying grain, but it was built more simply. Four posts, forked at the top, supported two parallel beams, or stringers; on these beams was laid a floor of puncheons, or split small logs, at about the height of the full grown corn. This floor was about the length and breadth of Wolf Chief’s table—forty-three by thirty-five inches—and was thus large enough to permit two persons to sit together. A ladder made of the trunk of a tree rested against the stage.
Such stages we did not value as we did our drying stages, nor did we use so much care in building them. If the posts were of green wood, we did not trouble to peel off the bark; at least, I never saw such posts with the bark peeled off. The beams in the forks of the posts often lay with the bark on. The puncheons that made the floor of the stage were free of bark, because they were commonly split from old, dead, floating logs, that we got down at the Missouri River; if the whole stage was built of these dead logs, as was often done, the bark would be wanting on every beam.
A watchers’ stage, indeed, was usually of rather rough construction; wood was plentiful and easy to get, and the stage was rebuilt each year.
As I have said, it was our custom to locate our gardens on the timbered, bottom lands, and when we cleared off the timber and brush, we often left a tree, usually of cottonwood, standing in the field, to shade the watchers’ stage. The stage stood on the north, or shady, side of the tree.
Cottonwood seedlings were apt to spring up in newly cleared ground. If there was no tree in the field, one of these seedlings might be let grow into a small tree. Cottonwoods grew very rapidly.
The tree that shaded the watchers’ stage in our family field, and which I have indicated on the map, was about as high as my son Goodbird’s cabin, and had a trunk about four inches in diameter. The cottonwood tree standing in Wolf Chief’s corn field this present summer, is perhaps about the height of the trees that used to stand in our fields at Like-a-fishhook village.
My son Goodbird has made a sketch, under my direction, of a watchers’ stage (figure 9).
The stage was placed close to the tree shading it, about a foot from the trunk. Holes for the posts were dug with a long digging stick; and the posts were set firm, like fence posts.
The stage was made nearly square, so that the watchers could sit facing any side with equal ease. The beams supporting the floor might be laid east and west, or north and south; but as the tree stood always on the south side of the stage, the floor beams lay always in one of these two ways.
Figure 9Redrawn from sketch by Edward Goodbird.
Figure 9
Redrawn from sketch by Edward Goodbird.
In the sketch a skin[10]is seen lying on the stage floor. This is a buffalo calf skin, folded fur out, to make a seat for the watcher. The skin might be folded tail to head, or side to side; and sometimes it was folded flesh side out. It never hung down over the edges of the stage floor, but was folded up neatly to make a kind of cushion. The puncheon floor, at best never very smooth, was rather hard to sit upon; and letting a part of the skin hang down over the side would have been waste of good cushion material.
The three poles on the right of the stage support another calf skin, used as a shield against the sun. The poles merely rested on the ground; they were not thrust into the soil. They could be shifted about with the sun, so that the watcher had shade in any part of the day.
The calf skin used for a sun shade hung on the poles head downward; whether it lay fur or flesh side down did not matter.
Skins dressed by Indians have holes cut along the edges for the wooden pins by which they are staked out on the ground to dry. The poles upholding the skin shade we cut of willows; and we were careful to trim off the branches, leaving little stubs sticking out on the trunk of the pole. These little stubs we slipped through some of the holes in the edge of the skin shade to uphold it and stay it in place. It was not necessary to bind the skin down with thongs; just slipping the stubs through the holes was enough.
Poles for a sun shade were cut indifferently of dry or green wood; and they lasted the entire season.
The ladder by which we mounted a watchers’ stage rested against either of the corners next the tree, against one of the two beams supporting the floor; however we did not consider a watchers’ stage to be sacred, and we placed the ladder anywhere it might be convenient.
The ladder was a cottonwood trunk, cut with three steps; more were not needed, as the stage floor was not high.
If the tree sheltering a stage had scant foliage, we often cut thick, leafy cottonwood boughs and thrust them horizontally through the branches of the tree to increase its shade. It was a common thing for the watchers to tie a robe across the face of the tree for the same purpose.
If no tree grew in the garden, a small cottonwood with thick, leafy branches was cut and propped against the south or sunny side of the stage.
There was an old woman named Sweet Grass who had no tree in her garden. She built a stage just like that in Goodbird’s sketch (figure 9). To shade it I remember she cut several small cottonwood trees and set them in holes made with her digging stick, along the south side of her stage. They stood there in a row and shaded the stage quite effectively. Her stage stood rather close to the edge of her garden.
The season for watching the fields began early in August when green corn began to come in; for this was the time when the ripening ears were apt to be stolen by horses, or birds, or boys. We did not watch the fields in the spring and early summer, to keep the crows from pulling up the newlysprouted grain; such damage we were content to repair by replanting.
Girls began to go on the watchers’ stage to watch the corn and sing, when they were about ten or twelve years of age. They continued the custom even after they had grown up and married; and old women, working in the garden and stopping to rest, often went on the stage and sang.
Two girls usually watched and sang together. The village gardens were laid out close to one another; and a girl of one family would be joined by the girl of the family who owned the garden adjoining. Sometimes three, or even four, girls got on the stage and sang together; but never more than four. A drum was not used to accompany the singing.
The watchers sometimes rose and stood upon the stage as they looked to see if any boys or horses were in the field, stealing corn. Older girls and young married women, and even old women, often worked at porcupine embroidery as they watched. Very young girls did not embroider.
Boys of nine to eleven years of age were sometimes rather troublesome thieves. They were fond of stealing green ears to roast by a fire in the woods. Sometimes—not every day, however—we had to guard our corn alertly. A boy caught stealing was merely scolded. “You must not steal here again!” we would say to him. His parents were not asked to pay damage for the theft.
We went to the watchers’ stage quite early in the day, before sunrise, or near it, and we came home at sunset.
The watching season continued until the corn was all gathered and harvested. My grandmother, Turtle, was a familiar figure in our family’s field, in this season. I can remember her staying out in the field daily, picking out the ripening ears and braiding them in a string.
There were a good many booths in the gardens that lay west of the village. Usually a booth stood at one side of every field in which was a watchers’ stage.
To make a booth, we cut diamond willows, stood them in the ground in a circle, and bending over the leafy tops, tied them together. A few leafy branches were interwoven into the top to increase the shade; but there was no further covering.
A booth had a floor diameter of nine or ten feet, and was as high as I can conveniently reach with my hands—six feet.
The girls who sang and watched the ripening corn cooked in these booths. I often did so when I was a young girl; for cooking at the booth was done by all the watchers, even young girls of ten or twelve years. I have often seen my grandmother, Turtle, also, in her booth very early in the morning, in the corn season.
A meal was eaten sometimes just after sunrise, or a little later; but we never had regular meal hours in the field. We cooked and ate whenever we got hungry, or when visitors came; or we strayed over to other gardens and ate with our friends. If relatives came, the watchers often entertained them by giving them something to eat.
To cook the meal a fire was made in the booth. Meat had been brought out from the village, dried or fresh buffalo meat usually. Fresh meat was laid on the coals to broil; dried meat was thrust on the end of a stick that leaned over the coals; and when one side was well toasted it was turned over.
Fresh squashes we boiled in clay or iron pots; a good many brass or copper kettles also were in use when I was young. We were fond of squashes.
A common dish was green corn and beans. The corn was shelled off the cob and boiled with green beans that were shelled also; sometimes the beans were boiled in the pod.
Figure 10Redrawn from sketch by Goodbird of specimen made by Buffalobird-woman.
Figure 10
Redrawn from sketch by Goodbird of specimen made by Buffalobird-woman.
To serve the corn and beans we poured the mess into a wooden bowl and ate with spoons made from the stems of squash leaves.Figure 10is a sketch of such a spoon. The squash stem was split at one end and the split was held open by a little stick. Stems of leaves of our native squashes have tiny prickles on them, but these did not hurt the eater’s lips. Leaf stems of native squashes I think are firmer and stronger than those of white men’s squashes, such as we now raise.
My grandmother, Turtle, was a faithful watcher in our family field in the watching season. I remember she used to bring home in the evening all the uneaten corn she had boiled that day.
We always kept drinking water at the stage; and if relatives came out, we freely gave them to drink. But boys and young men who came were offered neither food nor drink, unless they were relatives.
Our tribe’s custom in such things was well understood.
The youths of the village used to go about all the time seeking the girls; this indeed was almost all they did. Of course, when the girls were on the watchers’ stage the boys were pretty sure to come around. Sometimes two youths came together, sometimes but one. If there were relatives at the watchers’ stage the boys would stop and drink or eat; they did not try to talk to the girls, but would come around smiling and try to get the girls to smile back.
To illustrate our custom, if a boy came out to a watchers’ stage, we girls that were sitting upon it did not say a word to him. It was our rule that we should work and should not say anything to him. So we sat, not looking at him, nor saying a word. He would smile and perhaps stop and get a drink of water.
Indeed, a girl that was not a youth’s sweetheart, never talked to him. This rule was observed at all times. Even when a boy was a girl’s sweetheart, or “love-boy” as we called him, if there were other persons around, she did not talk to him, unless these happened to be relatives.
Boys who came out to the watchers’ stage, getting no encouragement from the girls there, soon went away.
A very young girl was not permitted to go to the watchers’ stage unless an old woman went along to take care of her. In olden days, mothers watched their daughters very carefully.
Most of the songs that were sung on the watchers’ stage were love songs, but not all.
One that little girls were fond of singing—girls that is of about twelve years of age—was as follows:
You bad boys, you are all alike!Your bow is like a bent basket hoop;You poor boys, you have to run on the prairie barefoot;Your arrows are fit for nothing but to shoot up into the sky!
You bad boys, you are all alike!Your bow is like a bent basket hoop;You poor boys, you have to run on the prairie barefoot;Your arrows are fit for nothing but to shoot up into the sky!
You bad boys, you are all alike!
Your bow is like a bent basket hoop;
You poor boys, you have to run on the prairie barefoot;
Your arrows are fit for nothing but to shoot up into the sky!
This song was sung for the benefit of the boys who came to the near-by woods to hunt birds.
Here is another song; but that you may understand it I shall first have to explain to you what ikupa´ means.
A girl whom another girl loves as her own sister, we call her ikupa´. I think your word chum, as you explain it, has about the same meaning. This is the song:
“My ikupa´, what do you wish to see?” you said to me.What I wish to see is the corn silk coming out on the growing ear;But whatyouwish to see is that naughty young man coming!
“My ikupa´, what do you wish to see?” you said to me.What I wish to see is the corn silk coming out on the growing ear;But whatyouwish to see is that naughty young man coming!
“My ikupa´, what do you wish to see?” you said to me.
What I wish to see is the corn silk coming out on the growing ear;
But whatyouwish to see is that naughty young man coming!
Here is a song that we sang to tease young men that were going by:
You young man of the Dog society, you said to me,“When I go to the east on a war party, you will hear news of me how brave I am!”I have heard news of you;When the fight was on, you ran and hid!And you think you are a brave young man!Behold you have joined the Dog society;Therefore, I call you just plain dog!
You young man of the Dog society, you said to me,“When I go to the east on a war party, you will hear news of me how brave I am!”I have heard news of you;When the fight was on, you ran and hid!And you think you are a brave young man!Behold you have joined the Dog society;Therefore, I call you just plain dog!
You young man of the Dog society, you said to me,
“When I go to the east on a war party, you will hear news of me how brave I am!”
I have heard news of you;
When the fight was on, you ran and hid!
And you think you are a brave young man!
Behold you have joined the Dog society;
Therefore, I call you just plain dog!
These songs from the watchers’ stage we called mi´daxika, or gardeners’ songs. The words of these I have just given you we called love-boy words; and they were intended to tease.
There was another class of songs sung from the watchers’ stage that did not have love-boy words. I will give you one of these, but to make it intelligible, I must first explain a custom of my tribe.
Let us suppose that a woman of the Tsi´stska Doxpa´ka marries a man of the Midipa´di clan. Their child will be a Tsi´stska; for we Hidatsas reckon every child to belong to the clan of his mother; and the members of the mother’s clan will be clan sisters and clan brothers to her child.
Another woman of the tribe, of what clan does not matter, also marries a Midipa´di husband; and they have a child. The child of the first mother and the child of the second we reckon as makutsati, or clan cousins, since their fathers being of the same clan, are clan brothers.
In old times these clan cousins had a custom of teasing one another; especially was this teasing common between young men and young women. For example, a young man, unlucky in war, might be passing the gardens and hear some mischievous girl, his clan cousin, singing a song taunting him for his ill success. From any one else this would be taken for the deepest insult; but seeing that the singer was his clan cousin, the young man only called out good humoredly, “Sing louder, cousin!”
I can best explain this custom by telling you a story.
A long time ago, in one of our villages at Knife River, there lived a man Mapuksao´kihec, or Snake-head-ornament. He was a great medicine man; and in his earth lodge he kept a bull snake, whom he called “father.”
When Snake-head-ornament started to go to a feast he would say to the bull snake, “Come, father, let us go and get something to eat!”
The snake would crawl up the man’s body, coil about his neck and thrust his head forward over the man’s crown and forehead; or he would coil about the man’s head like the head cloth a hunter used to wear, with his head thrust forward as I have said.
Bearing the snake thus on his head, Snake-head-ornament would enter some man’s lodge and sit down to eat. The snake however never ate with him, for his food was not the same as the man’s; the bull snake’s food was hide scrapings which the women of the lodge fed to him.
When Snake-head-ornament came home again he would say to the bull snake, “Father, get off.”
The snake would creep down from the man’s head, but before he entered his hole he would roll himself about on the earth lodge floor. Snake-head-ornament would say to him, “What are you doing? Do you think I am bad smelling, and do you want to wash off the smell from your body? It is you who are bad smelling; yet I do not despiseyou!”
The snake, hearing this, would creep into his hole as if ashamed.
Snake-head-ornament made up a war party and led it against enemies on the Yellowstone River. The party not only failed to kill any of the enemy, but lost three of their own men. This was a kind of disgrace to Snake-head-ornament; for as leader of the war party he was responsible for it. He thought his gods had deserted him; and when he came home he went about crying and mourning and calling upon his gods to give him another vision. He was a brave man and had many honor marks; and his ill success made his heart sore.
In old times, when one mourned, either man or woman, he cut off his hair, painted his body with white clay and went without moccasins; he also cut himself with some sharp instrument.
In those days also, when a man went out to seek his god, he went away from the village, alone, into the hills; and thus it happened that Snake-head-ornament, on his way to the hills, went mourning and crying past a garden where sat a woman, his clan cousin, on her watchers’ stage. Seeing him, she began to sing a song to tease him:
He said, “I am a young bird!”If a young bird, he should be in a nest;But he comes around here looking gray,And wanders aimlessly everywhere outside the village!He said, “I am a young snake!”If a young snake, he should stay in the hills among the red buttes;But he comes around here looking gray and crying,And wanders aimlessly everywhere!
He said, “I am a young bird!”If a young bird, he should be in a nest;But he comes around here looking gray,And wanders aimlessly everywhere outside the village!He said, “I am a young snake!”If a young snake, he should stay in the hills among the red buttes;But he comes around here looking gray and crying,And wanders aimlessly everywhere!
He said, “I am a young bird!”
If a young bird, he should be in a nest;
But he comes around here looking gray,
And wanders aimlessly everywhere outside the village!
He said, “I am a young snake!”
If a young snake, he should stay in the hills among the red buttes;
But he comes around here looking gray and crying,
And wanders aimlessly everywhere!
When the woman sang, “he comes around here looking gray,” she meant that the man was gray from the white clay paint on his body.
Snake-head-ornament heard her song, but knowing she was his clan cousin, cried out to her:
“My elder sister, sing louder! You are right; let my fathers hear what you say. I do not know whether they will feel shame or not; but the snake and the white eagle both called me ‘son’!”
What he meant was that the snake and the white eagle were his dream gods; and that they had both called him “son,” in a vision. In her song the woman had taunted him with this. If she had been any one but his clan cousin, he would have been beside himself with anger. As it was, he kept his good humor, and did her no hurt.
But the woman had sung her song for a cause. Years before, when Snake-head-ornament was quite a young man and as yet had won few honors he went on a war party and killed a Sioux woman. When he came home he was looked upon as a successful warrior; and he was, of course, proud that people now looked up to him. Not long after this, he joined the Black Mouth society. It happened, one day, that the women were erecting palisades around the village to defend it, and Snake-head-ornament, as a member of the Black Mouths, was one of those overseeing the work. This woman, his clan cousin, was rather slow at her task and did not move about very briskly. Snake-head-ornament, seeing this, approached her and fired off his gun close by her legs. She looked around, but seeing that it was Snake-head-ornament that had shot, and knowing he was her clan cousin, she did not get angry. Just the same she did not forget; and years after she had a good humored revenge in the taunting song I have given you.
The first corn was ready to be eaten green early in the harvest moon, when the blossoms of the prairie golden rod are all in full, bright yellow; or about the end of the first week in August. We ate much green corn, boiling the fresh ears in a pot as white people do; but every Hidatsa family also put up dried green corn for winter. This took the place with us of the canned green corn we now buy at the trader’s store.
I knew when the corn ears were ripe enough for boiling from these signs: The blossoms on the top of the stalk were turned brown, the silk on the endof the ear was dry, and the husks on the ear were of a dark green color.
I do not think the younger Indians on this reservation are as good agriculturists as we older members of my tribe were when we were young. I sometimes say to my son Goodbird: “You young folks, when you want green corn, open the husk to see if the grain is ripe enough, and thus expose it; but I just go out into the field and pluck the ear. When you open an ear and find it too green to pluck, you let it stand on the stalk; and birds then come and eat the exposed kernels, or little brown ants climb up the stalk and eat the ear and spoil it. I do not think you are very good gardeners in these days. In old times, when we went out to gather green ears, we did not have to open their faces to see if the grain was ripe enough to be plucked!”
Our green corn season lasted about ten days, when the grain, though not yet ripe, became too hard for boiling green.
To provide green corn to be eaten late in the season, we used to make a second planting of corn when June berries were ripe; and for this purpose we left a space, not very large, vacant in the field. In my father’s family this second planting was of about twenty-eight hills of corn. It came ready to eat when the other corn was getting hard; but it often got caught by the frost. Nearly every garden owner made such a second planting; it was, indeed, a usual practice in the tribe.
Our usual way of cooking fresh, green corn, was to boil it in a kettle on the cob.
Fresh, green corn, shelled from the cob, was often put in a corn mortar and pounded; and then boiled without fats or meat. Prepared thus, it had a sweet taste and smell; much like that of the canned corn we buy of the traders.
Shelled green corn, in the whole grain, was also boiled fresh, mixed with beans and fats.
Green ears were sometimes roasted, usually by an individual member of the family who wanted a little change of diet. The women of my father’s family never prepared a full meal of roasted ears that I remember; if any one wanted roasted, fresh, green corn, he prepared it himself.
When I wanted to roast green corn I made a fire of cottonwood and prepared a bed of coals. I laid the fresh ear on the coals with the husk removed. As the corn roasted, I rolled the ear gently to and fro over the coals. When properly cooked I removed the ear and laid on another.
As the ear roasted, the green kernels would pop sometimes with quite a sharp sound. If this popping noise was very loud, we would laugh and say to the one roasting the ear, “Ah, we see you have stolen that ear from some other family’s garden!”
Green corn was regularly taken out of the garden to roast until frost came, when it lost its fragrance and fresh taste. To restore its freshness, we would take the green corn silk of the same plucked ear and rub the silk well into the kernels of the ear as they stood in the cob. This measurably restored the fresh taste and smell.
We did not do this if the ear was to be boiled, only if we intended to roast it.
For green corn, boiled and eaten fresh, we used all varieties except the gummy; for when green they tasted alike. But for roasting ears we thought the two yellow varieties, hard and soft, were the best.
A common dish made from green corn was mätu´a-la´kapa, from mätu´a, green corn; and la´kapa, mush, or something mushy; thus, wheat flour mixed with water to a thick paste we call la´kapa, even if unboiled.
Ripening green corn, with the grain still soft, was shelled off the cob with the tip of the thumb or with the thumb nail. The shelled corn was pounded in a mortar and boiled with beans; it was flavored with spring salt.
We also made a kind of corn bread from green corn.
Green ears were plucked and the corn shelled off with the thumb nail, so as not to break open the kernels. Boiled green corn could be shelled with a mussel shell because boiling toughened the kernels; but unboiled green corn was shelled with the thumb nail.
Two or three women often worked at shelling the corn as it was rather tedious work.
When enough of the corn had been shelled, it was put in a corn mortar and pounded.
Some of the ears were naturally longer than others: a number of these had been selected and their husks removed. Some of these husks were now laid down side by side, but overlapping like shingles, until a sheet was made about ten inches wide.
Another row of husks was laid over the first, transversely to them; and so until four or five layers of the green husks were made, each lying transversely to the layer of husks beneath.
The shelled corn, pounded almost to a pulp, was poured out on this husk sheet, and patted down with the hand to a loaf about seven or eightinches square, and an inch or two thick. However, this varied; a girl would make a much smaller loaf than would a woman preparing a mess for her family.
The ends of the uppermost layer of husks were now folded over the top of the loaf, leaf by leaf; then the next layer of husks beneath; and so until the ends of all the husks were folded over the top of the loaf, quite hiding it.
Two or three husk leaves had been split into strips half an inch to three quarters of an inch in width. These strips were tied together to make bands to bind the loaf. Three bands passed around the loaf each way, or six bands in all.
No grease nor fat, nor any seasoning, had been added to the loaf; the pounded green corn pulp was all that entered into it.
The loaf made, now came the baking. The ashes in the fire place in an earth lodge lay quite deep. A cavity was dug into these ashes about as deep as my hand is long. Into the bottom of this cavity live coals and hot ashes were raked, and upon these the loaf was laid; a few ashes were raked over the top, and upon these ashes live coals were heaped. The loaf baked in about two hours.
We called this loaf naktsi´, or buried-in-ashes-and-baked. Soft white and soft yellow corn were good varieties from which to make this buried-and-baked corn, as we called it.
Every Hidatsa family put up a store of dried green corn for winter. This is the way in which I prepared my family’s store.
In the proper season I went out into our garden and broke off the ears that I found, that were of a dark green outside. Sometimes I even broke open the husks to see if the ear was just right; but this was seldom, as I could tell very well by the color and other signs I have described. I went all over the garden, plucking the dark green ears, and putting them in a pile in some convenient spot on the cultivated ground. If I was close enough I tossed each ear upon the pile as I plucked it; but as I drew further away, I gathered the ears into my basket and bore them to the pile.
I left off plucking when the pile contained five basketfuls if I was working alone. If two of us were working we plucked about ten basketfuls.
Green corn for drying was always plucked in the evening, just before sunset; and the newly plucked ears were let lie in the pile all night, in the open air. The corn was not brought home on the evening of the plucking, because if kept in the earth lodge over night it would not taste so fresh and sweet, we thought.
The next morning before breakfast, I went out to the field and fetched the corn to our lodge in the village. As I brought the baskets into the lodge,I emptied them in a pile at the place markedBinfigure 11, near the fire.
Sitting atA, I now began husking, breaking off the husks from each ear in three strokes, thus: With my hand I drew back half the husk; second, I drew back the other half; third, I broke the husk from the cob. The husks I put in a pile,E, to one side. No husking pegs were used, such as you describe to me; I could husk quite rapidly with my bare hands.
As the ears were stripped, they were laid in a pile upon some of the discarded husks, spread for that purpose. The freshly husked ears made a pretty sight; some of them were big, fine ones, and all had plump, shiny kernels. A twelve-row ear we thought a big one; a few very big ears had fourteen rows of kernels; smaller ears had not more than eight rows.
Two kettles, meanwhile, had been prepared. One markedDinfigure 11, was set upon coals in the fireplace; the other,C, was suspended over the fire by a chain attached to the drying pole. The kettles held water, which was now brought to a boil.
When enough corn was husked to fill one of these kettles, I gathered up the ears and dropped them in the boiling water. I watched the corn carefully, and when it was about half cooked, I lifted the ears out with a mountain sheep horn spoon and laid them on a pile of husks.