Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians

CONTENTS

CONTENTS Introduction to the reprint edition . Preface '" Foreword . Chapter I- Tradition . Chapter II - Beginning a garden . Turtle . Clearing fields . Dispute and its settlement . Turtle breaking soil . Turtle's primitive tools . Beginning a field in later times . Trees in the garden .- . Our west field . Burning over the field . Chapter III - Sunflowers . Remark by Maxi'diwiac. . Planting sunflowers . Varieties . Harvesting the seed . Threshing . Harvesting the mapi'na'ka . Effect of frost . Parching the seed . Four-vegetables-mixed . Sunflower-seed balls . Chapter IV- Corn . Planting . A morning's planting . Soaking the seed . Planting for a sick woman . Size of our biggest field . Na'xu and nu'cami . Hoeing . The watchers' stage . Explanation of sketch of watchers' stage . Sweet Grass's sun shade . The watchers . Booths . Eating customs . Youths' and maidens' customs . Watchers' songs . Clan cousins' custom . Story of Snake-head-ornament . PAGES Xl xxv 1-5 6-8 9-15 9 9 10 11 12 13 15 15 15 16-21 16 16 16 17 18 18 18 19 19 21 22-67 22 23 23 24 24 25 26 26 28 30 30 31 32 33 33 34 35 v Vi BUFFALO BIRD WOMAN'S GARDEN Green corn and its uses . The ripening ears . Second planting for green corn . Cooking fresh green corn . Roasting ears . Matu'a-Ia'kapa . Corn bread . Drying green corn for winter . Mape'di (corn smur) . Mape'di . Harvest and uses . The ripe corn harvest . Husking . Rejecting green ears . Braiding corn . The smaller ears . Drying the braided ears . Seed corn " . Selecting the seed . Keeping two years' seed . Threshing corn . The booth . Order of the day's work . The cobs . Winnowing . Removing the booth . Threshing braided corn . Amount of harvest . Sioux purchasing corn . Varieties of corn " . Description of varieties . How corn travels . Uses of the varieties . At~'ki tso'ki . Mapi'nakapa' . Ma'nakapa . At~'ki : . Boiled corn ball . TSl'di tso'ki and tsl'di tapa' . M~d~po'zi i'ti'a . Other soft varieties . Ma'ikadicake . Ma'pI mee'pI i"kiuta, or corn balls . Parched soft corn . Parching whole ripe ears . Parching hard yellow corn with sand . M~d~po'zi p~'kici, or lye-made hominy . General characteristics of the varieties . 36-41 36 37 37 37 38 38 39 42 42 42 42-47 42 44 45 46 47 47-49 47 48 49-58 49 52 53 54 55 57 57 58 58-60 58 59 60-67 60 60 61 62 62 62 63 63 63 63 64 64 64 64 65 CONTENTS Fodder yield . Developing new varieties . Sport ears . Names and description . Na"ta-tawo'xi . Wi'da-aka'ta . I'ta-ca'ca . Okei'jpita . I'tica'kupadi . Chapter V- Squashes . Planting squashes . Sprouting the seed . Planting the sprouted seed . Harvesting the squashes . Slicing the squashes . Squash spits . Spitting the slices . In case of rain . Drying and storing . Squash blossoms . Cooking and uses of squash . The first squashes . Boiling fresh squash in a pot . Squashes boiled with blossoms . Squashes boiled with blossoms . Other blossom messes . Boiled blossoms . Blossoms boiled with m~d~po'zi i'ti'a . Blossoms boiled with mapi' nakapa' . Seed squashes . Selecting for seed . Gathering the seed squashes . Cooking the ripe squashes . Saving the seed . Eating the seeds . Roasting ripe squashes . Storing the unused seed squashes . Squashes, present seed . Squash dolls . Chapter VI - Beans . Planting beans . Putting in the seeds . Hoeing and cultivating . Threshing . Varieties . Selecting seed beans . Cooking and uses . Ama'ca di'he, or beans-boiled . Green beans boiled in the pod . Green corn and beans . Vll 66 66 67 67 67 67 67 67 67 68-81 68 68 69 69 70 71 72 73 73 75 76 76 76 77 77 77 77 77 78 78-81 78 78 79 79 80 80 80 81 81 82-86 82 82 83 83 84 85 85 86 86 86 Vlll BUFFALO BIRD WOMAN'S GARDEN Chapter VII - Storing for winter . The cache pit . Grass for lining . Grass bundles . The grass binding rope . Drying the grass bundles . The willow floor . The grass lining . Skin bottom covering . Storing the cache pit . The puncheon cover . Cache pits in Small Ankle's lodge . First account . A second account on another day . Diagram of Small Ankle's lodge . Chapter VIII - The making of a drying stage . Stages in Like-a-fishhook village . Cutting the timbers . Digging the post holes . Raising the frame . The floor . Staying thongs...