BUFFALO BIRD WOMAN’S GARDEN

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Now the Iroquois had the Three Sisters (Companion Gardening): Corn, beans and squash legend, that used the corn stalks as a natural pole for the beans to climb on. The beans fix nitrogen on their roots improving the overall fertility of the garden plot. The bean vines help stabilize the corn plants making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. The shallow rooted squash vines became a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crop chances of survival in dry years. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter and improve the soil structure. Now the Iroquois would bury a fish in the hill to fertilize the corn and beans if they were planting other then in the river bottom.

The Hidatsas usually raised about 9 varieties of corn, Hard white, soft white, hard yellow, soft yellow, gummy, blue, dark red, light red and pink too. They also raised Flint corn which matured in about 60 days and was used a lot, and is multicolored and called calico corn or Indian corn. It has a low water content and can survive freezes better than most other corn and can survive when other corn cannot.

In preparation of planting the squash seeds were first sprouted. When the seeds were sprouted nearly an inch they were ready to plant. Hills were created about 15 inches in diameter. Make sure the hills are soft and loose soil so plants can thrive. 4 plants were planted in each hill in two pairs. The pairs should be 12 inches apart. The seeds were planted on the side of the hill about two inches deep. Plant the sprouts upright in the soil.

The reason for planting the squash seeds in the side of the hills, the squash sprouts are soft and tender. If planted in level ground the rains would beat down on the soil and it would pack hard and the soil would get somewhat crusted, so the sprouts could not break through. But if the sprouts were planted on the side of the hill the water from the rains would flow over them and keep the soil soft.

The squash harvest began a little before the green corn came in, around the end of July. After the first harvest of squash the second one came12 days later just before the green corn came in around the 8^th of august. Squashes grow fast and must be picked every four days. A four day old squash would be about 4 ¼ inches. These could be sliced for drying, knowing that the slices would be firm enough to retain their shape unbroken.

The squashes dried for 3 days then were removed and strung on prepared dried grass strings about seven fathoms long, the distance between a woman’s two outstretched hands. On sunny days they were removed from the earth lodges and continue to dry outside, then brought in again in the evenings. Squash blossoms were also dried and used as seasonings in cooking. I had an old woman in Indiana tell me if you take these and pumpkin blossoms and dip them in batter and deep fry them they taste like deep fried oysters, and taste very good.

Beans were planted immediately after the squash was planted. Beans were planted in oblong hills about 7 X 14 inches. Corn hills like squash hills stood about 4 feet apart in a row measuring from center to center, however bean hills might be placed 2 feet apart in a row. Beans were usually planted between the rows of corn. The beans were also planted in the side of the hill about two inches apart.

Beans were allowed to completely dry out on the vines before being harvested, in the fall after the corn had been harvested. If the vines were still green they had to dry for another day or two. All the bean pods had to be dead and dry. After the beans dried they were placed in sacks for storage.

A Hidatsa’s myth is: “In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes, sunflowers and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought 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 powers. It is the corn that brings the night moisture – 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 moisture that makes the corn and also the beans, squashes, sunflowers and tobacco grow. The corn possesses all this magic power.”

Originally, these people used digging sticks and bone hoes. The blade of the hoe used by Buffalo Bird Woman was made from the shoulder bone of an ox. These were replaced by iron hoes and axes. It was well know in my tribe that burning over a new garden ground left the soil soft and easy to work, and for this reason we thought it a wise thing to do.

Waheenee

Written by: Maxidiwiac know as Buffalo Bird Woman

I am an old woman now.

The buffaloes and the black tailed deer are gone,

and our Indian ways are almost gone.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I ever lived them.

My little son grew up in the white’s man’s school.

He can read books, and he owns cattle and has a farm.

He is a leader among out Hidatsa people,

helping teach them to follow the white man’s road.

He is kind to me.

We no longer live in an earth lodge,

but in a house with chimneys;

and my son’s wife cooks by a stove.

But for me, I cannot forget the old ways.

Often in summer I rise at daybreak and steal out to the corn fields;

and as I hoe the corn I sing to it, as we did when I was young.

No one comes for our corn songs now.

Sometimes at evening I sit, looking out on the big Missouri.

The sun sets, and dusk steals over the water.

In the shadows I seem again to see our Indian village,

with smoke curling upward from the earth lodges;

and I the river’s roar I hear the yells of warriors,

the laughter of little children as of old.

It is but an old woman’s dream.

Again I see but shadows and hear only the roar of the river;

and tears come into my eyes,

Our Indian Life,

I know,

is gone forever.

ENTIRE ARTICLE

BUFFALO BIRD WOMAN’S GARDEN

As told to Gilbert L. Wilson

Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians along

the Knife and Missouri Rivers of North Dakota.

Hidatsa means willows like the willow trees along the Missouri River.

Buffalo Bird Woman was called Maxidiwiac in the Hidatsa language and was born about 1839, the year after the tribe was decimated by Smallpox. She was born in an earthen lodge along the Knife River in present day North Dakota. The smallpox nearly exterminated the Mandan tribe with only about 150 souls remaining and the Hidatsa were reduced to about 500 people. The two tribes combined and in 1845 her family moved upstream and built Like-a-fishhook village which was shared by the Mandan and the Arikara tribes. Buffalo Bird woman grew up to become an expert gardener using the agricultural practices centuries old. Their family usually grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and tobacco in the fertile bottom lands of the Missouri River.

Buffalo Bird Woman’s tribe inherited a cultural legacy that had long withstood the test of time. Archaeologists have named their way of life the Plains Village Tradition and traced it back to A.D. 1100 in the Knife River – heart river region of the Missouri Valley, which is the historic homeland of the Hidatsa and the Mandan tribes. Buffalo Bird woman was a member of the Prairie Chicken Clan. The Hidatsa gardeners were sensitive to the ecological demands of the Northern Plains climate. They carved their garden plots from the wooden and brushy areas in the fertile bottom lands, where tillable soil was renewed annually by flooding. They did not try to cultivate on the prairie, which was covered with dry soil.

Brush cleared for planting was spread over the plots and burned, for it was the conventional wisdom that burning trees and brush “softened the soil and left it loose and mellow for planting.” Burning also added nutrients to the soil. Gardens were usually about ten acres per family.

The first seeds planted in spring were sunflowers. The ice broke on the Missouri River during the 1^st week of April. Plant sunflower seeds as soon as the soil can be worked. Three seeds were planted in a hill to the depth of the second joint of a woman’s finger. Sunflowers were planted around the edge of the garden. The hills were placed 8-9 paces apart. We thought a field (garden) surrounded by a sparsely sown row of sunflowers had a handsome appearance.

Although the sunflower was the first crop to be planted in the spring, they were the last to be harvested in the fall. Seed heads from our cultivated varieties may be 11 inches across. Sunflowers were ready for harvesting when the little petals that covered the head fell off. The back of the head would turn from green to yellow. Cut the heads off near the stem and spread them face downward usually on top of the roof to dry. Takes four days to dry the heads and when the seeds are removed by beating a stick on the back of the heads. Leaving the seeds out to be frosted on makes them more oily.

Corn planting began in the second month after the sunflower seed was planted, that is in May. We knew it was planting time when the wild gooseberry bushes were almost in full leaf and when the Canadian geese began flying south or when the dogwood tree leaf is about the size of a squirrel’s ear.

Corn was planted in hilled rows with the hills approximately four feet apart, because corn planted in hills close together would have fewer and smaller ears. This spacing which is wider than that used by today’s farmers, was tuned to the expected rainfall. Closer spacing would only bring higher yields if the growing season was unusually wet. Wider rows of corn would bring acceptable yields with normal and subnormal summer rainfall.

This adjustment to conditions of low rainfall is consistent with the fact that one Hidatsa corn variety, Flint Corn, was well adapted to the semi-arid Northern Plains climate. It required only about 60 days to mature, was relatively resistant to hail and frost, and because of its short stalk withstood winds fairly well. They also practiced following, or taking a garden plot out of production for two years to let it rejuvenate.

The corn was planted in staggered hills about 18 inches in diameter. Smooth off the top of the hill and make it level. Plant two seeds at a time about ½ inch deep. I plant about six grains

per hill in about a nine inch diameter. Cover the grains until the seed lay about the length of my finger (woman’s finger) under the soil. Later as the corn grows you need to cover the roots with more soil and to protest from the sun, that they might not dry out.

Rows were about four feet apart in the rows too. If the corn needed to be replanted in hills that may have been destroyed by animals were soaked first. Leave seed in tepid water (not hot) for only a short time. Seed corn that had been soaked would sprout a third of an inch of an inch long in only 4-5 days after planting, if the weather was warm.

The corn needs hoeing when it is about 3 inches tall. When hoeing the corn go through the whole garden as well, the squashes, beans and all. Quit hoeing when the corn is 8 inches tall. Then when the silk appears later in the summer hoeing begins again as well as hilling the corn, cover the corn roots from the sun and also make them stronger and more resistant to the winds. Pull the weeds and burn them so their seeds don’t scatter in the garden.

More soil was hilled around the squashes and beans too but not to high, otherwise the bean vines would get beaten down into the mud by the rains and rot.

The first field corn (green corn) would be ready to be eaten early in the harvest moon, when the blossoms of the prairie goldenrod (Nebraska State Flower) are all in full bright yellow, or about the end of the first week of August. I knew when the ears were ripe enough for boiling when the blossoms on top of the stalk were turned brown, the silk on the end of the ear was dry and the husks on the ear were of a dark green color. This lasted only ten days when the corn became to hard to boil. Corn was gathered and harvested in September.

Corn planting was usually finished by June or when the corn is 4 inches tall, so now planting squashes and beans could begin. In the Hidatsa tribe the beans was planted between the rows of corn with 4 rows of squashes planted to separate gardens from neighbors.