My ally Mart Hale just pointed me toa bulletin from the University of MinnesotatitledBuffalo Bird Woman ’s Garden .
I ’m post an excerpt here – it ’s totally enthralling .
Excerpt from Chapter 1 ofBuffalo Bird Woman’s Garden:
Buffalo Bird Woman
“ We Hidatsas believe that our federation of tribes once lived under the Ethel Waters of Devils Lake . Some Hunter discovered the rootage of a vine grow downward ; and climbing it , they found themselves on the Earth’s surface of the earth . Others follow them , until half the tribe had get by ; but the vine broke under the weightiness of a pregnant woman , leaving the relaxation prisoners . A part of our kin are therefore still beneath the lake .
My father , Small Ankle , buy the farm , when a young man , on a war company , chat Devils Lake . “ Beneath the waves , ” he say , “ I get a line a faint drumming , as of drums in a self-aggrandising saltation . ” This report is honest ; for Sioux , who now live at Devils Lake , have also heard this drumming .
Those of my people who escaped from the lake build villages near by . These were of earth lodges , such as my kin built until very late age ; two such earth lodges are still stand on this reservation .
The site where an world lodge has stand up is marked by an earthen ring , arise about what was once the heavily tramp down floor . There are many such earthen rings on the shore of Devils Lake , showing that , as tradition state , our settlement stood there . There were three of these villages , my father pronounce , who several times claver the situation .
Near their villages , the people made gardens ; and in these they planted ground attic and wild potatoes , from come brought with them from their home under the piddle . These veg we do not cultivate now ; but we do gather them in the fall , in the forest along the Missouri where they grow dotty . They are good eating .
Buffalo Bird Woman
These gardens by Devils Lake I call up must have been rather little . I know that in later times , whenever my tribe removed up the Missouri to work up a new hamlet , our fields the first year , were quite low ; for sort out the wooded bottom land was hard work . A family usually bestow to their clearing each year , until their garden was as big as they cared to train .
As yet , my multitude knew nothing of Indian corn or squashes . One daylight a war party , I retrieve of ten man , weave west to the Missouri River . They experience on the other side a village of solid ground lodges like their own . It was a Greenwich Village of the Mandans . The villagers saw the Hidatsas , but like them , feared to cross over , lest the stranger prove to be enemy .
It was autumn , and the Missouri River was running low so that an pointer could be blast from shore to shore . The Mandans parched some ears of right corn whisky with the grain on the filbert ; they broke the ear in pieces , hurtle the piece on the point of pointer , and shoot them across the river . “ Eat ! ” they said , whether by voice or sign , I do not recognize . The watchword for “ eat ” is the same in the Hidatsa and Mandan linguistic process .
The warriors wipe out of the sunbaked corn whiskey , and like it . They returned to their village and tell , “ We have found a multitude living by the Missouri River who have a strange kind of grain , which we feed and found good ! ” The tribe was not much concerned and made no effort to look for the Mandans , revere , besides , that they might not be friendly .
However , a few yr after , a warfare party of the Hidatsas crossed the Missouri and visited the Mandans at their village near Bird Beak Hill . The Mandan headman took an ear of chicken corn whisky , broke it in two , and grant one-half to the Hidatsas . This half - ear the Hidatsas look at home , for seminal fluid ; and before long every family line was engraft yellow corn whiskey .
I consider that cum of other diverseness of corn , and of beans , squashes , and sunflowers , were find of the Mandans afterwards ; but there is no story notification of this , that I know .
I do not know when my hoi polloi break planting background beans and uncivilized potatoes ; but ground attic are hard to dig , and the people , anyway , liked the newfangled kind of dome better .
Whether the footing beans and wild potatoes of the Missouri bottoms are descended from the seed planted by the villager at Devils Lake , I do not have it off .
My tribe , as our honest-to-god men enjoin us , after they got corn , abandoned their village at Devils Lake , and joined the Mandans near the mouthpiece of the Heart River . The Mandans assist them build newfangled villages here , near their own . I think this was hundreds of years ago .
Firewood growing scarce , the two tribes removed up the Missouri to the mouth of the Knife River , where they built the Five Villages , as they called them . Smallpox was brought to my people here , by dealer . In a single class , more than half my tribe died , and of the Mandans , even more .
Those who survived removed up the Missouri and build up a Greenwich Village at Like - a - fishhook curve , where they lived together , Hidatsas and Mandans , as one kin group . This hamlet we Hidatsas called Mu’a - idu’skupe - hi’cec , or Like - a - fishhook village , after the flexure on which it stood ; but white man called it Fort Berthold , from a trading post that was there .
We survive in Like - a - fishhook small town about forty twelvemonth , or until 1885 , when the government began to place families on allotments .
The agriculture of the Hidatsas , as I now identify it , I saw practiced in the garden of Like - a - fishhook village , in my girlhood , before my kin group owned plows … ” ( Read more here ! )
After starting to read the text online , I thought “ I need to see if this has been printed as a book ! ”
It has been andyou can chance it here .
I just bought a transcript , since the farming techniques and the account are completely bewitching .
It even seems that the Hidatsas used semen egg in their maturation .
skillful uncovering , Mart .
