Cache Pits in Small Ankle’s Lodge
First Account
In diagram ([figure 30]), I have marked the positions of the cache pits we had in use in my father’s family, when I was a girl. Cache A was used for hard yellow shelled corn; but the braids piled against the wall of the pit were of white corn; so also of B and C. In cache D were stored dried boiled corn and strings of dried squash.
Figure 30
Sometimes in one of the cache pits outside of the lodge we put a bag of beans, or sometimes two bags. Each bag was of skin and was about as long as one’s arm; its shape was long and round.
In the fall, when we went to our winter lodges, corn, squash, beans, and whatever else was needed, we loaded on our horses and took with us. As soon as we came to our winter lodge we made ready a cache pit at once and stored these things away.
We opened a cache pit whenever we got out of provisions. When should this be, you ask? When we got out of provisions. This might happen at any time. One winter, I remember, we got out of provisions and a number of our people left the winter village and went to the lodges at Like-a-fishhook village, to open a cache. The Sioux surrounded them there. Our people took refuge in a kind of fort that belonged to the traders and fired down from an upper room; they killed two of the Sioux.
Cache pit F in the diagram, we made afterwards. Pit E was also of later make; we dug it after we got potatoes; it was inside the lodge and near the corral for horses.
Cache pit C we had to abandon because mice got into it and we could not get rid of them. So we filled it up with earth and dug pit D. We stored gummy corn in cache pit D and used it for two years. The third year the Sioux came against our village in the winter time and stole our corn and burned down my father’s lodge.
I have been telling you how the cache pit was used for storing things for winter; but I do not mean that it was of no use in summer time. In early spring we put into a cache pit two big packages of dried meat and a bladder full of bone grease. We did not take them out until about August or a little earlier. The meat would still be good, and the bone grease would be hard and sweet, just as if it were frozen.
A cache pit lasted for a long time, used year after year.
A Second Account on Another Day
We had four cache pits to store grain for my father’s family; one held squash, vegetables, corn, etc.
A second held shelled yellow corn. In this cache the usual strings of corn laid around to protect the shelled grain from the wall, were of white corn. We did not braid hard yellow corn. It was corn that we did not often use for parching.
A third cache held white shelled corn, protected by the usual braided strings of white corn.
A fourth cache pit was a small one inside the lodge; here we stored dried wild turnips, dried choke-cherries, and dried June berries; and any valuables that we could not take with us to our winter village.
Our cache pits were for the most part located outside the lodge, because mice were found inside the lodge, and they were apt to be troublesome.
In the cache pit where we stored our yellow corn, we stored the grain loose, not in sacks.
I knew of course where each cache pit was located.
The Sioux sometimes came up against us in winter and raided our cached corn. One winter (about 1877) they came up and burned our lodges and stole all that was in our cache pits.
We returned from our winter quarters to our permanent village a little before ice breaks on the Missouri, or in the latter part of March.
Diagram of Small Ankle’s Lodge
Figure 31
Redrawn from sketch by Goodbird.
A. Bed of Small Ankle and Strikes-many-women.
B. Bed of Wolf Chief and wife.
C. Bed of Bear’s Tail and wife.
D. Bed of Son-of-a-Star and his wife Buffalo-bird-woman.
E. Bed of Flies-low, Yellow Front Hair and Fell-upon-his-house, three boys.
F. Bed of Turtle.
G. Place for storing ax, hay, wood, or any thing that could be piled or laid away.
H. Bed of Small Eyes, elder sister of Strikes-many-women; the bed here by the fireplace being the warmest was commonly reserved for an elderly person. (Small Eyes is probably the same as Red Blossom).
K. Corn mortar and pestle.
L. and M. Cache pits.
N. Platform of slabs on which were stored food, utensils, etc.
P. Lazy-back or native chair.
XXX. Small Ankle’s medicines, or sacred objects.
[Figure 31] is a diagram of Small Ankle’s lodge, as I remember it. My three brothers slept in bed E, but often Wolf Chief or Bear’s Tail and their wives would be away, staying at some other lodge, perhaps at the wife’s mother’s; sometimes they visited thus for a long time. The boys might then make use of the vacant bed of the visiting couple.
All beds were covered with skins, as I have before described to you.
Small children slept with their parents.
I do not know why my father put his medicine shrines in the rear of the lodge. Ours was a big family and there was not room enough for all the beds on one side. Probably Small Ankle wanted the medicine objects near his bed and not where the children were.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAKING OF A DRYING STAGE
Stages in Like-a-fishhook Village
There were about seventy lodges in Like-a-fishhook village, when I was a girl. A corn drying stage stood before every lodge.
That before Small Ankle’s lodge was a three-section stage, of eight posts. White Feather, or his wives, owned two of these big eight-post stages, one before each of their two lodges; for White Feather had four wives. Many Growths—a woman—had a big eight-post stage. There were a few other eight-post stages in the village, but they were small, with narrow sections and posts placed relatively rather close to one another.
The rest of the stages in the village, as I recollect, were all six-post, or two-section, stages.
In all cases, whether of a six-post or eight-post stage, the floor was upheld by two long, but narrow beams, that ran the whole length of the stage.
The description I shall now give of the making of a drying stage, is of an eight-post stage, such as always stood before my father’s lodge.
Cutting the Timbers
The timbers we used for building a drying stage were all of cottonwood. Being thus of a soft wood, the timbers did not last so very long when exposed to the weather; and a stage built of cottonwood timbers lasted only about three years; the fourth year, unless the stage was rebuilt, the posts rotted and the stage would fall down. Unlike the posts of a watchers’ stage, those of a drying stage were always carefully peeled of bark, as they rotted more quickly if the bark was left on.
My mother’s drying stage, as I have said, had eight posts; and these posts we cut with forks at the top. If we could find them, or if we had time to hunt for them in the woods, we cut double-forked posts, like that of [figure 32]. But it was much easier to get the smaller posts, of the height of the stage floor. Such a post had but one fork at the top, in which lay one of the beams that supported the floor; and a companion post, longer and not so heavy, stood by it to support the railing at the top of the stage. However, in reckoning the number of posts of a stage, I count a single-forked post and its companion as but one post.
For the two long beams on which the floor of the stage was to be laid, we cut two rather slender logs, the longest we could find in the woods.
All these timbers we cut in the summer time, peeling off the bark and letting them lie until winter, to dry. Then when there was snow on the ground, we hitched ropes to the seasoned timbers and dragged them into the village.
The stage was built the following spring or summer, to be ready for the fall harvest; so that we commonly cut the timbers for a stage nine months or a year before they were to be used in building it.
Digging the Post Holes
When we were ready to begin building, the first thing we had to do was to mark the post holes. We laid the two long floor beams parallel on the ground, at such a distance apart as to enclose the space necessary for the stage. We then marked the places for the post holes, at proper distances along the inside of the two beams; there were eight of these post holes, four on a side.
These post holes were dug with a long digging stick, and the dirt removed, to the depth of a woman’s arm from the shoulder to the hand; that was as far as one could reach down to lift out the dirt. To get the post holes all of a depth, I took a stick and measured on it the length of my arm from shoulder to fingers; this stick I used to probe the holes to see that they were of a proper depth.
We now laid down all the posts in a row, and so adjusted them that the forks that were to receive the floor beams lay all in a straight line; that is, if the posts were two-forked posts, all the forks C ([figure 32]) would lie in a straight line; and if the posts, or some of them, were single-forked posts, their tops would lie in a line with fork C of the double-forked posts.
Figure 32
On all the posts a charcoal line was now drawn at A ([figure 32]). The distance from A to B ([figure 32]) should be the length of a woman’s arm, which also was the depth of the post hole. But in cutting the posts, no matter how careful we were, there was always some irregularity in lengths so that the part from A to B upon the various posts might slightly vary.
All having now been marked with the charcoal line, the posts were rolled each to its proper post hole and the part AB on the post was carefully measured and compared with the hole’s depth. For this purpose the stick used to probe the post holes came again into use. If the length of the part AB on any post happened to be an inch or two longer than my arm its post hole was deepened to the same extent. All this was necessary in order that when the posts were dropped into their holes, the forks that were to receive the floor beams would lie all at the same height.
I have said that a charcoal line was drawn around each post at A ([figure 32]). The position of this line, after the first one was drawn, was obtained by measuring from the fork C; and care was taken that the measurements on all the posts should be exactly alike. The charcoal line quite encircled the post.
Raising the Frame
The posts were now raised and dropped into the post holes; raising was by hand. The posts were turned so that the forks lay in proper position to receive the floor beams and upper rails; a two-forked post was placed with the prong C ([figure 32]) turned inward.
A single-forked post had to have a companion post beside it, also forked, to support the railing at the top of the stage. This companion post was not so heavy, but of course was longer. It stood just beside the main post and was carefully adjusted to receive the upper rail properly. It was lashed to the main post by a green-hide thong.
This thong might pass around the shorter post just below its fork; or it might bind the companion post to one of the prongs of the fork itself.
If I had several two-forked posts and several one-forked posts with companion posts beside them, it required some little bit of fitting to adjust them all so that the floor beams and rails would lie properly. To better permit this to be done, it was not my custom to firm the earth about the post, until the frame had been set up and adjusted; for little irregularities in the fitting could be cured by slightly moving the posts as they stood unfirmed, in their holes. When the frame was properly adjusted, I took my digging stick—it was always a long one that was used for digging holes—and rammed the earth around the foot of each post, firming it.
It was the custom of my tribe when digging the post holes, to dig each one just the diameter of its post, or as nearly to it as we could; then the posts when raised fitted snugly into the holes.
The two long floor beams having been raised into position, the two poles that were to make the top railing were also raised. These rails were of the same length, but were not so heavy, as the floor beams. We were now ready to lay the floor.
The Floor
The floor of the stage was of cottonwood planks. Cottonwood logs, nine to twelve inches in diameter, had been cut of proper length. Out of the center of each was split a plank, or board, with ax and wedge. These planks were laid to make the floor, the ends of the planks resting on the two floor beams that lay on the forks of the posts. We took care to make the floor as snug as possible. The planks were carefully fitted together, and if there was any little crooked place in a plank that left a crack in the floor, we stuffed a dry cornstalk into the crack so that no ear of corn could fall through.
The planks that made the floor were not bound to the floor beams, nor weighted down in any way; their own weight stayed them in place.
I have said that the drying stage had to be rebuilt about every three years because the posts rotted down in that time. This was not true of the floor planks; they lasted much longer and were used year after year.
Staying Thongs
The eight posts of the stage stood in pairs, a post on either side of the floor; and between the tops of each pair of posts a green-hide thong was bound, and left to dry. These thongs stayed the stage and made it stronger and firmer; often they were also made to bind down the upper rails to the forks of the posts.
Ladder
The stage stood always in front of the earth lodge with its longer side to the door. A ladder stood at the right hand nigher corner post—as one comes out of the lodge—with the foot of the ladder resting a little way from the stage. The top of the ladder leaned against the end of the floor beam on the side next the lodge.
Of course if the ladder were left here with nothing to stay it, it would fall against the loose planks of the stage floor and force them out of position. To prevent this a pole was bound firmly to the two posts A and B ([figure 12]) and resting on the two floor beams just outside the posts. The ladder rested against this pole. To receive the pole, the floor beams were made to project a little bit forward at the ladder end of the stage.
The ladder was made of a cottonwood trunk, about ten inches in diameter, with notches cut in it for steps. At its lower end it was brought to an edge that it might more firmly rest on the ground and not turn when someone stepped on it. At the upper end a notch was cut in the back to receive the end of the floor beam against which the ladder rested. (See [figure 33].)
Figure 33
The ladder had always one fixed place; or, if for any reason it had to be moved during labors, we took pains to warn our friends. A woman in our village once moved her ladder to another place on her stage and forgot about it. When she started to come down she stepped in the old place and fell and broke both her arms. We did not like to have a ladder removed from its accustomed place for fear of just such accidents.
When the owner descended from her drying stage, she took down her ladder and laid it on the ground beside the stage. It was not proper for strangers to go up on the drying stage, nor were children allowed to go up there.
Neighbors sometimes came in and borrowed the ladder; but when not in use, its proper place was on the ground by the stage.
You ask me how we Indian women ascended and descended a ladder. I never thought of our having any particular custom in this; but now that you call my attention to it, I remember that a woman ascended and descended a ladder with her face toward the stage, giving her the appearance of going up sidewise, and coming down in the same manner.
In going up a ladder I usually placed my left foot on the lowest step; brought my right foot around in front and over my left to the second step; then my left foot past and behind my right foot, with my face toward the drying stage. My left hand might or might not touch the ladder, as I was used to ascending it and felt no fear.
In descending a ladder I placed my right foot on the highest step, and overlapped with my left; and so until the bottom was reached.
I do not know if other women had exactly this custom, for I never observed or thought anything about it; but I do know that always, ascending or descending, an Indian woman went sidewise, with her face toward the stage.
Enlarging the Stage
Some years, if our family’s corn crop was very large, we extended our drying stage, making it five posts long instead of four posts long, on a side. Other families did likewise, as they had need; one family might have corn enough to require a stage five posts long, while another family needed one only four posts long, on a side. Stages, indeed, varied in length with the needs of the family, but they were all of about the same width.
Present Stages
The stage that I have been describing is of the kind that was in use in my tribe when I was a young girl of twelve or thirteen years of age. At present we no longer use this, our old form, but the Arikara form instead.
The Arikara stage differs in having a floor of willows, and is easier to make. It took two days to erect a stage of the old fashioned kind, such as I have been describing.
Building, Women’s Work
Building the drying stage was women’s work, although the men helped raise the heavy posts and floor beams. In my father’s family, my two mothers and I built the stage; but my father also helped us, especially if there was any heavy lifting to do.
Measurements of Stage
I will now give you the measurements of such a stage as we used in my father’s family.
Pacing it off here, on the ground, the length of the stage was, I think, about so long—thirty feet.[20] Its width was about thus—twelve feet. From the ground to the top of the stage floor was a little higher than a woman can reach with her hand, or about six feet, six inches; there were horses in the village, and the stage floor must be high enough so that the horses could not reach the corn. From the floor of the stage to the upper railing was about so high (holding up a stick), or five feet and nine inches.
I will now give you the measurements of the posts and beams; and for this, we will use the little model which I have made for you. In this model I have used double-forked posts on one side, and single-forked posts, with companion posts, on the other side.
Figure 34
In the diagram ([figure 34]), A, B, C, D, are double-forked posts; a, b, c, d, are single-forked posts; and xa, xb, xc, xd, are companion posts.
The double-forked posts, A, B, C, and D, should be about ten inches in diameter between the lower fork and the ground, but tapering slightly toward the upper fork. This upper fork, if it was not in the post naturally, might be cut to receive the upper rail. The posts a, b, c, and d, should be ten inches in diameter; and the companion posts, xa, xb, xc, and xd, should be, perhaps, four inches in diameter. All of these posts are set in the ground with the smaller, or branch end upward.
The floor beams should each be about nine and one-half inches in diameter at one end, tapering to four or five inches in diameter at the other end. This tapering was the natural growth of the trunk; it was not, I mean, cut tapering with an ax. The beams were so laid that the heavy ends were always at the front of the stage as we called it; that is, at the end where the ladder stood.
The upper rails were about three and a half inches in diameter. They were chosen for strength, if possible of trunks that were branchless, or nearly so. These upper rails were also laid with the heavy ends toward the front, or ladder end, of the stage.
I have said that if the long posts, A, B, C, D, had no natural fork at the top, one was cut; but all other forks, and those also on the tops of the shorter posts were natural.
We took pride in building the stage of well chosen timbers, and in making the parts fit snugly. The floor especially was laid as smooth and as evenly as possible; and here and there, if a crack appeared, a dry corn stalk was caulked in to make the floor snug and smooth. We were also careful to choose straight, well formed trunks for posts and floor beams.
Drying Rods
Lying across the top of the stage in harvest time, with their ends resting on the upper rails, were often a number of drying rods. A drying rod was a pole averaging a little more than two inches in diameter and about thirteen feet long, its length permitting six or seven inches to project over the rail on which either end rested.
These drying rods were much used in harvest time. When old women came to the stage to slice squashes, they spitted the slices, as I have described, on willow spits; and these spits again were laid on the drying rods, each end of a spit resting on one of the rods.
The drying rods had other uses. If the day was warm, old women working on the floor of the stage would lay two or three of these rods across the upper rails and throw a buffalo robe over them, and thus have shade while they worked. They bound the robe down with thongs to hold it firm.
When not in use the drying rods were laid lengthwise on the floor of the stage that the wind might not blow them about.
Other Uses of the Drying Stage
By far the chief use of the drying stage, was to dry our vegetables, especially our corn and sliced squashes. Firewood, collected from the Missouri river in the June rise, was often piled on and under the stage floor, to dry.
The keepers of the O´kipạ ceremony used to bring out their buffalo head masks, and air them on the drying stage that stood before their lodge door.
CHAPTER IX
TOOLS
Hoe
Iron hoes had come into general use when I was a girl, but there were two or three old women who used old fashioned bone hoes. I think my grandmother, Turtle, was the very last to use one of these bone hoes. I will describe the hoe she used, as I remember it.
The blade was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo, with the edge trimmed and sharpened; and the ridge of bone, that is found on the shoulder blade of every animal, was cut off and the place smoothed.
The handle of the hoe was split, and grooves were cut in the split to receive the bone blade; this was slightly cut to fit and was so set that the edge pointed a little backwards.
Raw-hide thongs bound the split firmly about the blade and a stout thong, running from a groove a little way up the handle, braced the blade in place. (See [figure 3, page 12]).
Under my directions, Goodbird has made a hoe such as I saw my grandmother use, using the shoulder bone of a steer for a blade. You can make necessary measurements from it.
Hoe handles were made of cottonwood or some other light wood.
Rakes
We Hidatsas began our tilling season with the rake.
We used two kinds,[21] both of native make; one was made of a black-tailed deer horn ([figure 5, page 14]), the other was of wood ([figure 4, page 14]).
Of the two, we thought the horn rake the better, because it did not grow worms, as we said. Worms often appear in a garden and do much damage. It is a tradition with us that worms are afraid of horn; and we believed if we used black-tailed deer horn rakes, not many worms would be found in our fields that season.
We believed wooden rakes caused worms in the corn. These worms, we thought, came out of the wood in the rakes; just how this was, we did not know.
However, horn rakes were heavy and rather hard to make; and for this reason, the handier and more easily made wooden rakes were more commonly used.
All this that I tell you of our tools and fields is our own lore. White men taught us none of it. All that I have told you, we Indians knew since the world began.
Figure 35
Squash Knives
Squash knives of bone were still in use when I was young. I have often seen old women using them but, as I recollect, I never saw one being made.
The knife was made from the thin part of a buffalo’s shoulder bone; never, I think, from the shoulder bone of a deer, elk, or bear.
The bone of a buffalo cow was best, because it was thinner. If the squash knife was too thick, the slices of squash were apt to break as they were being severed from the fruit. Bone squash knives, as I remember, were used for slicing squashes and for nothing else.
A squash knife should be cut from green bone; it would then keep an edge, for green bone is firm and hard. I do not think I ever saw anyone sharpening a bone knife so far as I can now recollect.
There was no handle to a bone squash knife, beyond the natural bone.
A bone squash knife lasted a long time. Old women in our village who used these bone knives, brought them out each summer in the squash harvest. It was their habit, I think, to keep the knives in the back part of the lodge, by the owner’s bed. Whether it was customary to keep the knives in bags, or in some other receptacle, I do not know.
My mothers used a white man’s steel knife for slicing squashes; but as I have said, there were old women in the village who still used the older bone knives.
Yellow Squash, I remember, was one; an old Hidatsa woman named Blossom was another; so also was Goes-around-the-end.
This model of a squash knife ([figure 35]) that I have had my son Goodbird make for you, is of rather dry bone; I have had him grease it, that it may be more like green bone.
Figure 36
MAP of GARDENS S.E. of VILLAGE.
CHAPTER X
FIELDS AT LIKE-A-FISHHOOK VILLAGE
East-Side Fields
[Figure 36] is a map I have made of the gardens east, or better, southeast, of Like-a-fishhook village. The fields lay, as indicated on the map, upon a point of land that went out into the Missouri river. The map is only approximately correct. There were many other gardens than those represented here on the map; for I have made no attempt to indicate any but those that lay in the immediate vicinity of the field my family tilled. These, however, I remember pretty clearly, and believe my map to be, as far as it goes, fairly accurate.
Our family garden is the one marked “Strikes-many-women’s and Buffalobird-woman’s.” It lay just south of Lone Woman’s and Want-to-be-a-woman’s. The field was rather irregular at first; a corner of it, as I have said, was claimed by Lone Woman and Goes-to-next-timber, as they had started to clear it. My mothers bought out the rights of the claimants, in order to keep our field more nearly rectangular, so that we could count our Indian acres more accurately. This corner is marked by a dotted line, on the map.
I remember that when I was a little girl, the boundaries of the field were rather irregular at first; and my grandmother, Turtle, would go along the edge with her digging stick and dig up the ground to make the corners come out more nearly squared, and the sides of the field be straightened.
The field was also enlarged from year to year toward the sides; and much of this work my grandmother did with her digging stick. The garden when completed was the largest ever owned in my family; it was this field whose size I measured off for you on the prairie the other day.
The village gardens varied in size. Some families tilled large fields; others rather small ones. Some families did not work very energetically; and these were often put to it to have food. Other families worked hard, and always had a plenty. Families were not all equally industrious.
There were no watchers’ stages nor booths in these east-side fields. The ground rose in a shelf, or bluff, just north of the gardens; from this shelf the watchers could watch their fields and sing to the growing corn without the trouble of having to build stages.
The soil of the east-side gardens was bottom land and prairie, with little or no timber.
East Side Fences
Our fields on the east-side of the village were fenced, as will be seen from the map. The fences were made thus:
Posts were cut of any kind of wood two or three inches in diameter and forked at the top. These were set in holes, at distances about as we now use for corral posts, or twelve feet from post to post. Posts were sunk the length of my forearm and fingers into the ground. Holes were made with digging stick and knife, and the dirt drawn out by hand.
Rails were laid in the forks of the posts and bound down with strips of bark; elm bark was strongest, but other kinds were used. The railing thus made ran about three and a half feet from the ground, the height of the posts that upheld it. All the rails were peeled of bark.
No attempt was made to firm the structure, as we did our drying stages. Our object was but to keep out the horses, and if the fence was strong enough to withstand the winds we thought that enough.
As will be seen from the map, some of the fields were fenced quite around; but this was done only when the field was isolated. When several gardens adjoined, a single fence usually ran around them all, and not around each individual field.
When several gardens were enclosed in a single fence, each owner looked after that part of the fence that bordered her own land, and kept it in repair.
We did not run our fences close to the boundary of our gardens as white men do. As we built our fences chiefly to keep horses out of the gardens, we placed them far enough away so that even if the horses approached the fence, they could not reach over and nibble the growing corn.
I think our fences stood twelve or fifteen feet away from the cultivated ground, as I pace it here on the ground. I know no reason why they were run thus, except as I have said, to keep the horses from nibbling the corn. You see, fifteen feet is quite a little distance; and the fence could have stood closer to the cultivated ground and still been far enough away to keep the horses from nibbling the crops. All I know is, that it was a custom of my tribe, and I always followed this custom if I had a fence to build.
As will be seen by the map, the corners of the fences were turned rather round; not built squared, as white men build their fences. We could not square the corners as white men do when they build wire fences, because we could not lay the rails in the forks of the posts and bind them down firmly if we did so. Perhaps that is the reason we ran the fences so far from the cultivated ground, that the fence, turning the corners, might not invade the cultivated ground—if you will look at the map you will see what I mean. However, I do not know if this is the reason or not.
Horses did not trouble us much, as we did not permit them to graze near our garden lands; they were pastured on the prairie.
We always had fences around our fields as long ago as I know anything about; and I have heard that our tribe had such fences in the villages they built at the mouth of the Knife River, to protect their fields there from their horses. Such, I have heard, has been our Indian custom since the world began.
At the very first it is true, we did not own ponies; but we soon got them.
I think my tribe obtained ponies from the western tribes. In my own youth we Hidatsas got many of our horses from western tribes, especially from the Crows.
Idikita´c’s Garden
On the map there appears a garden marked as belonging to a woman named Idikita´c. She made her garden after all the others had been fenced in. There was a road that went down to some June-berry and choke-cherry patches, in the small timber that stood beyond the gardens; it was a mere path used by villagers afoot, by women with their dogs, and sometimes by horsemen.
Now, Idikita´c laid out her field so that it enclosed a small section of this road; and she built a fence around it and tried to keep the villagers from going across her land. The people did not like this. Idikita´c would tie up her fence tight, but the villagers going down to the choke-cherry patch, would go right through her garden, following the road that had been there; sometimes they even went through with horses.
“You must not make your garden here,” the people said to Idikita´c, “this is a road!”
And Idikita´c answered, “I do not want you to do damage to my garden!”
There was quite a deal of talk in the village about this matter, and quite a bit of trouble came of it.
Fields West of the Village
The first field cleared by my father’s family on the west side of the village, is that marked A, on the plot legended with Turtle’s name, on the map ([figure 37]), which I have had my son Goodbird draw for you of our west-side fields. A coulee bordered one end of the field; and in the rainy months the water washed out much of the good soil. Willows growing up along the edge of the coulee also gave us much trouble. We therefore extended our field to the other side of the coulee, to include the part marked B.
Afterwards we added another field, marked on the map with my name, Maxi´diwiac.
In Turtle’s garden there was a watchers’ stage, C, with a tree beside it. There was also a booth, D.
Peppermint and Yellow Hair had each a watchers’ stage and a booth in her garden, as indicated on the map. Another stage and a tree stood in a garden near by, the name of whose owner I have now forgotten. I have marked the position of stage and tree in each field only approximately except in Turtle’s garden; as this was one of our own family fields, I remember the position of stage and tree very accurately.
In this map, as in that of the east-side gardens, I have indicated only the fields that lay in the vicinity of those cultivated by my own family; there were many others, but I can not, after so many years, accurately mark their positions, nor tell the names of the owners.
Figure 37
West-Side Fence
A fence protected our west-side gardens also, but only on the side nearest the village, probably because the horses could be expected to come from that direction. This fence differed somewhat from those on the east side.
The fence was built thus:
A heavy stick was sharpened at one end and driven into the ground with an ax; it was loosened by working it from side to side with the hands, and withdrawn, leaving a hole about a foot deep.
Into this hole was thrust a diamond willow, butt end downward, for post. The long tapering top with the twigs and leaves still on it, was bent over and around a rail (that was raised into position for the purpose) and then twisted around the post and tied down with bark. A second rail was bound to the post below the first. The sketch on the map gives an idea of what is meant, and in [figure 38] is sketch and diagram by Goodbird.
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.
Crops, Our First Wagon
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 field A, in Turtle’s garden. From the field B, 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.
CHAPTER XI
MISCELLANEA
Divisions Between Gardens
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.
Fallowing, Ownership of Gardens
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.
Frost in the Gardens
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.
Maxi´diwiac’s Philosophy of 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.
Men Helping in the Field
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.
Sucking the Sweet Juice
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.
Corn as Fodder for Horses
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.
Disposition of Weeds
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.
The Spring Clean-up
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.
Manure
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.
Worms
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.
Wild Animals
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.
About Old Tent Covers
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.
CHAPTER XII
SINCE WHITE MEN CAME
How We Got Potatoes and Other Vegetables
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 New Cultivation
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.
Iron Kettles
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.
CHAPTER XIII
TOBACCO
Observations by Maxi´diwiac
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 Tobacco Garden
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 our tobacco 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.
Planting
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.
Arrow-head-earring’s Tobacco Garden
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.
Small Ankle’s Cultivation
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.
Harvesting the Blossoms
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.
Harvesting the Plants
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 the blossoms. 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.
Selling to the Sioux
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.
Size of Tobacco Garden
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.
Customs
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.