Uses of the Varieties
Atạ´ki Tso´ki
I think that perhaps at first, there was but one variety of corn, atạ´ki tso´ki, or hard white; and that all other varieties have sprung from it. I know that when we plant hard white seed, ears often develop that show color in the grain. Sometimes ears are produced bearing pink grains toward the beard end of the cob; such ears we call i´puta (top) hi´tsiica (pink); that is, pink top, or light-red top. In color these ears differed in no wise from atạ´ki aku´ hi´tsiica.
Hard white was very generally raised, nearly every family in the tribe having a field of it.
There were two chief dishes chiefly prepared from hard white corn; these I will now describe.
Mäpi´ Nakapa´. I put water in a pot, and in this I dropped a section of a string of dried squash, with some beans. Dried squash was always strung on long grass strings; and having, from one of these strings, cut off a piece I tied the ends together, making a wreath, or ring, four or five inches in diameter. It was this ring of dried squash slices that I dropped into the pot. When well boiled, I lifted the squash slices out by the string and dropped them into a wooden bowl, where I mashed them and chopped them fine with a horn spoon. The mashed squash I dropped back into the kettle again, with the beans; the now empty string I threw away.
Meanwhile corn had been parched, and some buffalo fats had been held over the coals on a stick, to roast. The parched corn and roast fats I pounded together in the corn mortar; and the pounded mass I stirred into the kettle. The mess was now ready to be eaten.
This dish we called mäpi´-nakapa´, or pounded-meal mush; from mäpi,´ something pounded, and nakapa´, mush, something mushy.
The dish was especially a morning meal; after eating it we started to work.
Mä´nakapa. A second way of preparing hard white corn was as follows: I pounded the corn in a mortar to a meal, but without first parching it. Most of this meal was fine, but there were many coarser bits in it, some of them as big as quarter grains of corn.
Water was put in a kettle; I added the pounded meal, and when it boiled put in beans. No fats were added.
As the mess boiled. I stirred it with a wooden paddle to prevent scorching; I did not stir with a horn spoon as the hot water softened and spoiled the horn.
When well boiled, the mess was served.
We called this dish mä´nakapa´.[16]
A seasoning of spring salt, as we called it, was often added. A small palmful of the salt was mixed with a little water in a horn spoon; this dissolved the salt and let the sand and dirt drop to the bottom. The dissolved salt was poured off through the fingers, held to the mouth of the horn spoon; this strained out the sand and dirt. The salt turned the mush slightly yellow.
As the soft mush boiled up in the cooking, we were fond of dipping a horn spoon into it, and licking off the back of the spoon. This was especially a children’s habit.
Also at morning and evening meals we ate hard white corn parched and mixed with fats; or mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a, boiled whole corn.
Atạ´ki
This is a soft, or as you call it, a flour corn, and was perhaps the favorite variety grown by us. The word atạ´ki means white; but when applied to corn we translate soft white, to distinguish from atạ´ki tso´ki, or hard white.
The use of atạ´ki, or soft white, was very general, since it could be made into almost every kind of corn food used by us. “It is the one variety,” we used to say, “that can be used in any and every way.”
Soft white corn, parched and pounded into a meal, was boiled with squash and beans to make mäpi´ nakapa´. The unparched grain was pounded for meal to make mä´nakapa; but although good, we did not think the mush made from soft white meal was as good as that from the hard white corn meal.
Boiled Corn Ball. A less frequent dish made from soft white corn was boiled corn balls; it was made only from the dried ripe grain.
I pounded a quantity of grain into meal, and poured the meal into a pot having hot water—but not too much water—stirring it well about. I now lifted out some of the mass into my left palm and patted it down with my right, making a cake about as big around as a baking powder biscuit, but not so thick. This cake I dropped into a pot of boiling water, where it sank to the bottom. I continued until the pot was full, or until I had all I wished to cook.
No salt or other seasoning was added.
As the pot boiled, one could see the corn cakes move around in the water; but they never floated, nor did they break apart. The boiling lasted about an hour.
In olden days we ate these corn balls alone; now we more often eat them with coffee.
Tsï´di Tso´ki and Tsï´di Tapä´
The two varieties of tsï´di, or golden yellow corn, could be pounded and boiled to make mush, or mä´dakapa; or they could be boiled whole, to make mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a.
Mạdạpo´zi I’ti´a. For this dish I put the shelled ripe grain, with fats, in a pot and boiled them until I saw the kernels break open; then I added beans, and when these were boiled, the mess was served. This dish we called mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a. I do not know the derivation of mạdạpo´zi; i’ti´a means large. I think you can translate “corn boiled whole.”
Hard yellow and soft yellow corn, roasted in the green ear, tasted sweet, as if a little sugar were in them. Especially was this true at the time when kernels were beginning to turn yellow. At this time each kernel shows a little yellow spot on the very top. For this reason this season was called tsi´dotsxĕ, or yellow-drop time; for the little yellow spot looked like a drop on the top of the kernel.
Other Soft Varieties
Do´ohi, or blue, hi´ci cĕ´pi, dark red, and hi´tsiica, light red, were all soft corns and were cooked and prepared and stored just like atạ´ki; these four varieties tasted exactly alike, if cooked in the same way.
Ma´ikadicakĕ
Ma´ikadicakĕ, or gummy corn, is of different colors; some is of a light red; some yellow flaked with red; and some is in color like hard white; but all these slightly differing strains are alike in this, that when the kernels dry they shrink up and become rough, or wrinkled. The name, ma´ikadicakĕ, comes from kadi´cakĕ, or gum-like.
Ma´ikadicakĕ was the least grown of our five principal varieties of corn; however, a good deal of this variety is still raised on this reservation.
Ma´ikadicakĕ was sometimes roasted green, when the kernels chewed up gummy in the mouth; but the one recognized use of this variety was to make corn balls.
Mä´pĭ Mĕĕ´pĭ I’´kiuta, or Corn Balls. Into a clay pot while yet cold, I put shelled corn and set it on the fire. As the grain parched, I stirred it with a stick. The heat made the kernels pop open somewhat, but not much.
Meanwhile fats were roasted over the coals on the point of a stick; and these and the parched grain were dropped into the corn mortar and pounded together. I then reached into the mortar and took out a handful of the meal, which being oily with the fats, held together in a lump. This lump I squeezed in my fingers and then tapped it gently on the edge of the mortar, making a slight dent or groove, lengthwise, in one side of the lump. The lump or ball—it was not exactly round—I dropped into a wooden bowl. The process was repeated until the bowl was full.
Our native name for corn ball is mä´pi mĕĕ´pĭ i’´kiuta, from mä´pi, something pounded, mĕĕ´pĭ, mortar, and i’´kiuta, hit or pressed against; that is pounded meal pressed against the mortar; but we translate, just corn ball.
Corn balls were an acceptable present for a woman to give her daughter to take to her husband; the son-in-law might himself eat the corn balls, or share them with his parents or sisters.
As I have said, the one recognized use of gummy corn was for parching to make corn balls; but any of the soft corns could be used to make corn balls, as soft yellow, soft white, blue, light red, and the like.
Parched Soft Corn. Corn of any of the soft varieties parched in a pot as just described, was often carried by hunters or travelers to be eaten as a lunch. The corn was carried in a little bag made by drying a buffalo’s heart skin.
Parching Whole Ripe Ears. We parched the whole ears, sometimes, of ripe soft white and soft yellow corn. We had many squash spits piled up in the rear of the lodge behind the beds; these made excellent roasting sticks. The ear was stuck on the end of the stick and held over the coals.
Parching ripe corn on the ear was a winter custom; but boys herding horses in the summer also parched whole ears sometimes for their midday lunch.
We did parch other kinds of corn thus, besides soft white and soft yellow, but they were not so good.
The gummy was not cooked in this way.
Parching Hard Yellow Corn with Sand. We sometimes parched hard yellow corn in a clay pot of our own make, with sand. Down on the sand bars by the Missouri we found clean, pure sand; if I wanted to parch hard yellow, I put a handful of this sand in my clay pot.
The pot I now set on the coals of the fire place until the sand within was red hot. With a piece of old tent skin to protect my hand, I drew the pot a little way from the coals and dropped a double handful of corn within. I stirred the corn back and forth over the sand with a little stick.
When I thought the corn was quite heated through, I put the pot back on the coals again, still stirring the corn with the stick. Very soon all the kernels cracked open with a sharp crackling noise; they burst open much as you say white man’s popcorn does.
Hard yellow corn parched in this way was softer than even the soft corns parched in a pot without sand.
No variety of corn was good cooked in this way, except hard yellow; no other kind would do.
Mạdạpo´zi Pạ´kici, or Lye-Made Hominy. There was another way in which we prepared hard and soft yellow and hard and soft white; this was to make it into hominy with lye.
I collected about a quart of ashes; only two kinds were used, cottonwood or elm wood ashes. When I was cooking with such wood and thought of making hominy, I was careful to collect the ashes, raking away the other kinds first.
I put on an iron kettle nearly full of water, and brought it to a boil. Into the boiling water I put the ashes, stirring them about with a stick. Then I set the pot off to steep for a short time.
When the ashes had settled I poured the lye off into a vessel and cleaned the pot thoroughly.
In earlier times the ashes were boiled in an earthen pot as indeed I have often seen it done when I was a girl. I was not quite twenty when we bought an iron pot for cooking. Before that we used only earthen pots for cooking in our family.
Having cleaned the pot I poured the lye back into it, put the pot on the fire, and added shelled, ripe, dried corn. This I boiled until the hulls came off the grain and the corn kernels appeared white.
I added a little water, and took the pot off the fire; I drained off the lye.
I poured water into the pot and washed the corn, rubbing the kernels between my palms; I drained off the water.
I poured in water and washed the corn a second time, in the same way; I drained off the water.
Again I put water in the pot and boiled the corn in it. As the corn was already soft, this boiling did not take long. I now added fats, and beans, and sometimes dried squash, all at the same time; and the pot I replaced on the fire. When the beans and squash were cooked, the mess was ready to eat.
Corn so prepared we call mạdạpo´zi pạ´kici, or boiled-whole-corn rubbed. It is so called because the hulls of the kernels were rubbed off between the palms at the time the corn was washed in water after the lye was poured off.
General Characteristics of the Varieties
We Hidatsas thought that our five principal varieties of corn, hard and soft white, hard and soft yellow, and gummy, had characteristics that marked them quite distinctly one from the other.
For one thing, they had each a distinct taste. If at night I were given to eat of hard white corn, or hard yellow or soft yellow, I could at once tell each from any of the others. If I were given mush at night made from these three varieties, each by itself, I could distinguish each variety, not by its smell, but in my mouth by taste.
Meal made by pounding ripe hard white corn became thick and mushy when boiled in a pot.
Tsï´di tapa´, or soft yellow corn, was quite soft to pound when we made meal of it; and the boiled meal, or mush, seemed to contain a good deal of water in it—that is, it seemed thin and gruel-like when we came to eat it.
To pound tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow corn, into meal took a long time; but when it had been pounded and the meal boiled into food, it was very good to eat and had an appetizing smell.
Of the nine varieties I have named, the atạ´ki, or soft white, was the earliest maturing. If seeds of all nine varieties were planted at the same time, the soft white would always be the first to ripen in the fall; and the tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow, would be the last to ripen.
Although the blue, light red, dark red, pink top, and soft white were all soft or flour corns, yet the soft white was the earliest to ripen. I reckon the soft white, also, to be the softest of all our varieties of corn.
I also rate the hard yellow and hard white as equal in value. Both are equally hard, and can not be pounded up into the fine flour or meal which we get from the soft varieties.
The hard yellow and soft yellow we thought were the best varieties from which to prepare half-boiled dried corn for winter storing. The dark and light reds were also used, and if not quite so good, were but little inferior. Indeed, for half-boiled dried corn, all varieties were used, even the ma´ikadicakĕ, or gummy; but this last we did not think a good variety for this way of putting up corn. Our gummy corn had but one well recognized use; it was good for parching to make corn balls.
Figure 19
Figure 20
Fodder Yield
I do not think there was any perceptible difference in the fodder yield of the various races of corn which we Hidatsas cultivated; but the fodder yield was always much heavier in rainy years. In a dry season, the stalks of the corn would be small and weak; and the leaves would be smaller than in seasons of good rainfall.
Developing New Varieties
We Hidatsas knew that slightly differing varieties could be produced by planting seeds that varied somewhat from the main stock. A woman named Good Squash used to raise a variety of corn that tasted just like soft white. This corn had large swelling kernels with deep yellow, almost reddish, stripes running down the sides of the grain. We called it Adaka´-dahu-ita ko´xati, or Arikaras’ corn, though it was not Arikara corn at all. Good Squash’s daughter, Hunts Water, lives on this reservation; she may have some of the seed of this variety.