I will tell you of something I know,
And you can’t half imagine how good;
It’s the song of wild roses that grow
In the land the Dakota-folk love.
From the heart of the Mother we come,
The kind Mother of Life and of All;
And if ever you think she is dumb,
You should know that flowers are her songs.
And all creatures that live are her songs,
And all creatures that die are her songs,
And the winds blowing by are her songs,
And she wants you to sing all her songs.
Like the purple in Daydawn we come,
And our hearts are so brimful of joy
That whene’er we’re not singing we hum
Ti-li-li-li-i, ta-la-la-loo, ta-la-la-loo!
When a maiden is ready to wed
Pin wild roses all over her dress,
And a rose in the hair of her head;
Put new moccasins onto her feet.
Then the heart of the Mother will give
Her the songs of her own heart to sing;
And she’ll sing all the moons she may live,
Ti-li-li-li-i, ta-la-la-loo, ta-la-la-loo!
USE OF THE GROUND BEAN BY INDIANS
There is a native wild bean found growing over an area of wide distribution in North America. The botanical name of this bean is Falcata comosa. In the Dakota language it is called maka ta omnicha, which means “bean of the earth;” in the Pawnee language it is called ati-kuraru, which means “earth bean.” The plant grows in dense masses over shrubbery and other vegetation in some places, especially along banks and at the edge of timber.
It forms two kinds of branches, bearing two forms of flower, producing two forms of fruits. Leafy branches climb up over the shrubbery, but under these, in the shade, prostrate on the earth, starting out from the base of the main stem, are leafless, colorless branches, forming a network on the surface of the ground. The tiny inconspicuous blossoms borne on these prostrate branches are self-pollinated and push into the leaf mold and soft soil, and there each produces a single large bean closely clothed by a thin filmy pod or husk. These beans which are formed in the earth are about the size of Lima beans. Upon the upper, leafy branches are borne showy, purplish flowers appearing like small bean blossoms. From these blossoms are produced small bean pods about a half inch to an inch in length. These pods contain each from three to four or five small, hard, mottled beans about an eighth of an inch long.
The large beans produced in the ground are desirable for food. They are of good flavor when cooked. The small beans of the upper branches are also good for food, but they are so small and difficult to harvest that not much use is made of them by the people. The large beans formed in the earth would also be hard to gather but for the help of certain little animals called voles, or wood mice, or bean mice. The voles dig the large beans and store them in considerable quantities in storage places which they hollow out in the ground and which they cover over with sticks and leaves and earth. In these places the little animals put away sometimes a peck or a half bushel of beans.