Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation

by Waheenee; Gilbert Livingstone Wilson

All being now ready, my mother descended into the cache pit. Leaning over the mouth, I handed her a string of braided corn. In my father’s family, we usually braided fifty-four, or fifty-five ears, to a string; and a woman could carry about three strings on her left shoulder. These braided strings, as I have said, my mother and I fetched from the drying stage; she stood on the stage floor and handed me the braided strings, and I bore them off to the cache pit.

Leaning over the pit then, as I have said, I handed my mother one of the braided strings that now lay in a heap on the tent cover. My mother took the string of corn, folded it once over, and laid it snugly against the wall of the cache pit, on the skin bottom covering, with the tips of the ears all pointed inward. Folding a string thus kept the ears from slipping, and stayed them more firmly in place; and the ears, laid husk end to the wall, were better preserved from danger of moisture.

My mother continued thus all around the bottom of the pit, until she had surrounded it with a row of braided corn laid against the wall, two ears deep; for the strings, being doubled, lay therefore two ears deep.

My mother now started a second row, or series, of strings of braided corn doubled over, laying them upon the first series; and like these, with the ears all pointed inward. When this series was completed, the bottom of the cache pit was surrounded by strings of braided corn, which, because doubled, now lay four ears deep.

My mother now called to me that she was ready for the shelled, or loose, corn. Obeying her, I pushed the shelled corn that lay on the tent cover, down the overhanging end of the skin into the cache pit, until the floor of the pit was filled up level with the top of the four-tiered series of strings of braided corn. It will be seen now how necessary it was that a hide or bull boat cover be put in the bottom of the cache pit, to receive this shelled grain.

I next passed down a string of dried squash, seven fathoms long; and this my mother coiled and piled up in the center of the cache pit upon the shelled corn. This loose corn, I have already said, lay level with the topmost row of ears laid against the pit’s wall, but did not quite cover the ears. I remember, as I looked down into the pit, I could see these corn ears lying in a circle about the loose corn within. [Figure 28], drawn under my direction, shows in a series of rough sketches how the cache pit was filled.

Again I passed down strings of braided corn to my mother. These she doubled, as before, and laid them around the wall of the cache pit, until they came up level with the top of the squash heap coiled in the center. We did not have any fixed number of rows of corn to place now; my mother just piled the doubled braids around the wall until they came even with the top of the coiled squash string.

My mother then called to me, and again I shoved loose corn into the cache pit, until it just barely covered the coiled squash pile and the topmost row of braided ears.

The object of our putting the squash in the center of the shelled corn was to protect it from dampness. The shelled ripe corn did not spoil very easily, but dried squash did. We were careful, therefore, to store the strings of squash in the very center of the cache pit and surround them on every side with the loose corn; this protected the squash and kept it dry.

We continued working, my mother and I, until the cache pit was filled. In an average sized cache pit we would usually store four seven-fathom strings of dried squash, coiled each in a heap in the center of the cache and hidden as described, in the loose corn; and as I recollect it, I think it took about thirty or more strings of braided corn to lie around the wall of an average sized pit; but my memory here is a little uncertain, and this estimate may not be quite accurate.