“Now deer shed their horns. Old-woman-who-never-dies got these shed horns and bound them on sticks and so we got our first rakes. Her grandson saw what she did and afterwards taught the people to make rakes also.
“In later times we learned to make rakes of ash wood instead of horns; but we still reckon the teeth to mean the tines of a deer’s antler. Sometimes deer have six, sometimes seven tines on an antler. So we make our ash rakes, some with six, some with seven teeth.
“If the Grandson had not seen what his grandmother did, we Hidatsas would never have known how to make rakes, either of horn or of ash wood.”—Wolf Chief (told in 1910).
[22] “In my tribe in old times, some men helped their wives in their gardens. Others did not. Those who did not help their wives talked against those who did, saying, ‘That man’s wife makes him her servant!’
“And the others retorted, ‘Look, that man puts all the hard work on his wife!’
“Men were not alike; some did not like to work in the garden at all, and cared for nothing but to go around visiting or to be off on a hunt.
“My father, Small Ankle, liked to garden and often helped his wives. He told me that that was the best way to do. ‘Whatever you do,’ he said, ‘help your wife in all things!’ He taught me to clean the garden, to help gather the corn, to hoe, and to rake.
“My father said that that man lived best and had plenty to eat who helped his wife. One who did not help his wife was likely to have scanty stores of food.”—Wolf Chief (told in 1910).