Our Hidatsa name for such a stage was adukati´ i´kakĕ-ma´tsati, or field watchers’ stage; from adukati´, field; i´kakĕ, watch; and ma´tsati, stage. These stages, while common, were not in every garden. I had one in my garden where I used to sit and sing.
A watchers’ stage resembled a stage for drying grain, but it was built more simply. Four posts, forked at the top, supported two parallel beams, or stringers; on these beams was laid a floor of puncheons, or split small logs, at about the height of the full grown corn. This floor was about the length and breadth of Wolf Chief’s table—forty-three by thirty-five inches—and was thus large enough to permit two persons to sit together. A ladder made of the trunk of a tree rested against the stage.
Such stages we did not value as we did our drying stages, nor did we use so much care in building them. If the posts were of green wood, we did not trouble to peel off the bark; at least, I never saw such posts with the bark peeled off. The beams in the forks of the posts often lay with the bark on. The puncheons that made the floor of the stage were free of bark, because they were commonly split from old, dead, floating logs, that we got down at the Missouri River; if the whole stage was built of these dead logs, as was often done, the bark would be wanting on every beam.
A watchers’ stage, indeed, was usually of rather rough construction; wood was plentiful and easy to get, and the stage was rebuilt each year.
As I have said, it was our custom to locate our gardens on the timbered, bottom lands, and when we cleared off the timber and brush, we often left a tree, usually of cottonwood, standing in the field, to shade the watchers’ stage. The stage stood on the north, or shady, side of the tree.
Cottonwood seedlings were apt to spring up in newly cleared ground. If there was no tree in the field, one of these seedlings might be let grow into a small tree. Cottonwoods grew very rapidly.
The tree that shaded the watchers’ stage in our family field, and which I have indicated on the map, was about as high as my son Goodbird’s cabin, and had a trunk about four inches in diameter. The cottonwood tree standing in Wolf Chief’s corn field this present summer, is perhaps about the height of the trees that used to stand in our fields at Like-a-fishhook village.
Explanation of Sketch of Watchers’ Stage
My son Goodbird has made a sketch, under my direction, of a watchers’ stage ([figure 9]).