Amount of Harvest
Our harvested corn, in a good year, lasted my father’s family until the next harvest, with a small quantity even then unused. Some years we ran out of corn before the harvest came, but not often. We ate our corn as long as it lasted, not husbanding it toward the last, because we knew there were elk and buffalo and antelope to be had for the hunting. If we ran out of corn at all, it was about the first of August; sometimes a little earlier. Sometimes when we had eaten all our last year’s harvest there was a small quantity from the previous season’s harvest with which we eked out our shortage.
My mothers, however, were industrious women, and our shortage, if any, was never for long. Some families, not very provident, had consumed all their harvest as early as in the spring; but such never happened in my father’s family.
Sioux Purchasing Corn
The Standing Rock Sioux used to buy corn of us, coming up in midsummer, or autumn. They came not because they were in need of food, but because they liked to eat our corn, and had always meat and skins to trade to us. For one string of braided corn they gave us one tanned buffalo robe.
Varieties of Corn
Description of Varieties
We raised nine well marked varieties of corn in our village. Following are the names of the varieties:
| Atạ´ki tso´ki (White hard) | Hard white |
| Atạ´ki (White) | Soft white |
| Tsï´di tso´ki (Yellow hard) | Hard yellow |
| Tsï´di tapa´ (Yellow soft) | Soft yellow |
| Ma´ïkadicakĕ (Gummy) | Gummy |
| Do´ohi (Blue) | Blue |
| Hi´ci cĕ´pi (Red dark) | Dark red |
| Hi´tsiica (Light-red) | Light red |
| Atạ´ki aku´ hi´tsiica (White, kind of light red) | Pink top |