Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation

by Waheenee; Gilbert Livingstone Wilson

We Hidatsas thought that our five principal varieties of corn, hard and soft white, hard and soft yellow, and gummy, had characteristics that marked them quite distinctly one from the other.

For one thing, they had each a distinct taste. If at night I were given to eat of hard white corn, or hard yellow or soft yellow, I could at once tell each from any of the others. If I were given mush at night made from these three varieties, each by itself, I could distinguish each variety, not by its smell, but in my mouth by taste.

Meal made by pounding ripe hard white corn became thick and mushy when boiled in a pot.

Tsï´di tapa´, or soft yellow corn, was quite soft to pound when we made meal of it; and the boiled meal, or mush, seemed to contain a good deal of water in it—that is, it seemed thin and gruel-like when we came to eat it.

To pound tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow corn, into meal took a long time; but when it had been pounded and the meal boiled into food, it was very good to eat and had an appetizing smell.

Of the nine varieties I have named, the atạ´ki, or soft white, was the earliest maturing. If seeds of all nine varieties were planted at the same time, the soft white would always be the first to ripen in the fall; and the tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow, would be the last to ripen.

Although the blue, light red, dark red, pink top, and soft white were all soft or flour corns, yet the soft white was the earliest to ripen. I reckon the soft white, also, to be the softest of all our varieties of corn.

I also rate the hard yellow and hard white as equal in value. Both are equally hard, and can not be pounded up into the fine flour or meal which we get from the soft varieties.

The hard yellow and soft yellow we thought were the best varieties from which to prepare half-boiled dried corn for winter storing. The dark and light reds were also used, and if not quite so good, were but little inferior. Indeed, for half-boiled dried corn, all varieties were used, even the ma´ikadicakĕ, or gummy; but this last we did not think a good variety for this way of putting up corn. Our gummy corn had but one well recognized use; it was good for parching to make corn balls.