This squash bundle I hung on the drying pole near one of the posts. The bundle did not hang directly over the fire, but a little to one side. Sed si femina in domo menstrua erat, she should tell it so that the package of seeds could be removed to the next lodge, or they would spoil.
After two days I took the bundle down and opened it. From a horn spoon I sipped a little tepid water into my mouth and blew it over the seeds. I took care that the water was neither too hot nor too cold, lest it kill the seeds. I rebound the bundle and hung it up again on the drying pole. At the end of another day the seeds were sprouted nearly an inch and were ready to plant.
I took a handful of the grass-and-leaves, and from them separated the sprouted squash seeds. A wooden bowl had been placed beside me with a little moist earth in it. Into this bowl I put the seeds, sprinkling a little earth over them to keep them moist. I was now ready to begin planting.
Planting the Sprouted Seed
Usually two or three women did the family planting, working together.
One woman went ahead and with her hoe loosened up the ground for a space of about fifteen inches in diameter, for the hill. Care was taken that each hill was made in the place where there had been a hill the year before. I am sure that in olden times we raised much better crops, because we were careful to do so; using the same hill thus, each year, made the soil here soft and loose, so that the plants thrived.
One woman, then, as I have said, with her hoe, loosened up the soil where an old hill had stood, and made a new hill, about fifteen inches in diameter at the base. Following her came another woman who planted the sprouted seeds.
Four seeds were planted in each hill, in two pairs. The pairs should be about twelve inches apart, and the two seeds in each pair, a half inch apart. The seeds were planted rather under, or on one side of the hill, and about two inches deep in the soil. A careful woman planted the seeds with the sprouts upright; but even if she did not do this, the sprouts grew quickly and soon appeared through the soil.
We had a reason for planting the squash seeds in the side of the hill. The squash sprouts were soft, tender. If we planted them in level ground the rains would beat down the soil, and it would pack hard and get somewhat crusted, so that the sprouts could not break through; but if we planted the sprouts on the side of the hill, the water from the rains would flow over them and keep the soil soft. Likewise, we did not plant the sprouted seeds on the top of the hill because here too the rain was apt to beat the soil down hard.