The writer’s summer visit of 1912 to Fort Berthold Reservation was planned to obtain material for his thesis. His brother again accompanied him, and for the expenses of the trip a grant of $500 was made by Curator Wissler. This trip the writer will remember as one of the pleasantest experiences of his life. The generous interest of Dr. Jenks and Dr. Wissler in his plans was equaled by the faithful coöperation of interpreter and informant. The writer and his brother arrived at the reservation in the beginning of corn harvest. As already stated, Maxi´diwiac was the principal informant, and her account was taken down almost literally as translated by Goodbird. Models of tools, drying stage, and other objects pertaining to agriculture were made and photographed, and sketched. Before the harvest closed notes were obtained which furnished the material for the greater part of this thesis.
In the summers of 1913, 1914, and 1915, additional matter was recovered. Previously written notes were read to Maxi´diwiac and corrections made.
In addition to the museum’s annual grant of $250, Dean A. F. Woods, Department of Agriculture, University of Minnesota, in 1914 contributed $60 for photographing, and collecting specimens of Hidatsa corn; and Mr. M. L. Wilson of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Bozeman, Montana, obtained for the writer a grant of $50 for like purposes.
A few words should now be said of informant and interpreter. Maxi´diwiac, or Buffalobird-woman, is a daughter of Small Ankle, a leader of the Hidatsas in the trying time of the tribe’s removal to what is now Fort Berthold reservation. She was born on one of the villages at Knife River two years after the “smallpox year,” or about 1839. She is a conservative and sighs for the good old times, yet is aware that the younger generation of Indians must adopt civilized ways. Ignorant of English, she has a quick intelligence and a memory that is marvelous. To her patience and loyal interest is chiefly due whatever of value is in this thesis. In the sweltering heat of an August day she has continued dictation for nine hours, lying down but never flagging in her account, when too weary to sit longer in a chair. Goodbird’s testimony that his mother “knows more about old ways of raising corn and squashes than any one else on this reservation,” is not without probability. Until recently, a small part of Goodbird’s plowed field was each year reserved for her, that she might plant corn and beans and squashes, cultivating them in old fashioned way, by hoe. Such corn, of her own planting and selection, has taken first prize at an agricultural fair, held recently by the reservation authorities.
Edward Goodbird, or Tsaka´kasạkic, the writer’s interpreter, is a son of Maxi´diwiac, born about November, 1869. Goodbird was one of the first of the reservation children to be sent to the mission school; and he is now native pastor of the Congregational chapel at Independence. He speaks the Hidatsa, Mandan, Dakota, and English languages. Goodbird is a natural student; and he has the rarer gift of being an artist. His sketches—and they are many—are crude; but they are drawn in true perspective and do not lack spirit. Goodbird’s life, dictated by himself, has been recently published.[4]
Indians have the gentle custom of adopting very dear friends by relationship terms. By such adoption Goodbird is the writer’s brother; Maxi´diwiac is his mother.
For his part in the account of the Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians, the writer claims no credit beyond arranging the material and putting the interpreter’s Indian-English translations into proper idiom. Bits of Indian philosophy and shrewd or humorous observations found in the narrative are not the writer’s, but the informant’s, and are as they fell from her lips. The writer has sincerely endeavored to add to the narrative essentially nothing of his own.
Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians is not, then, an account merely of Indian agriculture. It is an Indian woman’s interpretation of economics; the thoughts she gave to her fields; the philosophy of her labors. May the Indian woman’s story of her toil be a plea for our better appreciation of her race.