[5] mä pēē´
[6] nä kä päh´
Meanwhile Strikes-Many Woman or old Turtle had parched some corn in a clay pot, and toasted some buffalo fats on a stick, over the coals. Red Blossom now pounded the parched corn and toasted fats together in the corn mortar, and stirred the pounded mass into the pot with the squash and beans. The mess was soon done. Red Blossom dipped it into our bowls with a horn spoon.
We ate such messes with horn spoons or with mussel shells; for we Hidatsas had few metal spoons in those days. There was a shelf, or bench, at one side of the room, under the sloping roof, where were stored wooden bowls, uneaten foods, horn spoons, and the mussel shells that we used for teaspoons. When I was a little girl, nearly every family owned such shells, worn smooth and shiny from use.
After breakfast, unless it was in the corn season, when they went to the field, my mothers tidied up the lodge. They had short brooms of buckbrush. With these they swept the floor, stooping over and drawing the broom with a sidewise motion. As my father stabled his hunting ponies in the lodge at night, there was a good deal of litter to be taken out. Red Blossom used to scrape her sweepings into a skin basket, which she bore to the river bank and emptied.
Other tasks were then taken up; and there were plenty of them. Moccasins had to be made or old ones mended. Shirts and other garments had to be made. Often there were skins to be dressed or scraped. Leggings and shirts were embroidered usually in winter, when the women had no corn to hoe.
There was a good deal of visiting in our lodge; for my father was one of the chiefs of the village, and always kept open house. “If a man would be chief,” we said, “he should be ready to feed the poor and strangers.” A pot with buffalo meat or corn and beans cooking was always on the fire in my father’s lodge. His friends and the other chief men of the village often came in to talk over affairs. A visitor came in without knocking, but did not sit down until he was asked.
Friends of my mothers also came in to sit and chat; and they often joined my mothers at whatever task they might be doing. Red Blossom would set a bowl of food before each. What she could not eat the guest took home with her. It was impolite to leave any uneaten food, as that would mean, “I do not like your cooking; it is unfit to eat.”
My mothers were neat housekeepers and kept the ground about the lodge entrance swept as clean as the lodge floor; but many families were careless, and cast ashes, floor sweepings, scraps of broken bones and other litter on the ground about their lodges. In time this rubbish made little piles and became a nuisance, so that people could hardly walk in the paths between the lodges.