Unlike other peoples of the Plains who abandoned the settled life for a nomadic existence once they had horses, the Hidatsa of present-day North Dakota clung to their villages along the Missouri River, living in earth lodges and cultivating the rich alluvial soil. In spring and summer, while the men of the tribe ventured out to hunt, the women tended their gardens. Using tools and techniques dating as far back as AD 1100, they raised corn—the tribe's staple—along with squash, beans, and sunflowers, and preserved much of the harvest to see their families through the hard winter ahead.
The proud horticultural tradition cherished by the Hidatsa peoples was epitomized by Buffalo Bird Woman (right), an accomplished gardener and artisan who was born about 1840 and learned the secrets of working the soil from her elder kinswomen in the village of Like-a-fishhook, located on a sharp bend in the Missouri River. Late in life, Buffalo Bird Woman shared her accumulated Hidatsa lore with anthropologist Gilbert Wilson, who faithfully recorded her observations.
The planting season at Like-a-fishhook began as the winter’s snow melted, when members of the Goose Society—a women's organization dedicated to watching over the gardens
Buffalo Bird Woman, pictured here in 1910, came of age in the village of Like-a-fishhook (inset), a cluster of earth lodges surrounded by a palisade, from which women issued daily to tend plots in the bottom lands.
And ensuring their fertility—welcomed the spirits of growth and greenery back from the south with dance and ceremonies, The women then cleared away dead leaves with special rakes tipped with deer antlers, favored by the Hidatsa long after iron tools became available from white traders. The first seeds sown were the sunflowers, which took the longest time to mature, followed by com. "We Hidatsa women were early risers in the planting season," Buffalo Bird Woman recalled. "It was my habit to be up before sunrise."
The task demanded more than good
Tools and hard work, however. A successful gardener had to be truly devoted to her crops. "We thought the com plants had souls," Buffalo Bird Woman explained. "We cared for our com in those days, as we would care for a child." In keeping with that spirit, the women watched over their vulnerable charges from stages in the fields, shooing away crows and other pests and encouraging the plants with songs.
"We thought that our growing com liked to hear us sing," recounted Buffalo Bird Woman, "just as children like to hear their mother sing to them."
A woman seated on a stage amid the ripening com minds her young children while guarding the plants against the age-old threats—birds, horses, and mischievous boys.
A gardener works the soil with a traditional hoe like the one displayed, made from the shoulder bone of a buffalo fixed to a wooden handie. Before hoeing, a woman deared her plot with an antler rake (bottom), evoking the legend of Everlasting Grandmother, whose fields were raked by deer using their horns.
Braids of seed com hang from a platform to dry at Fort Berthold. Seed com was stored in braided form until it was ready for planting, at which time the kernels were removed by hand. The other ears were dried on the floor of the platform and then released into a threshing booth below (inset), where the kernels were knocked loose with sticks.
In a photograph taken about 1916, a Hi-datsa woman uses a knife made from a buffalo’s shoulder bone to pare squash. Such bone knives (inset) were used "for slicing squash and nothing else," Buffalo Bird Woman recalled. Afterward, the slices of squash were stnmg on wooden spits to dry.
World History
