greatest care in selecting their seed corn. Only large and perfect ears
were chosen. The best ear for seed was the _eeteeshahdupadee_,[33] or
muffled-head, so called because the kernels cover the cob quite to the
tip, making the ear look like an Indian with his head muffled up in his
robe.
[33] ēē tēē shä dṳ´ pä dēē
_Page 36, l. 14_: “Wooden bowl.” In olden days almost every family
owned several of these feast bowls. A large knot was split out of a
tree trunk with wedges and, after being hollowed out with fire, was
slowly carved into shape with flint tools. Some of these bowls are
beautiful examples of carving.
_Page 37, l. 16_: “Trying to parch an ear of corn.” Parched corn
entered largely into the diet of our corn raising Indians. Among
eastern tribes, a warrior set forth on a long journey with a sack of
parched corn pounded to a meal. When hungry, he swallowed a spoonful of
the parched meal, washing it down with a pint of water. In a short time
the meal had absorbed the water, filling the stomach with a digestible
mass like mush.
Every farmer’s lad should put away some ears of ripened sweet corn in
the fall, to parch of a winter’s evening. Sweet corn was raised by the
Hidatsas and Mandans for parching only.
_Page 38, l. 21_: “Ground beans,” or hog peanut; _amphicarpa falcata_.
These beans, like peanuts, are borne under ground.
_Page 38, l. 22_: “Wild potatoes,” or Jerusalem artichoke. Roots of
_helianthus tuberosus_, a plant of the sunflower family.
_Page 41, l. 25_: “Who had been a black bear.” Tradition has it that
the art and mysteries of trapping eagles were taught the Hidatsas by
the black bears. An eagle hunters’ camp was conducted as a kind of
symbolic play, the hunters acting the ceremonies of the delivery to the
Indians of the eagle-hunt mysteries.
_Page 44, l. 17_: “Earth lodges well-built and roomy.” The earth lodge
of the Mandans and Hidatsas was the highest example of the building art
among our plains tribes. Some of these lodges were quite large, having
a height of eighteen feet or more, and a floor diameter exceeding sixty
feet. Usually two or more families of relatives inhabited the same
lodge.
An earth lodge had four large central posts and beams, supporting the
roof; twelve surrounding posts and beams, supporting the eaves; and a
hundred rafters. The roof was covered with a matting of willows over
which was laid dry grass and a heavy coating of earth.
An earth lodge lasted but about ten years, when it was abandoned or
rebuilt. The labor of building and repairing these imposing structures,
especially in days when iron tools were unknown and posts and beams had
to be burned to proper lengths, must have been severe.
When the author first visited Fort Berthold reservation in 1906, there
were eight earth lodges still standing; in 1918 there were two.
_Page 47, l. 18_: “An earthen pot.” The potter’s craft was practiced
professionally by certain women who had purchased the secrets of the
art. The craft was an important one, as much of Hidatsa cooking was by
boiling. Some of the earthen boiling pots held as much as two gallons.
A collection of earthen pots, fired in 1910 by Hides-and-Eats, a Mandan
woman nearly ninety years old, is in the American Museum of Natural
History.
_Page 49, l. 18_: “From her cache pit.” The cache pit was a jug-shaped
pit within or without the lodge, six or eight feet deep. It was floored
with willow sticks and its walls were lined with dry grass. It was used
to store the fall harvest.
Strings of braided ears were laid in series against the wall. Within
these was poured the threshed grain, in which were buried strings of
dried squash and sacks of beans and sunflower seed. Buffalo-Bird Woman
says there were five cache pits in use in her father’s family.
Many families had a cache pit within the lodge to serve as a cellar.
Besides corn for immediate use, it held sacks of dried berries, prairie
turnips, packages of dried meat and even bladders of marrow fat.
The pits without the lodge with their stores of grain were carefully
sealed with slabs and grass, over which were trampled earth and ashes.
This was done to conceal the pits from any Sioux who might come
prowling around when the tribe was away in winter camp. If a family
lacked food in winter, they returned to their summer village and opened
one of these cache pit granaries for its stores of corn.
_Page 49, l. 31_: “Red Blossom pounded the parched corn ... in a
corn mortar.” The corn mortar, or hominy pounder, is a section of a
cottonwood or ash trunk, hollowed out by fire. The pestal is of ash.
The mortar was sunk in the floor of the earth lodge and covered, when
not in use, by a flat stone.
Corn mortars are still used by the Hidatsas. Our grandmothers in
pioneer days also used them.
_Page 51, l. 4_: “Chief.” A Hidatsa chief, as explained, was not
necessarily a tribal officer. His position was like that of an
influential citizen of a country village, who is often a member of
the local school or hospital board, is chosen to preside at patriotic
meetings, and is expected to extend hospitality and charity to those in
need.
Hospitality, indeed, is the Indian’s crowning virtue. In tribal days,
when one had food, all had food; when one starved, all starved. A
reservation Indian does not like to take pay for a meal, especially
from one of his own race; and he can not comprehend how any white man
having food can let another go hungry.
His hospitality is often a hindrance to the Indian’s progress. Indolent
Indians eat up the food stores of industrious relatives.
_Page 56, l. 14_: “Dried meat pounded fine and mixed with marrow fat.”
This was regarded as a delicate dish. Old people especially were fond
of it. The plains Indians usually had sound teeth, but their coarse
diet wore the teeth down so that old men found it hard to eat dried
meat unless it was thus pounded to shreds. Marrow fat was used much as
we use butter.
_Page 57, l. 1_: “A doll, woven of rushes.” Very good mats were also
woven of rushes.
_Page 58, l. 4_: “Tossing in a blanket.” The blanket tossing game has
been found among widely separated peoples. In Don Quixote, we are told
how Sancho Panza unwilling participated in the game.
_Page 66, l. 6_: “Every Hidatsa belonged to a clan.” The clan was,
nevertheless, relatively weak among the Hidatsas, its functions
apparently having been usurped at least in part by the age societies.
(The Black Mouths were an age society. See chapter V).
In many tribes a man was forbidden to marry within his clan.
_Page 68, l. 25_: “He was a great medicine man.” The story of Snake
Head-Ornament is a good example of the tales told of the old time
medicine men. Snake Head-Ornament’s friendship for the bull snake would
seem uncanny even to a white man.
_Page 73, l. 1_: “In old times we Indian people had no horses.”
At the time of America’s discovery the Indians had domesticated the
llama in the Peruvian highlands; the guinea pig, raised for food by
many South American tribes; turkeys, and even bees, in Mexico; dogs,
developed from wolves or coyotes, were universally domesticated among
the North American tribes.
Indian dogs were used as watch dogs and as beasts of burden. Dog flesh
was eaten by many tribes. An edible, hairless variety of dog, bred by
the Mexican Indians has become extinct.
_Page 77, l. 23_: “My grandmother brought in some fresh sage.” The sage
was a sacred plant.
_Page 81, l. 10_: “Our dogs dragged well-laden travois.” Older Indians
say that a well-trained dog could drag a load of eighty pounds on a
travois.
_Page 85, l. 6_: “The big tendon ... we Indians call the
_eetsuta_.”[34] When dried this tendon becomes hard, like horn; and
arrow points and even arrow shafts were carved from it.
[34] ēēt sṳ´ tä
_Page 87, l. 32_: “Coyote Eyes, a Ree Indian.” The Rees, or Arikaras,
are an offshoot of the Pawnee tribe, whose language they speak. They
removed to Fort Berthold reservation and settled there with the
Hidatsas and Mandans in 1862.
_Page 92, l. 7_: “To embroider with quills of gull.” The tribe used
to make annual journeys to the lakes near Minot, North Dakota, where,
older Indians say, the gulls nested. The feathers were gathered along
the beach. The quill was split, the flat nether half being the part
used. Quills were dyed with native vegetable colors.
_Page 99, l. 10_: “Bear Man was an eagle hunter.” The tail feathers
of the golden eagle were much worn by all the plains tribes. These
feathers, in eagles under two years of age, are of a pure white, with
dark brown or black tips, and were much prized. Eagle hunting was a
highly honored occupation.
_Page 112, l. 17_: “The huskers came into the field yelling and
singing.” Buffalo-Bird Woman laughingly adds, that the yelling was by
young men who wanted their sweethearts to hear their voices.
_Page 114, l. 2_: “The hollow buffalo hoofs rattled.” The earth lodge
door was a heavy buffalo skin, stretched when green on a frame of light
poles. It was swung from the beam above by heavy thongs. The puncheon
fire screen stood between it and the fireplace, about which the family
sat or worked. As the moccasined tread of a visitor made little noise,
a bunch or two of buffalo hoofs was hung to a bar running across the
middle of the door.
The hoof was prepared by boiling and removing the pith. Its edges were
then trimmed and a hole was cut in the toe. Through this hole a thong
was run with a knotted end, to keep the hoof from slipping off. As the
door dropped after an entering visitor, the hollow hoofs fell together
with a clittering noise, warning the family.
_Page 118, l. 28_: “Hanging Stone.” A literal translation of the
Hidatsa word. It refers to a form of war club, a short stick, from an
end of which swung a stone sewed in a piece of skin.
_Page 125, l. 3_: “With ankles to the right, as Indian women sit.” A
warrior sat Turkish fashion, or, often, squat-on-heels. An Indian woman
sat with feet to the right unless she was left-handed, when feet were
to the left.
_Page 125, l. 6_: “Mixed with marrow fat.” Marrow fat was obtained by
boiling the crushed bones of a buffalo in a little water. The yellow
marrow as it rose was skimmed off and stored in bladders or short
casings made of entrails, like sausage casings.
_Page 126, l. 10_: “I have come to call you.” Buffalo-Bird Woman means
that her father invited his son-in-law to come and live in his earth
lodge. If he had not sent this invitation, the young couple would have
set up housekeeping elsewhere.
_Page 128, l. 37_: “Only a strong, well-fed pony could go all day on
wet ground.” Nature designed the solid hoof of the horse for a prairie
or semidesert country. A pony finds it hard to withdraw his hoof in wet
spongy soil, and soon tires. A deer or buffalo, with divided hoof, runs
upon wet ground with comparative ease. Every farmer’s boy knows that an
ox will walk through a swamp in which a horse will mire.
_Page 142, l. 26_: “With two fingers crooked like horns, the sign for
buffaloes.” So many languages were spoken by our Indian tribes, that
they found it necessary to invent a sign language so that Indians,
ignorant of each other’s speech, could converse. A well-trained deaf
mute and an old plains Indian can readily talk together by signs.
_Page 143, l. 4_: “Creeping up the coulees.” A coulee in the Dakotas is
a grassy ravine, usually dry except in spring and autumn, and after a
heavy rain.
_Page 157, l. 19_: “They starved, because they are hunters and raise
no corn.” The Hidatsas and Mandans as agriculturists felt themselves
superior to the hunting tribes. Small-Ankle refers here to the western,
or Teton, Sioux. The eastern Sioux were corn raisers.
_Page 158, l. 10_: “My mothers and I were more than a week threshing.”
In the summer of 1912, the author had Buffalo-Bird Woman pace off on
the prairie the size of her mothers’ field, as she recollected it. It
measured one hundred and ninety yards in length by ninety yards in
width. Such were some of the fields which in olden days were cultivated
with wooden sticks and bone hoes.
SUPPLEMENT
HOW TO MAKE AN INDIAN CAMP
Young Americans who wish to grow up strong and healthy should live much
out of doors; and there is no pleasanter way to do this than in an
Indian camp. Such a camp you can make yourself, in your back yard or an
empty lot or in a neighboring wood.
The Lodge
Buffalo-Bird Woman has told us of the earth lodges of her people. They
were for permanent abode. Hunters, however, camping but a day or two in
a place, usually put up a pole hunting lodge.
Four forked poles were stacked, as in Figure 1.
[Illustration: Figure 1]
[Illustration: Figure 2]
Around these in a circle, other poles were laid, as in Figure 2, for a
frame.
For cover buffalo skins, bound together at the edges, were drawn around
the frame in two series, the lower series being laid first. The peak of
the pole frame was left uncovered, to let out the smoke.
Instead of buffalo skins, gunny sacks may be used, fastened at the
edges with safety pins or with wooden skewers; or strips of canvas or
carpet may be used. Three or four heavier poles may be laid against the
gunny-sack cover to stay it in place.
The door may be made of a gunny sack, hung on a short pole.
Indians often raised a piece of skin on a forked pole for a shield, to
keep the wind from driving the smoke down the smoke hole.
Figure 3 shows the finished lodge with gunny-sack cover, door, and wind
shield. The last is made of a piece of oil cloth.
[Illustration: Figure 3]
[Illustration: Figure 4]
Booth
Buffalo-Bird Woman tells of the booth which Turtle made in her
cornfield. A booth is easily made of willows or long branches.
A short digging stick will be needed. This was of ash, a foot or two
in length, sharpened at one end by burning in a fire. The point was
often rubbed with fat and charred over the coals to harden it. (Such a
digging stick was not the kind used for cultivating corn.)
[Illustration: Figure 5]
[Illustration: Figure 6]
If you have no ash stick, a section of a broom handle will do.
With a stone, drive the digging stick four inches in the ground, as in
Figure 4. Withdraw digging stick and repeat until you have six holes
set in a circle. The diameter of the circle should be about five feet.
Into the six holes set willows, or branches, five or six feet high, as
in Figure 5.
Weave or bind tops together so as to make a leafy roof, or shade, as
in Figure 6. For binding, use strips of elm bark; or slender willows,
twisted, so as to break the fibers.
Fireplace
Indians, when journeying, made the campfire outside the lodge in
summer; inside the lodge, in winter. Usually a slight pit was dug for
the fireplace, thus lessening danger of sparks, setting fire to prairie
or forest. The fire was smothered with earth when camp was forsaken.
[Illustration: Figure 7]
[Illustration: Figure 8]
Broiling Meat
Indians broiled fresh meat on a stick thrust in the ground and leaning
over the coals. Often a forked stick was cut, the meat was laid on the
prongs, and it was held over the coals until broiled. In Figures 7 and
8 both methods are shown.
[Illustration: Figure 9]
Drying Meat
Buffalo-Bird Woman often speaks of dried buffalo meat. If you want to
know what it was like, cut a steak into thin pieces, and dry on a stage
of green sticks, three feet high. This may be done in the sun; or, a
small fire may be made beneath, to smoke as well as dry the meat. In
Figures 9 and 10 two forms of drying stage are shown.
[Illustration: Figure 10]
Cooking Dried Meat
A pail or small bucket will do for kettle. It should be swung from a
tripod by stick-and-thong, as in Figure 11. Put in dried meat with
enough water to cover, and bring to a boil. The broth may be used as
the Indians used it, for a drink.
Parching Corn
Ripe sweet corn, thoroughly dried, is best for parching; but field corn
will do nearly as well. Drop a handful of the shelled corn in a skillet
with a little butter. Cover skillet and set on the fire. Shake skillet
from side to side to keep corn from scorching.
In the earth lodge, Hidatsa women parched the grain in an earthen pot,
stirring it with a stick. Indian boys, when out herding horses, often
carried two or three ears of corn for lunch. An ear was parched by
thrusting a stick into the cob, and holding it over the coals, as in
Figure 12.
[Illustration: Figure 11]
[Illustration: Figure 12]
A steak broiled Indian fashion over the coals, or a kettle of boiled
dried meat, with a cupful of parched corn, will make just such a meal
as Indians often ate.
HINTS TO YOUNG CAMPERS
Do not throw away bits of unused food, but burn or bury them. Unless
thus destroyed, the decaying food will attract insects, which often
bring disease. Bury all tin cans.
Potatoes may be kept fresh as in your cellar by burying them in loose
earth or sand.
Hang out your blankets and bed clothing to be aired an hour or two each
day, preferably in the morning.
Indians had no soap. Indian women scoured out their earthen cooking
pots with rushes. You may clean your camp kettle and pans in the same
way; or, if no rushes can be found, scour with coarse grass dipped in
wet sand or sandy mud, and drench with clean water.
Axes, clothing, shoes, and the like may be stored out of the way by
making them into a long bundle, with a cloth or thick paper, and
lashing them to one of the upright tent poles within the tent.
Indian children were fond of chewing green cornstalks, for the sweet
juice they contained. If your camp is near a cornfield about the time
the corn is in milk, you will find the chewed stalks almost as sweet as
some varieties of sugar cane.
INDIAN COOKING
Young people often wonder what Indian cooking is like, and groups of
them—as a class in Sunday school or day school—may like to eat a meal
of Indian foods. Following are a few common Hidatsa dishes. Usually,
but one kind of food was eaten at a single meal.
=Madapozhee Eekteea[35]=, _or Boiled Whole Corn_
Pour three pints of water into a kettle and set on the fire. Drop in
a pint of shelled field corn, a handful of kidney beans and a lump of
suet the size of an egg. Boil until the corn kernels burst open.
[35] Mä dä pō´ zhēē Ēēk tēē´ ä
=Manakapa=[36], _or Mush_
Put a pint of shelled field corn into a canvas cloth, and with ax or
stone pound to a coarse meal; or the corn may be ground in a coffee
mill. To this meal add a handful of kidney beans, and boil in two pints
of water. The Hidatsa mortar for pounding corn into meal is shown in
cut on page 156.
[36] Mä´ nä kä pä
=Dried, or Jerked, Meat=
Cut some beefsteak, round or sirloin, into thin strips. Dry the strips
on a stage of small poles (see cut on page 141) in the open air or over
a slow fire, or in the kitchen oven, until brittle and hard. Meat thus
dried could be kept for months. Warriors and hunters often ate jerked
meat raw or toasted over a fire. In the lodge, it was more often boiled
a few minutes to soften it; and the broth was drunk as we drink coffee.
(See also “Drying Meat”, page 185.)
=Pemmican=
Take strips of beef, dried as described above, and pound them to shreds
between two hard stones. Put the shredded mass in a bowl, and pour over
it a little marrow fat from a boiled soup bone, or some melted butter.
=Corn Balls=
The Hidatsas raised sweet corn for parching. Hunters often carried a
pouch of the parched grain for a lunch. Parched ripe sweet corn was
often pounded to a fine meal, kneaded with lumps of hot roasted suet,
and rolled between the palms into little lumps, or balls, the size of
one’s thumb.
Hidatsa custom did not permit a woman to speak to her son-in-law; but
she often showed her love for him by making him a bowl of corn balls.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Surrounded by the powerful and hostile Sioux, the two little Hidatsa
tribes were compelled to keep relatively close to their stockaded
villages and cornfields, which, however, they most sturdily defended.
Their weakness proved a blessing. The yearly crops of their cornfields
were a sure protection against famine, and in their crowded little
villages was developed a culture that was remarkable. The circular
earth lodges of the Mandans and Hidatsas represent the highest
expression of the house-building art east of the Rocky Mountains.
Three members of Small Ankle’s family are now living: Small Ankle’s
son, Wolf Chief, his daughter, Waheenee, or Buffalo-Bird Woman, and
her son, Good Bird, or Goodbird. Goodbird was the first Indian of his
tribe to receive a common school education. Like many Indians he has a
natural taste for drawing. Several hundred sketches by him, crude but
spirited and in true perspective, await publication by the Museum.
Goodbird’s mother, Waheenee, is a marvelous source of information of
old-time life and belief. Conservative, and sighing for the good old
times, she 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. The stories in this book, out of her own
life, were told by her with other accounts of scientific interest for
the Museum. In the sweltering heat of an August day she has continued
dictation for nine hours, lying down but never flagging, when too weary
to sit longer in a chair. She is approximately 83 years old.
The stories in this book are true stories, typical of Indian life.
Many of them are exactly as they fell from Waheenee’s lips. Others
have been completed from information given by Goodbird and Wolf Chief,
and in a few instances by other Indians. The aim has been not to give
a biography of Waheenee, but a series of stories illustrating the
philosophy, the Indian-thinking of her life.
In story and picture, therefore, this book is true to fact and becomes
not only a reader of unusual interest but a contribution to the
literature of history and of anthropology. The author and the artist
have expressed and portrayed customs, places, and things that are
purely Indian and perfect in every detail.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| NED DAWSON |
| IN WILFUL LAND |
| BY |
| JAMES LEE ORR |
| |
| A very fascinating realistic |
| story characteristic of boys, |
| written in allegorical style and |
| impressing a splendid moral |
| lesson. For libraries and |
| supplementary reading. |
| |
| _Cloth, illustrated, 80 cents._ |
| |
| WEBB PUBLISHING COMPANY |
| Saint Paul, Minn. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| RULES OF ORDER |
| FOR EVERY-DAY USE |
| _and_ |
| CIVIL GOVERNMENT |
| MADE PLAIN |
| |
| _HENRY SLADE GOFF_ |
| |
| Parliamentary Procedure Simplified |
| With a Graphic Explanation and Tabular |
| Illustration of Local, State and |
| National Institutions |
| |
| _Cloth, 116 pages, 75 cents._ |
| |
| WEBB PUBLISHING COMPANY |
| SAINT PAUL, MINN. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Text enclosed by equals is in bold (=bold=).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.