SQUASHES
PLANTING SQUASHES
_Sprouting the Seed_
Squash seed was planted early in June; or the latter part of May and the
first of June.
In preparation for planting, we first sprouted the seed.
I cut out a piece of tanned buffalo robe about two and a half feet long
and eighteen inches wide, and spread it on the floor of the lodge, fur
side up.
I took red-grass leaves, wetted them, and spread them out flat, matted
together in a thin layer on the fur. Then I opened my bag of squash
seeds, and having set a bowl of water beside me, I wet the seeds in
the water—not soaking them, just wetting—and put them on the matted
grass leaves until I had a little pile heaped up, in quantity about two
double-handfuls.
I next took broad leaved sage, the kind we use in a sweat lodge, and buck
brush leaves, and mixed them together. At squash planting time, the sage
is about four inches high
Into the mass of mixed sage-and-buck-brush leaves, I worked the wetted
squash seeds, until they were distributed well through it. The mass
I then laid on the grass matting, which I folded over and around it.
Finally I folded the buffalo skin over that, making a package about
fifteen by eighteen inches. We called this package kaku´i kida´kci,
squash-thing-bound, or squash bundle.
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.
We Indian women helped one another a good deal in squash planting;
especially would we do turns with our relatives. If I got behind with my
planting, some of my relatives, or friends from another family, would
come and help me. When a group of relatives thus labored together, four
women commonly went ahead making the hills, and two women followed,
planting the sprouted seeds.
_Harvesting the Squashes_
The squash harvest began a little before green corn came in. It was
our custom to pick squashes every fourth morning; and the fourth
picking—twelve days after the first picking—brought us to green corn time.
The first picking was, naturally, not very large—three or four
basketfuls, I think, in my father’s family; and these we ate ourselves.
The basket used for bringing in the squashes was about fifteen inches
across the mouth and eleven inches deep.
The second picking was about ten basketfuls, enough for us to eat
and spare a little surplus to our neighbors. After this each picking
increased until a maximum was reached, and then the pickings decreased in
size. The fifth or sixth picking was usually the largest.
The pickings were made before sunrise. In my father’s family, one of my
mothers and I usually attended to the actual picking. It was her habit to
get up early in the morning, go to the field and pluck the squashes from
the vines, piling them up in one place in the garden. She returned then
to the lodge; and after the morning meal, the rest of us women of the
household went out and fetched the squashes home in our baskets.
Squashes grow fast, and unless we picked them every four days, we did not
think them so good for food. Moreover, squashes that were four days old
we could slice for drying, knowing that the slices would be firm enough
to retain their shape unbroken. If the squashes were plucked greener, the
slices broke, or crumbled.
We could tell when a squash was four days old. Its diameter then was
about three and a quarter inches; some a little more, some a little less;
but we chiefly judged by the color of the fruit. A white squash should
just have rid itself of green; a green colored squash should have its
color a dark green. We could judge quite accurately thus, by the state of
the colors.
The hills yielded some three, some two, some only one squash at a
picking. I have made as many as six trips to our family garden for the
squashes of a single picking; our garden was distant as far as from here
to Packs Wolf’s cabin—three quarters of a mile.
We picked a good many squashes in a season. One year my mother fetched in
seventy baskets from our field. I have known families to bring in as many
as eighty, or even a hundred baskets, in a season.
The baskets, as they were brought in, were borne up on the drying stage,
and the squashes emptied out on the floor for slicing and drying;
squashes not cooked and eaten fresh were sliced and dried for winter,
excepting those saved for seed.
_Slicing the Squashes_
Slicing squashes for drying began about the third picking. Sometimes, in
good years, a few squashes might be sliced at the second picking; but at
the third picking, slicing and drying began in earnest.
When the squashes, emptied from the baskets, made a great heap on the
floor of the drying stage, the women of the family made a feast, cooking
much food for the purpose; some old women were then invited to come and
cut up the squashes with knives, into slices to dry. We regarded these
old women as hired; and I remember that in my father’s family we hired
sometimes eight, sometimes ten, sometimes only six. I think that at the
time I was a young woman, when my mothers made such a feast, about ten
old women came.
These old women ascended the drying stage, and sat, five on either side
of the pile of squashes. Each of the old women had a squash knife in her
hand, made of the thin part of the shoulder bone of a buffalo, if it was
an old-fashioned one; butcher knives of steel are now used.
The squashes were cut thus:
An old woman would draw a robe up over her lap, as she sat Indian
fashion, with ankles to the right, on the floor of the stage. She took a
squash in her left hand, and with her bone knife in her right, she sliced
the squash into slices about three eighths of an inch thick.
The squash was sliced from side to side, not from stem to blossom. An old
woman slicing squash would take up a squash, cut out the stem pit and the
blossom, then turn the squash sidewise and slice, beginning on the side
nearest her. The cut was made by pressing the bone blade downward into
the squash as the latter lay in her palm.
The first three slices and the last three of a large squash; or the first
two and the last two of a smaller squash, the old woman put beside her in
a pile, as her earnings for her work; upon this pile also went any squash
thought too small to be worth slicing.
These end slices we thought less valuable than those from the middle
of the squash; and unlike the latter, they were not spitted on willow
sticks, but were taken home by the old woman worker in her blanket, or
her robe, or in something else in which she could carry them. About three
sacks of these inferior slices would be carried home at one time by an
old woman worker.
These less valuable slices being cut close to the rind were of solid
flesh. The better slices had each a hollow in the center, caused by the
seed cavity. The old women did not spit their solid slices on willows,
but dried them on the ground, carefully guarding them against rain; for
if wet, the drying slices would spoil.
_Squash Spits_
All the better slices, the ones to be retained by the family that hired
the old women workers, were spitted on willow rods to dry.
These rods we called kaku´iptsa; from kaku´i, squash; and i´ptsa, spit,
stringer. The word may be translated squash spit.
Squash spits were usually made of the small willows that we call mi´da
hatsihi´ci, or red willow; from mi´da, wood; and hi´ci, light red. When
the outer skin of one’s finger, for example, is peeled off, the color
of the flesh beneath we call hi´ci. This red willow however is not
kinikinik, which white men call red willow.
A squash spit should be about half an inch in diameter; and its length
should be measured from the center of my chest to the end of my index
finger, as I do now; or about two feet, six, or two feet, seven inches.
A spit was sharpened at one end to a point. At the other end there was
left about an inch of the natural bark like a button, to keep the squash
slices from slipping off. The rest of the rod was peeled bare.
Small Ankle used to make our drying spits for us. He cut the rods in June
or early July when the bark peeled off easily; he peeled off the bark
with his teeth.
It was his habit to cut quite a number of rods at a time and after
peeling them, he would tie them up in a bundle of about three hundred
rods, so that they would dry straight—would not warp, I mean, in drying.
In seasons when they were not in use our squash spits were made into a
bundle as big as I could hold in my two arms and bound about with two
thongs. The bundle was stored away on the floor of the lodge, under the
eaves, or in the atu´ti, as we called the space under the descending
roof. The next year, in harvest time, the bundle was unbound and the
spits examined to see if any had warped. Such warped ones were thrown
away, and new ones were made to take their places.
_Spitting the Slices_
Each of the old women hired to slice our squashes worked with a pile of
these squash spits beside her; and as she sliced a squash she laid aside
those slices which she retained as her pay; and taking the others up
in her right hand, she spitted them with a single thrust, upon one of
the willow spits. The spitted slices were then separated about a half
inch apart, so that the first two fingers of the hand could be thrust
astraddle the spit between each slice and its neighbor. This was to give
the slices air to dry.
One willow spit held the slices of four squashes, and two slices from a
fifth squash, if the squashes were of average size.
Sometimes an old woman brought her granddaughter along to help her, the
little girl spitting the slices as her grandmother cut them.
Drying rods, which I have already described, were laid across the upper
rails of the stage; and each spit as it was loaded was laid with either
end resting on a drying rod. The spits were laid with a certain method.
Each projecting end bore two squash slices, which acted as a button to
stay the spit from being blown down by the wind.
As the drying rods rested transversely on the upper rails, the spits
which the rods bore lay parallel with the rails, and therefore lengthwise
with the stage. The spits were laid with the heavier, or bark covered end
toward the front, or ladder end of the stage, which in our family, was
the right, as one came out of the lodge door.
[Illustration: Owl Woman putting squash slices on a spit]
[Illustration: Squash slices drying
Are on squash spits and on stage built to resemble the top of an old time
corn stage.]
When a pair of drying rods was quite filled with these loaded spits,
they made what we called one i´tsạki—one walking stick, or one staff. We
counted the quantity of squash we dried as so many staves.
We never laid the loaded spits on the floor of the stage, as the weight
of the load caused the drying squash slices to warp, thus making them
hard to handle.
_In Case of Rain_
If a sudden rain came up the day we began drying squash, we felt no
concern, for the slices having just been cut, were still green and would
not be harmed.
But if rain threatened the second day, or thereafter, we women ran up on
the stage and drew the loaded spits toward the middle of the drying rods;
and over them we spread hides, upon which we laid poles, or unused drying
rods to weight the hides against the wind. Sometimes we even lashed the
poles down with thongs.
If the drying squash got wet after the first day, the slices swelled up,
and the fruit spoiled.
_Drying and Storing_
When the squash slices had dried for two days, two women of the family
went up on the stage; and working, one from the front, the other from the
rear end of the stage, they took the spits one by one, and with thumb
and fingers of each hand slipped the drying slices into the middle of
the spit, thus loosening them from it; and for the same purpose, the
spit itself was turned and twisted around as it lay skewered through the
slices. When well loosened, the squash slices were again spaced apart as
before, and the spit was replaced on the rods, to be left for another
day. On the evening of the third day the slices were dry enough to string.
The strings, three to six in number, had been prepared from dry grass.
Each string was seven Indian fathoms long; we Hidatsas measure a fathom
as the distance between a woman’s two outstretched hands. Each grass
string had a wooden needle about ten inches long, bound to one end.
All the slices on one spit were now slid off and the worker by a single
thrust skewered the wooden needle through them and slid them down the
long string to the farther end; this end of the string was now looped
back and tied just above the first three or four slices of the dried
squash that fell down the string; doing thus made these slices act as a
button or anchor to prevent the rest of the squash slices from slipping
off the string.
In stringing the squash slices, the spit was held in the right hand, the
left hand straddling the spit with the index and second fingers. The
slices were slid down the spit toward the right hand, the spit being then
drawn out and cast away. The squash slices were held firmly in the first
two fingers and thumb of the left hand and the needle was run through
the hole left by withdrawing the spit. As the spit had a greater diameter
than the grass string, the slices easily slid down the string.
[Illustration: Figure 21]
When stringing slices of squash myself, I always sat on the floor of the
drying stage with a pile of loaded spits at my left side. As I unloaded a
spit, I dropped it at my right side. The grass string hung over the edge
of the stage floor, on the side nearest the lodge. On the ground below I
had spread some scraped hides, so that the squash slices, falling down
the string, would not touch the ground and become soiled.
When a string became full, I tossed the end over the edge of the floor,
letting it fall down upon the heap on the scraped hides.
The needle used to skewer the slices was bound to the end of the grass
string two inches or more from its extremity, as shown in figure 21. When
the string was filled, one had but to turn the needle athwart, and it
became a button or anchor, preventing the slices from slipping off.
The strings filled with dried squash slices, were now taken into the
lodge. Between the right front main post of the lodge and the circle of
outer posts and near the puncheon fire screen at the place it bent in
toward the wall, a stage had been built. Two forked posts, about as high
as my head, supported a pole ten or twelve feet long; and over this pole
the strings of squash were looped, care being taken that they hung at a
height to let the dogs run under without touching and contaminating the
squash. I speak of the right front main post; I use right and left in the
Indian sense, which assumes that an earth lodge faces the doorway; the
door indeed is the lodge’s mouth.
On sunny days these strings were taken outside. Several of the long
poles, or drying rods, already described, were brought down from the top
of the stage and lashed to the outside of the stage posts on either side.
If the harvest was a good one, a row of these rods might extend the whole
length of either side of the stage, and even around the ends. On the
railing thus made the squash strings were taken out and hung on a fair
day; in the morning, on the east side; in the afternoon, on the west side
of the stage.
On wet days, the squash strings were left inside the lodge; and if the
rain was falling heavily, a tent skin, or scraped rawhides, dried and
ready to tan, were thrown over them to protect from dampness. The air in
the lodge was damp on a rainy day; and sometimes the roof leaked.
When the strings of squash were thought to be thoroughly dried, they were
ready for storing. A portion was packed in parfleche bags, to be taken to
the winter lodge, or to be used for food on journeys. The rest was stored
away in a cache pit, covered with loose corn.
Several seasons, as I recollect, the women of my father’s family were a
month harvesting and drying their squashes.
_Squash Blossoms_
Besides our squashes, we also gathered squash blossoms, three to five
basketfuls at a picking; and they were a recognized part of our squash
harvest.
On every squash vine are blossoms of two kinds; one kind bears a squash,
but the other never bears any fruit, for it grows, as we Indians say, at
the wrong place among the leaves. We Indians knew this, and gathered only
these barren blossoms; if we did not they dried up anyway and became a
dead loss, so we always gathered them.
These blossoms we picked in early morning while they were fresh, but not
if rain had fallen in the night, as the rain splashed dirt and sand into
the blossoms, making them unfit for food.
The blossoms we took home in baskets. On the prairie there is a kind of
grass which we Indians call “antelope hair.” We chose a place where this
grass grew thick and was two or three inches high, to dry the blossoms
on. They were taken out of the basket one by one; the green calyx leaves
were stripped off and the blossom was pinched flat, opened, and spread
on the grass, with the inside of the blossom upward, thus exposing it to
the sun and air. A second blossom was split on one side, opened, and laid
upon the first, upon the petal end, so that the thicker, bulbous part of
the first—the part indeed that had been pinched flat—remained exposed to
dry. This was continued until quite a space on the grass was covered with
the blossoms.
They remained all day drying. In the evening I would go out and gather
them, pulling them up in whole sheets. Splitting them open and laying
them down one upon another, caused them to adhere as they dried, so that
they lay on the grass in a kind of thin matting. I always began pulling
up the blossoms from one side of this matting, and as I say, they came
away in whole sheets.
We put away the dried blossoms in bags, like those used for corn. These
bags were made with round bottom and soft-skin mouth that tied easily.
Bags were usually made of calf skin.
In my father’s family we always put away one sack full of dried squash
blossoms for winter.
COOKING AND USES OF SQUASH
_The First Squashes_
The first squashes of the season that we plucked were about three inches
in diameter; that is, they were gathered as soon as we thought they were
fit for cooking; and that same day we picked blossoms also.
There might be three or four basketfuls of squashes at this first
picking. These squashes we did not dry, but ate fresh; as they were the
first vegetables of the season, we were eager to eat them. We cooked
fresh squashes as follows:
_Boiling Fresh Squash in a Pot._ I took a clay pot of our native
manufacture, partly filled it with fresh squashes and added water. The
smaller squashes I put in whole; larger ones I cut in two. I did not
remove the seeds; left in the squash they made it taste sweeter.
[Illustration: Figure 22
Redrawn from sketch by Goodbird.]
I now took big leaves of the sunflower and thrust them, stem upward,
between the squashes and the sides of the pot; the leaves then stood in a
circle around the inside of the pot, with the upper surface of each leaf
inward. I added more squashes until the pot was quite full, even heaping.
The sunflower leaves I then bent inward, folding them naturally over the
squashes. I now set the pot on the fire.
Under my direction Goodbird has made a sketch of a pot of fresh squashes
(figure 22); the sunflower leaves are placed and ready to be folded down.
Squashes thus prepared were boiled a little longer than beef is boiled.
The sunflower leaves were put over the pot merely as a lid or covering.
It is hard to cook squashes without a cover, and this was our way of
providing one. Blossoms were not added when squashes were thus prepared.
When the cooking was done, the green sunflower leaves, used as a cover,
were removed with a stick, and thrown away.
I had a bowl of cold water near by. I dipped my hand into the water and
lifted out the squash pieces one by one, and laid them on a bowl or dish.
The cold water protected my hand; for the squashes were quite hot.
Most of the water in the pot had boiled out, only a little being left in
the bottom of the pot. The pieces of squash immersed in this hot water
I lifted out with a horn spoon. Not much water was ever put in the pot
anyhow, for it was the steam mostly that cooked the squashes. The pot
was quite heaped with squashes at the first, but the cooking reduced the
bulk, making the heap go down.
The squash pieces in the bottom of the pot were apt to be a little burned
or browned; and so were made sweeter, and were very good to eat.
This was the way we cooked fresh squashes in my father’s family until I
was eighteen years old; at that time we got an iron dinner pot, and began
to boil our food in it instead of the old fashioned clay pot.
Fresh squashes, to be at their best, should be cooked on the day they are
picked; left over to the next day they never taste so good.
_Squashes Boiled with Blossoms._ Fresh squashes were sometimes boiled
with fresh blossoms and fats. Sunflower leaves were not then used as a
covering. Squashes so cooked were usually small; and when done, they were
lifted out of the pot with a horn spoon. Cooking this mess was really by
boiling, not steaming, as in the mess above described.
_Other Blossom Messes_
When I wanted to cook fresh squash blossoms, I plucked them early in the
morning, stripping them of the little points, or spicules shown as _a_,
_a´_, and _a´´_ in figure 23. These spicules I stripped backward, or
downward. I do not know why we did this; it was our custom. Then I broke
the blossom off the stem at the place in the figure marked with a dotted
line. The green bulbous part of the blossom I crushed or pinched between
my thumb and finger, to make it soft and hasten cooking; for the yellow,
blossom part soon cooked.
[Illustration: Figure 23]
I will now give you recipes for some messes made with these fresh,
crushed, spicule-stripped blossoms; however, dried blossoms were often
used in these messes instead, and were just as good.
_Boiled Blossoms._ A little water was brought to boil in a clay pot. A
handful of blossoms, either fresh or dried, was tossed into the pot and
stirred with a stick. They shrunk up quite small, and another handful of
blossoms was tossed in. This was continued until a small basketful of the
blossoms had been stirred into the pot.
Into this a handful of fat was thrown, or a little bone grease was poured
in; and the mess was let boil a little longer than meat is boiled, and a
little less than fresh squash is boiled. The mess was then ready to eat.
_Blossoms Boiled with Mạdạpo´zi I’ti´a._ Mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a was made, the
pot being put on the fire in the early afternoon and boiled for the rest
of the day. In the night following the fire would go out and the mess
would get cold.
In the morning the pot was set on the fire again, and if I was going to
use fresh blossoms I went out to the field to gather them, expecting to
return and find the pot heated and ready. The newly gathered blossoms,
crushed as described, I dropped in the rewarmed mess, and boiled for half
an hour, when the pot was taken off, and the mess was served.
Sometimes this mess was further varied by adding beans.
_Blossoms Boiled with Mäpi´ Nakapa´._ The blossoms were first boiled.
Meal of pounded parched corn and fats were then added and the whole was
boiled for half an hour.
Like the previous mess, this was sometimes varied by adding beans.
SEED SQUASHES
_Selecting for Seed_
Seed squashes were chosen at the first or second picking of the
season. At these pickings, as we went from hill to hill plucking the
four-days-old squashes, we observed what ones appeared the plumpest and
finest; and these we left on the vine to be saved for seed. We never
chose more than one squash in a single hill; and to mark where it lay,
and even more, to protect it from frost, we were careful to pull up a
weed or two, or break off a few squash leaves and lay them over the
squash; and thus protected, it was left on the vine.
There was a good deal of variety in our squashes. Some were round,
some rather elongated, some had a flattened end; some were dark, some
nearly white, some spotted; some had a purple, or yellow top. We did not
recognize these as different strains, as we did the varieties of corn;
and when I selected squashes for seed, I did not choose for color, but
for size and general appearance. Squashes of different colors grew in the
same hill; and all varieties tasted exactly alike.
In later pickings, while we continued to gather the four-days-old
squashes we did not disturb the seed squashes. They were easily avoided,
for if not plainly marked by the leaves I have said we laid over them,
they could be recognized by their greater size, and their rough rind. A
four-days-old squash is smaller and has a smoother rind than a mature
squash.
_Gathering the Seed Squashes_
The time for plucking the seed squashes was after we had gathered the
first ripe corn, but had not yet gathered our seed corn. It was our
custom to pluck our corn until the first frost fell; then to gather our
seed squashes; and afterwards our seed corn. Some years the first frost
fell very early, before we had plucked our first corn; in such seasons we
gathered our seed squashes first, for we never let them lie in the field
after the first frost had set in.
On this reservation the first frost falls at the end of the moon
following this present moon. We Indians call the present moon the
wild cherry moon, because June berries ripen in the first half, and
choke-cherries in the second half of the moon; and we reckon June berries
as a kind of cherry. Our next moon we call the harvest moon; and in it
wild plums ripen and the first frost falls.
The seed squashes when plucked, were all taken into the earth lodge and
laid in a pile, on a bench. The bench was made of planks split from
cottonwood trunks, laid lengthwise with the lodge wall. The squashes
were piled in a heap on this bench; they were bigger than four-days-old
squashes and their rinds were rougher and hard, like a shell.
_Cooking the Ripe Squashes_
When now we wanted to have squash for a meal, I went over to this heap of
ripe seed squashes and brought a number over near the fire. There I broke
them open, carefully saving the seeds. I would lay a squash on the floor
of the lodge; with an elk horn scraper I would strike the squash smart
blows on the side, splitting it open.
The broken half rinds I piled up one above another, concave side down,
until ready to put them in the pot. Ripe squashes were less delicate than
green four-days-old squashes, and did not spoil so quickly.
I was able to boil about ten ripe squashes in our family pot; but it took
three such cookings of ten squashes each to make a mess for our family,
which I have said was a large one. We boiled these ripe squashes like the
four-days-old, in a very little water.
_Saving the Seed_
Always near the fireplace in our lodge there lay a piece of scraped hide
about two feet square. It had many uses. When boiling meat we would lift
the steaming meat from the pot and lay it on the hide before serving. We
also used the hide for a drying cloth.
This piece of hide I drew near me when I was breaking ripe squashes;
and as I removed the seeds I laid them in a pile on the hide. Squash
seeds, freshly removed from the squash, are moist and mixed with more or
less pulpy matter. To remove this pulp I took up a small handful of the
fresh seeds, laid a dry corn cob in my palm and alternately squeezed and
opened my hand over the mess. The porous surface of the cob absorbed the
moisture and sucked up the pulpy matter, thus cleansing the seeds. As
the cleansed seeds fell back upon the hide I took up another handful and
repeated the process.
If there was a warm autumn sun, I often carried the hide with the
cleansed seeds upon it, and laid it on the floor of the drying stage
outside for the seeds to dry; but if the day was chill or winter had set
in, I dried the seeds by the fire.
When quite dried, the seeds were put in a skin sack to be stored in a
cache pit. The storing bag was often the whole skin of a buffalo calf,
with only the neck left open for a mouth; or it might be made of a small
fawn skin; or it might be made of a piece of old tent cover and shaped
like a cylinder.
_Eating the Seeds_
Sometimes we boiled ripe squashes whole, seeds and all; and we then ate
the seeds. They tasted something like peanuts.
These seeds of boiled squashes were eaten just as they came from the
squash. I would take up two or three seeds in my mouth, crushing them
with my teeth; and with my tongue I would separate the kernels from the
shells which I spat out. I was rather fond of squash seeds.
I have also heard of families who prepared squash seeds by parching or
roasting; but I never did this myself.
_Roasting Ripe Squashes_
I have heard that in old days my tribe used to roast fall-kept ripe
squashes. They were buried in the ashes and roasted whole. I never did
this myself, however.
There is a story that an old man who was blind, was handed a squash thus
roasted. He found the squash to his liking, but did not know how it had
been cooked.
“Girl,” he cried, “let me have the broth this was boiled in!”
“The squash was roasted in the ashes; it has no broth,” answered the girl
who had handed it to him.
The blind man laughed. “I thought it was boiled in a pot,” he said.
I judge from this story that several squashes had been roasted, and that
the blind man got one as his share.
_Storing the Unused Seed Squashes_
It was our custom to remove to our winter village in the mida´-pạx´di
widi´c, or leaf-turn-yellow moon; it corresponds about to October. I
remember the leaves used to be falling from the trees while we were
working about our winter lodges, getting ready for cold weather.
When moving time came in the fall, any squashes left over in the lodge,
uneaten, were stored in a cache pit until spring. But it was a difficult
thing to store these squashes so that they would keep sound; and when
spring came many of them would be found to have rotted. Some families
were more careful in making ready and storing their cache pits than were
others. Squashes kept best when stored in carefully prepared pits.
On the family’s return the next spring the cache pit was opened; and the
squashes that had kept sound could be used for cooking, and their seeds
could be planted. The number thus stored over winter was not large.
The seeds of rotted squashes were just as good to plant as were the seeds
of the sound squashes.
We carried no squash seeds with us to our winter village. For our spring
planting we depended on the seed we had left stored in the cache in our
summer lodge, in my father’s family.
The seeds of a ripe squash are swelled and plump in the center; those
of a four-days-old squash are flat. We could tell in this way if squash
seeds were ripe.
_Squashes, Present Seed_
I grew our native squashes in my son Goodbird’s garden until four years
ago. I stopped cultivating them because my son’s family did not seem
to care to eat them. Last year a squash vine came up wild in my son’s
garden. The squashes that grew on it were of two colors. I saved some of
the seed and planted them this year. It is from their yield that I have
given you seed.
As I have said, squashes were of different colors and varied a good deal
in shape; yet we recognized but one strain of seed. “We plant but one
kind of seed,” we said, “and all colors and shapes grow from it, dark,
white, purple, round, elongated.”
_Squash Dolls_
There is one other thing I will tell before we forsake the subject of
squashes. Little girls of ten or eleven years of age used to make dolls
of squashes.
When the squashes were brought in from the field, the little girls
would go to the pile and pick out squashes that were proper for dolls.
I have done so, myself. We used to pick out the long ones that were
parti-colored; squashes whose tops were white or yellow and the bottoms
of some other color. We put no decorations on these squashes that we had
for dolls. Each little girl carried her squash about in her arms and sang
for it as for a babe. Often she carried it on her back, in her calf skin
robe.