TOBACCO
_Observations by Maxi´diwiac_
Tobacco was cultivated in my tribe only by old men. Our young men did not
smoke much; a few did, but most of them used little tobacco, or almost
none. They were taught that smoking would injure their lungs and make
them short winded so that they would be poor runners. But when a man got
to be about sixty years of age we thought it right for him to smoke as
much as he liked. His war days and hunting days were over. Old men smoked
quite a good deal.
Young men who used tobacco could run; but in a short time they became
short of breath, and water, thick like syrup, came up into the mouth. A
young man who smoked a great deal, if chased by enemies, could not run to
escape from them, and so got killed. For this reason all the young men of
my tribe were taught that they should not smoke.
Things have changed greatly since those good days; and now young and old,
boys and men, all smoke. They seem to think that the new ways of the
white man are right; but I do not. In olden days, we Hidatsas took good
care of our bodies, as is not done now.
_The Tobacco Garden_
The old men of my tribe who smoked had each a tobacco garden planted
not very far away from our corn fields, but never in the same plot
with one. Two of these tobacco gardens were near the village, upon the
top of some rising ground; they were owned by two old men, Bad Horn
and Bear-looks-up. The earth lodges of these old men stood a little
way out of the village, and their tobacco gardens were not far away.
Bear-looks-up called my father “brother” and I often visited his lodge.
Tobacco gardens, as I remember them, were almost universal in my tribe
when I was five or six years of age; they were still commonly planted
when I was twelve years old; but white men had been bringing in their
tobacco and selling it at the traders’ stores for some years, and our
tobacco gardens were becoming neglected.
As late as when I was sixteen, my father still kept his tobacco garden;
but since that day individual gardens have not been kept in my tribe.
Instead, just a little space in the vegetable garden is planted with seed
if the owner wishes to raise tobacco.
The seed we use is the same that we planted in old times. A big insect
that we call the “tobacco blower” used always to be found around our
tobacco gardens; and this insect still appears about the little patches
of tobacco that we plant.
The reason that tobacco gardens were planted apart from our vegetable
fields in old times was, that the tobacco plants have a strong smell
which affects the corn; if tobacco is planted near the corn, the growing
corn stalks turn yellow and the corn is not so good. Tobacco plants were
therefore kept out of our corn fields. We do not follow this custom now;
and I do not think our new way is as good for the corn.
_Planting_
Tobacco seed was planted at the same time sunflower seed was planted.
The owner took a hoe and made soft every foot of the tobacco garden; and
with a rake he made the loosened soil level and smooth.
He marked the ground with a stick into rows about eighteen inches apart.
He opened a little package of seed, poured the seed into his left palm,
and with his right sowed the seed very thickly in the row. He covered the
newly sowed seed very lightly with soil which he raked with his hand.
When rain came, and warmth, the seeds sprouted. The seed having been
planted thickly, the plants came up thickly, so that they had to be
thinned out. The owner of the garden would weed out the weak plants,
leaving only the stronger standing.
The earth about each plant was hilled up about it with a buffalo rib,
into a little hill like a corn hill. It was a common thing to see an
old man working in his tobacco garden with one of these ribs. Young men
seldom worked in the tobacco gardens; not using tobacco very much, they
cared little about it.
_Arrow-head-earring’s Tobacco Garden_
An old man, I remember, named Arrow-head-earring, or Ma´iạ-pokcahec, had
a patch of tobacco along the edge of a field on the east side of the
village. He was a very old man. He used a big buffalo rib, sharpened on
the edge, to work the soil and cultivate his tobacco. He caught the rib
in his hands by both ends with the edge downward; and stooping over,
he scraped the soil toward him, now and then raising the rib up and
loosening the earth with the point at one end—poking up the soil, so to
speak.
He wore no shirt as he worked; but he had a buffalo robe about his
middle, on which he knelt as he worked.
_Small Ankle’s Cultivation_
My father always attended to the planting of his tobacco garden. When the
seed sprouted he thinned out the plants, weeded the ground and hilled up
the tobacco plants later with his own hands.
Tobacco plants often came up wild from seed dropped by the cultivated
plants. These wild plants seemed just as good as the cultivated ones.
There seemed little preference between them.
_Harvesting the Blossoms_
Tobacco plants began to blossom about the middle of June; and picking
then began. Tobacco was gathered in two harvests. The first harvest was
of these blossoms, which we reckoned the best part of the plant for
smoking. Old men were fond of smoking them.
Blossoms were picked regularly every fourth day after the season set in.
If we neglected to pick them until the fifth day, the blossoms would
begin to seed.
This picking of the blossoms my father often did, but as he was old, and
the work was slow and took a long time, my sister and I used to help him.
I well remember how my sister and I used to go out in late summer, when
the plants were in bloom, and gather the white blossoms. These I would
pluck from the plants, pinching them off with my thumb nail. Picking
blossoms was tedious work. The tobacco got into one’s eyes and made them
smart just as white men’s onions do to-day.
We picked, as I have said, every fourth day. Only the green part of the
blossom was kept. The white part I always threw away; it was of no value.
To receive the blossoms I took a small basket with me to the garden.
There were two kinds used; one was the bark basket that we wove, and of
which you have specimens; the other kind was made of a buffalo bull’s
scrotum, with hair side out.
Such a basket as the latter was a little larger than the crown of a
white man’s hat, the hat band being about the same diameter as the rim
that we put on the basket. It had the usual band to go over forehead or
shoulders. I bore the basket in the usual way on my back; or I could
swing it around on my breast when actually picking, thus making it easy
to drop the blossoms into it.
More often, however, I took the basket off and set it on the ground when
plucking blossoms. I would make a little round place in the soft soil
with my hands and set the basket in it, so that it would stand upright.
The basket did not collapse, for the skin covering was tough and rigid,
not soft.
I often used the scrotum basket also for picking choke-cherries or June
berries. It was more convenient when berrying to carry the basket swung
around on my breast. Going home with the basket filled with berries, I
bore it in the usual way on my back.
My father usually worked with us; and indeed it was to help him, because
he was old, that we picked the blossoms at all. It was slow work. I did
not expect to gather more than a fourth of a small basketful every four
days; and as the blossoms shrunk a good deal in drying, a day’s picking
looked rather scant.
When we fetched the blossoms home to the lodge, my father would spread a
dry hide on the floor in front of his sacred objects of the Big Birds’
ceremony; they were two skulls and a sacred pipe, wrapped in a bundle and
lying on a kind of stand. We regarded these objects as a kind of shrine.
Nobody ever walked between the fire and the shrine as that would have
been a kind of disrespect to the gods. My father spread the new-plucked
blossoms on the hide to dry. Lying here before the shrine, it was certain
no one would forget and step on the blossoms.
It took quite a time to dry the blossoms. If the weather was damp and
murky for several days, my father, on appearance of the sun again, would
move the hide over to a place where the sun shining through the smoke
hole, would fall on the blossoms. The smoke hole, being rather large,
would let through quite a strong sunbeam, and the drying blossoms were
kept directly in the beam.
When the blossoms had quite dried, my father fetched them over near the
fireplace, and put them on a small skin, or on a plank. We commonly had
planks, or boards, split from cottonwood trunks, lying in the lodge; they
had many uses.
My father then took a piece of buffalo fat, thrust it on the end of a
stick and roasted it slowly over the coals. This piece of hot fat he
touched lightly here and there to the piled-up blossoms, so as to oil
them slightly, but not too much. He next moved the skin or board down
over the edge of the fire pit, tipping it slightly so that the heat from
the fire would strike the blossoms. Here he left them a little while, but
watching them all the time. Now and then he would gently stir the pile
of blossoms with a little stick, so that the whole mass might be oiled
equally.
This done my father took up the blossoms and put them into his tobacco
bag. The tobacco bag that we used then was exactly like that used to-day,
ornamented with quills or bead work; only in those days old men never
bothered to ornament their tobacco bags, just having them plain.
When my father wanted to smoke these dried blossoms, he drew them from
his tobacco bag and chopped them fine with a knife, a pipeful at a time.
Cured in this way, tobacco blossoms were called ạduatạkidu´cki. They were
smoked by old men unmixed.
The blossoms were always dried within the lodge. If dried without, the
sun and air took away their strength.
_Harvesting the Plants_
About harvest time, just before frost came, the rest of the plants were
gathered—the stems and leaves, I mean, left after the harvesting of the
blossoms. My father attended to this. He took no basket, but fetched the
plants in his arms.
He dried the plants in the lodge near the place where the cache pit lay.
For this he took sticks, about fifteen inches long, and thrust them over
the beam between two of the exterior supporting posts, so that the sticks
pointed a little upwards. On each of these sticks he hung two or three
tobacco plants by thrusting the plants, root up, upon the stick, but
without tying them.
When dry, these plants were taken down and put into a bag; or a package
was made by folding over them a piece of old tent cover; and the package
or bag was stored away in the cache pit.
When the tobacco plants were quite dry, the leaves readily fell off.
Leaves that remained on the plants were smoked, of course; but it was
the stems that furnished most of the smoking. They were treated like the
blossoms, with buffalo fat, before putting into the tobacco pouch; we did
not treat tobacco with buffalo fat except as needed for use, and to be
put into the tobacco pouch, ready for smoking.
I do not remember that my father ever saved any of the blossoms to store
away in the cache pit, as he did the stem, or plant tobacco. Friends and
visitors were always coming and going; and when they came into the lodge
my father would smoke with them, using the blossoms first, because they
were his best tobacco. In this way, the blossoms were used up about as
fast as they were gathered.
Before putting the tobacco away in the cache pit, my father was careful
to put aside seed for the next year’s planting. He gathered the black
seeds into a small bundle about as big as my fingers bunched together, or
about the size of a baby’s fist, wrapping them up in a piece of soft skin
which he tied with a string. He made two or three of these bundles and
tied them to the top of his bed, or to a post near by, where there was no
danger of their being disturbed.
We had no way of selecting tobacco seed. We just gathered any seed that
was borne on the plants. Of course there were always good and bad seeds
in every package; but as the owner of a tobacco garden always planted his
seed very thickly, he was able to weed out all the weak plants as they
came up, as I have already explained.
A tobacco plant, pulled up and hung up in the lodge, we called o´puti:
opi, tobacco, and uti, base, foundation, substantial part.
The Mandans and Arikaras raised tobacco exactly as we did, in little
gardens.
_Selling to the Sioux_
We used to sell a good deal of tobacco to the Sioux. They called it
Pana´nitachani, or Ree’s tobacco.
A bunch six or seven inches in diameter, bound together, we sold for one
tanned hide.
_Size of Tobacco Garden_
My father’s tobacco garden, when I was a little girl, was somewhat larger
than this room; and that, as you measure it, is twenty-one by eighteen
feet. I have seen other tobacco gardens planted by old men that measured
somewhat larger; but this was about the average size.
_Customs_
If any one went into a tobacco garden and took tobacco without notifying
the owner, we said that his hair would fall out; and if any one in the
village began to lose his hair, and it kept coming out when he brushed
it, we would laugh and say, “Hey, hey, you man! You have been stealing
tobacco!”
What? You say you got this tobacco out of Wolf Chief’s garden without
asking? (laughing heartily.) Then be sure your hair will fall out when
you comb it. Just watch, and see if it doesn’t!
I have said that my father softened the soil of his tobacco garden with
a hoe. After the plants began to grow, the hoe was not used, either for
cutting the weeds or for hilling up the plants. I have said that the weak
plants were culled out by hand, and that the strong plants were hilled up
with a buffalo rib.
ACCESSORIES TO THE TOBACCO GARDEN
_Fence_
When I was a little girl every tobacco garden had a willow fence around
it.
I remember very well seeing such fences built. Post holes were made
by driving a sharp stake into the ground with an ax; the stake was
withdrawn, and into the hole left by it, a diamond willow was thrust for
a post; on this willow were left all the upper branches with the leaves.
A rail was run from the post to its next neighbor, at the height of a
woman’s shoulder, and stayed in place by bending over the leafy top of
the willow post, and drawing it around the rail, then twisting it down
and around the body at the post in a spiral manner. If the leafy top
of the post was long enough, and slender enough, it might, after being
wrapped spirally about the post, be even drawn out and woven into the
fence.
Below the top rail at a convenient distance, there ran a second rail,
bound to the post with bark. Besides these rails, branches and twigs, and
as I have said, the tops of the posts themselves, were interwoven into
the fence to make it as dense as possible.
The posts of the fence stood about two and a half feet apart, making,
with the rails and the interwoven twigs, a barrier so dense that even a
dog could not push through it.
There was an opening left to enter the garden, closed by a kind of
stile—bars of small poles thrust right and left between the posts;
against these bars were leaned one or two bull berry bushes, which were
removed when the owner wanted to enter.
If a weak place was found in the fence, it was strengthened with a bull
berry bush thrust into the ground and leaned against the fence or woven
into it.
_The Scrotum Basket_
I have said that we used a basket made of the scrotum of a buffalo bull,
for picking tobacco blossoms.
A fresh scrotum was taken, and a rim or hoop of choke-cherry wood was
bound around its mouth; choke-cherry limbs are flexible and easily bent.
The hoop was sewed in place with sinew passing through the skin and
around the hoop spirally.
[Illustration: Figure 39
Reproduced from sketch by Goodbird.]
A thong was bound at either end to opposite sides of the hoop, and the
whole was hung upon the drying stage, or at the entrance to the earth
lodge in the sun. The skin was then filled with sand until dry, when it
was emptied, the thong removed, and a band, or leather handle, was bound
on one side of the hoop, at places a few inches apart, and the basket was
ready for use.
The scrotum is the toughest part of the buffalo’s hide. When dried it is
as hard and rigid as wood.
Figure 39 is a sketch by Goodbird showing what the basket was like.
[Illustration: Figure 40]
Down in the bottoms along the Missouri near Independence school house
are the gardens—now abandoned—used by the neighboring families when they
first came to this part of the reservation, about 1886.
The fields are plainly marked in the underbrush and trees from the fact
that they are relatively open. Goodbird accompanied me to the several
locations and I made maps of the fields, which I include in figure 40.
While not accurately surveyed—I had to pace off the distances—the fields
are fairly accurately represented by the maps.
Figure 40, _I_, is a diagram in vertical section of the land surface in
which the gardens lie. Toward the right is seen the basin of the Missouri
river.
At the extreme left is a bit of the prairie that abuts the foothills.
Between are two level terraces, one eighty yards, the other and lower,
one hundred and seventy-five yards in width. Four of the gardens lie
in the eighty-yard terrace; field _A_, of Small Ankle; _B_ of Big Foot
Bull; _E_ of Crow’s Breast, and _H_, a small bit of ground used by the
Small Ankle family for a squash garden. Gardens _C_ of Small Horn; _D_ of
Leggings; _F_ of Crow’s Breast; and _G_ of Cedar Woman, lie in the lower
and wider terrace.
With one exception the fields are called by the names of the male heads
of the families, a custom that probably began at the time allotments were
first made.
The relative positions of the fields are not as shown in the figure,
except of _A_ and _B_, the gardens of Small Ankle and Big Foot Bull.
These are separated by a wagon road that descends to the lower terrace,
as indicated on the map.
Doubtless the two terraces have been made by over-flow waters. It is
likely that both are still subject to overflow at long intervals,
especially the lower. The soil is light and sandy, but black and rich.
The overflow of the river would seem to suggest that the land would be
fertilized by silt deposited upon it; but my Indian informants seem to
attach no significance to this. Fields were located near the Missouri
“because the soil there is soft and easily worked, and does not become
dry and burn up the crops.”
GILBERT L. WILSON.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Washington Matthews, _Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa
Indians_. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey.
[2] Gilbert L. Wilson, _Myths of the Red Children_. Ginn and Company,
1907.
[3] George H. Pepper and Gilbert L. Wilson, _An Hidatsa Shrine and
the Beliefs Respecting It_. Memoirs of the American Anthropological
Association, 1908.
[4] Gilbert L. Wilson, _Goodbird, the Indian: His Story_. Fleming H.
Revell Co. 1914.
[5] “In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes,
sunflowers, and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought up
from beneath the ground by the Mandan people.
“Now the corn, as we believe, has an enemy—the sun who tries to burn the
corn. But at night, when the sun has gone down, the corn has magic power.
It is the corn that brings the night moistures—the early morning mist and
fog, and the dew—as you can see yourself in the morning from the water
dripping from the corn leaves. Thus the corn grows and keeps on until it
is ripe.
“The sun may scorch the corn and try hard to dry it up, but the corn
takes care of itself, bringing the moistures that make the corn, and also
the beans, sunflowers, squashes, and tobacco grow.
“The corn possesses all this magic power.
“When you white people met our Mandan people we gave to the whites the
name Maci´, or Waci´, meaning nice people, or pretty people. We called
them by this name because they had white faces and wore fine clothes. We
said also ‘We will call these people our friends!’ And from that time to
this we have never made war on white men.
“Our Mandan corn must now be all over the world, for we gave the white
men our seeds. And so it seems we Mandans have helped every people. But
the seed of our varieties of corn were originally ours.
“We know that white men must also have had corn seed, for their corn is
different from ours. But all we older folk can tell our native corn from
that of white men.”—WOUNDED FACE (Mandan)
[6] Corn sucker, i. e., the extra shoot or stem that often springs up
from the base of the maize plant.
[7] Buffalobird-woman says she planted six to eight kernels to a hill.
Just what pattern she used she could not tell until she went out with a
handful of seed and planted a few hills to revive her memory. The three
patterns shown in figure 7 will show how she laid the grains in the
bottom of the several hills.—GILBERT L. WILSON
[8] “Twice in the corn season were scarecrows used; first, when the corn
was just coming up; and again when the grain was forming on the ear and
getting ripe.”—EDWARD GOODBIRD
[9] In August, 1910, Buffalobird-woman related the story of “The
Grandson,” in the course of which she said in explanation of reference to
a watchers’ stage:
“I will now stop a moment to explain something in the other form of this
tale.
“According to this way of telling it, there was a garden and in the
middle of the garden was a tree. There was a platform under the tree made
of trunks and slabs; and there those two girls sat to watch the garden
and sing watch-garden songs. They did this to make the garden grow, just
as people sing to a baby to make it be quiet and feel good. In old times
we sang to a garden for a like reason, to make the garden feel good and
grow. This custom was one used in every garden. Sometimes one or two
women sang.
“The singing was begun in the spring and continued until the corn was
ripe. We Indians loved our gardens and kept them clean; we did not let
weeds grow in them. Always in every garden during the growing season,
there would be some one working or singing.
“Now in old times, many of our gardens had resting stages, or watchers’
stages, such as I have just described. We always made our gardens down
in the woods by the river, because there is better ground there. When we
cut off the timber we would often leave one tree standing in the garden.
Under this tree were erected four forked posts, on which was laid a
platform. This made the stage; in the tree overhead we often spread robes
and blankets for shade.
“This resting stage was small. It was just big enough for two persons to
sit on comfortably. Corn was never dried on it; it was used for a singing
and resting place only. It was reached by a ladder. Its height was about
four and a half feet high.
“This resting stage or watchers’ stage was built on the north side of the
tree so that the shade of the tree would fall upon it. Robes were laid
on the floor of the stage to make a couch or bed. Sometimes people even
slept on this platform—sometimes a man and his wife slept there.
“This resting stage we used to rest on after working in the garden; and
to sing here the songs that we sang at this season of the year, and which
I have called watch-garden songs. A place to cook in was not far away on
the edge of the garden. It was a kind of booth, or bower. With a stake we
made holes in the ground in a circle, and into the holes thrust willows.
The tops of these willows we bent toward the center and joined together
to make a bower. Over the top we threw a robe. We built a fire beneath to
cook by.
“Our gardens I am describing were those at Like-a-fishhook village; and
they were on the Missouri on either side of the village. They were strung
along the river bank for a mile or more on either side of the village.”
[10] In redrawing Goodbird’s sketch this calf-skin has been omitted, that
the construction of the stage floor might be shown.
[11] “My wife is drying half-boiled corn on the ear this year. This way
we find makes the dried corn sweeter, but takes longer to dry it. We cook
it in winter by dropping the ear, cob and all, into the pot. This method
of drying corn was known also in old times.”—EDWARD GOODBIRD
[12] Buffalobird-woman means that the buskers arrived in the fields in
the morning to begin the day’s labors. More than one corn pile might be
husked in a single day.—GILBERT L. WILSON
[13] Water Chief having strolled into the cabin while Buffalobird-woman
was dictating, here interrupted with the following:
“The owner of a field would come and notify the crier of some society, as
the Fox or Dog society, or some other. The crier would go on the roof of
the society’s lodge and call, ‘All you of the Fox society come hither;
they want you to husk. When you all get here, we will go to that one’s
garden and husk the corn!’
“We young men of the society all gathered together and marched to the
field to which we were bidden. In old times we took our guns with us, for
the Sioux might come up to attack us. As we approached the field we began
to sing, that the girls might hear us. We knew that our sweethearts would
take notice of our singing. The girls themselves did not sing.
“At the corn pile in each garden would be the woman owner and maybe two
or three girls. On our way to some field, if we passed through other
fields with corn piles at which were girls, each young man looked to see
if his sweetheart was there; and if he saw her he would yell, expecting
that she would recognise his voice.
“Sometimes two societies husked at one corn pile. Any of the societies
might be asked. If the pile was too big for one society, another society
was asked, if the owner could afford the food for the feast.
“Different societies would be husking in different gardens all at the
same time.
“Sometimes a group of young men belonging to different societies were
asked to come and husk. This was chiefly at small gardens; the societies
were usually asked to come and husk the big corn piles of the larger
gardens.
“If a society went early, they got through just after midday. By early I
mean nine o’clock in the morning.
“When we had finished husking one pile, we went to another. We worked
late, by moonlight, even.
“Some man of the family and his wife would be out all night and watch
by the corn if they had not gotten all the husked ears borne in to the
village. Also while the pile awaited husking watchers stayed by to
protect against horses.”
[14] “Corn in old times was gathered in September. A basket was carried
on the back and the corn was tossed into it over the shoulder, or the
basket was set on the ground and filled. This work was done by the women.
The corn having been plucked, the owner of the field notified people what
food she wanted to serve—meat or boiled corn-and-beans—and young men came
to husk the corn. A pile might be three or four feet high and twenty feet
long. The men huskers sat on one side of the pile and the women on the
other. The big ears were strung in braids. A braid was long enough to
reach from the thigh around under the foot and up again to the other side
of the thigh. A husker would try the newly made braid with his foot as
he held the ends in his hands. Unless this was done a weak place in the
string might escape notice and the braid break, and all the others would
then laugh.
“Small ears were tossed into one place. Four or five women would carry
off these ears in baskets; they bore the filled baskets right up the
ladder to the top of the drying stage. The braided strings were often
borne home on the backs of ponies, ten strings on a pony. They were hung
like dead snakes on the railings above the floor of the stage to dry.
“Boys and young men went to the husking bees because of the fun to be
had; they wanted to see the girls!”—EDWARD GOODBIRD (related in 1909).
[15] “Sometimes for fun we lads used to take long poles with nooses on
the end and snare off one ear of a braid of corn as it hung drying; for
the braids were soft when fresh. An ear broken off, we would run off and
make a fire and parch the corn. This was when we were little fellows, ten
or eleven years old. The owner would run after us, and if he caught one
of us, whipped him. However, this was our custom; and the owner and the
boy’s father both looked upon it as a kind of lark, and not anything very
serious.”—EDWARD GOODBIRD
[16] In 1910 Buffalobird-woman gave an interesting and detailed account
of the making of a clay pot. A newly made pot, she explained, was rubbed
over with boiled pounded-corn meal; and she added this rather humorous
variation of the recipe above:
“This mush, or boiled, pounded-corn meal was made thus:
“A clay pot was three-quarters filled with water and put on the fire to
boil. Meanwhile, twelve double handfuls of corn were pounded in the corn
mortar; usually we pounded three or four double handfuls at a time. This
began after breakfast; it was work and made us women sweat. The corn was
hard, ripe corn, yellow or white.
“These twelve double handfuls were thrown into the pot of now boiling
water, and boiled for half an hour. As there was no grease in the pot, we
had to stir the contents with a smooth stick to keep from sticking.
“As the corn boiled a scummy substance would rise to the top. To this
the woman cooking would touch the point of her horn spoon, and carry it
to her tongue and lick it off. When she could taste that it was sticky
enough, she knew that it was time to add beans. It took, as I have said,
about half an hour for the corn to boil to this point.
“She now added some spring salt. This is alkaline salt which we gathered
about the mouth of springs. It was white. The woman put some of this salt
in a cup and made a strong liquor—in old times instead of a cup she used
a horn spoon. She now added the salt liquor to the mess. It took about
enough of this white salt to make a heaping tablespoonful to one pot of
this corn mess. As the salt liquor was poured into the pot, the woman
held her hand over the mouth of the cup, so that if any pieces of grass
or other refuse were in it, they would be strained out by her fingers.
“The corn when it is pounded does not pound evenly; and so when it was
put into the pot, the finer part of the meal was cooked first. This rose
to the top, and in old times was skimmed off. The coarser parts of the
meal took longer to cook; but the skimmed-off part, when the other was
done, was poured back into the pot again.
“When the pounded corn meal had now all cooked and the salt had been
added, the beans were put in—red, spotted, black, or shield-figured,
we did not have white beans in very old times; they were brought in by
white men. The pot was now let boil until the beans were done. Beans were
always added to the pot.
“A pot of corn meal and beans was [almost] always on the fire in the
lodge. The boys of the lodge liked to come around when the corn was
cooking and dip horn spoons into the thick, rising liquor, and lick it
off as I have described the woman doing as she cooked.
“It was this sticky, rising liquor taken off the boiling corn to keep and
return to it, that was used to rub over a newly made pot. When this was
done, the pot was ready to boil corn in.
“After using a pot, it was usually rubbed over with the residue of the
boiled corn meal, or mush, because this made the pot look better and last
longer.
“The skimmed-off liquor from a pot of boiling corn meal was also fed to
a baby whose mother had died, and whose family could not hire a woman to
nurse it.”
[17] Measuring from center of corn hill to center of next corn hill.—G.
L. W.
[18] “I have raised white beans mostly of late years because it is easier
to sell them to white men. This summer, however (1913), I planted several
acres also to other kinds of our Hidatsa beans, red, black, spotted.
“I find that the black beans have yielded best, next the red, then the
spotted, last of all the white. I have observed before that this is true;
that black beans yield the most.”—WOLF CHIEF
[19] Slough grass, a species of Spartina.
[20] Buffalobird-woman here means a three-section stage. A stage of four
sections would be forty feet or more in length.—G. L. W.
[21] “The first that rakes are mentioned in the stories of my tribe
so far as I know, is in the tale of ‘The Grandson.’ There is a little
lake down near Short River where lived an old magic woman, whom we call
Old-woman-who-never-dies. There is a level piece of ground near by,
about five miles long by one and a half mile wide. This flat land was
the garden of Old-woman-who-never-dies. Her servants were the deer that
thronged the near-by timber. These deer worked her garden for her. All
buck deer have horns; and with their horns the deer raked up the weeds
and refuse of Old-woman-who-never-dies’s garden.
“Now deer shed their horns. Old-woman-who-never-dies got these shed horns
and bound them on sticks and so we got our first rakes. Her grandson saw
what she did and afterwards taught the people to make rakes also.
“In later times we learned to make rakes of ash wood instead of horns;
but we still reckon the teeth to mean the tines of a deer’s antler.
Sometimes deer have six, sometimes seven tines on an antler. So we make
our ash rakes, some with six, some with seven teeth.
“If the Grandson had not seen what his grandmother did, we Hidatsas would
never have known how to make rakes, either of horn or of ash wood.”—WOLF
CHIEF (told in 1910).
[22] “In my tribe in old times, some men helped their wives in their
gardens. Others did not. Those who did not help their wives talked
against those who did, saying, ‘That man’s wife makes him her servant!’
“And the others retorted, ‘Look, that man puts all the hard work on his
wife!’
“Men were not alike; some did not like to work in the garden at all, and
cared for nothing but to go around visiting or to be off on a hunt.
“My father, Small Ankle, liked to garden and often helped his wives. He
told me that that was the best way to do. ‘Whatever you do,’ he said,
‘help your wife in all things!’ He taught me to clean the garden, to help
gather the corn, to hoe, and to rake.
“My father said that that man lived best and had plenty to eat who helped
his wife. One who did not help his wife was likely to have scanty stores
of food.”—WOLF CHIEF (told in 1910).
* * * * *
STUDIES IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
1. HERBERT G. LAMPSON, A Study on the Spread of Tuberculosis in Families.
1913. $0.50.
2. JULIUS V. HOFMAN, The Importance of Seed Characteristics in the
Natural Reproduction of Coniferous Forests. In press.
STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
1. ESTHER L. SWENSON, An Inquiry into the Composition and Structure of
_Ludus Coventriae_; HARDIN CRAIG, Note on the Home of _Ludus Coventriae_.
1914. $0.50.
2. ELMER EDGAR STOLL, _Othello_: An Historical and Comparative Study.
1915. $0.50.
3. COLBERT SEARLES, _Les Sentiments de l’Académie Française sur le Cid_:
Edition of the Text, with an Introduction. 1916. $1.00.
4. PAUL EDWARD KRETZMANN, The Liturgical Element in the Earliest Forms of
the Medieval Drama. 1916. $1.00.
5. ARTHUR JERROLD TIEJE, The Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction
prior to 1740. 1916. $0.75.
CURRENT PROBLEMS
1. WILLIAM ANDERSON, The Work of Public Service Commissions. 1913. $0.15.
2. BENJAMIN F. PITTENGER, Rural Teachers’ Training Departments in
Minnesota High Schools. 1914. $0.15.
3. GERHARD A. GESELL, Minnesota Public Utility Rates. 1914. $0.25.
4. L. D. H. WELD, Social and Economic Survey of a Community in the Red
River Valley. 1915. $0.25.
5. GUSTAV P. WARBER, Social and Economic Survey of a Community in
Northeastern Minnesota. 1915. $0.25.
6. JOSEPH B. PIKE, Bulletin for Teachers of Latin. 1915. $0.25.
7. AUGUST C. KREY, Bulletin for Teachers of History. 1915. $0.25.
8. CARL SCHLENKER, Bulletin for Teachers of German. 1916. $0.25.
9. WILLIAM WATTS FOLWELL, Economic Addresses. In press.