![]() ![]() We put no decorations on these squashes….Each little girl carried her squash about in her arms and sang for it as for a babe. We used to pick out the long ones…squashes whose tops were white or yellow and the bottoms of some other color. 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. “ Little girls of 10 and 11 years of age used to make dolls of squashes. Reading this book brings back a lost world, especially life beyond the garden rows: When the first green corn was plucked, the women and children would gather, breaking off a piece of stalk, sucking the sweet juice - “ merely for a little taste of sweets in the field.” You get a sense of what a social occasion gardening was. In this book (since retitled Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden: Agriculture and the Hidatsa Indians), Maxidiwiac (as she was known in Hidatsa) talks of field preparation, planting, harvesting and storage - along with the songs and ceremonies that lead to a good crop. Wilson published Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians, a faithful transcript of his interviews with this remarkable woman. She grew up to be an expert gardener of the Hidatsa tribe, growing corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers along the fertile bottomlands of the Missouri River. Buffalo Bird Woman was born in an earth lodge in 1839, along the Knife River, in present day North Dakota. ![]()
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