Description
Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians is the 1917 reprint the describes this Hidatsa woman's agricultural techniques during the mid 1800s. The book details the agricultural calendar year's activities as remembered by Buffalo Bird Woman, an accomplished Hidatsa gardener born around 1839. Buffalo Bird Woman was a Hidatsa who experienced the traditional life of her people in what is now North Dakota. She was born around 1839. She learned and practiced all the traditional Hidatsa skills such as gardening, the preparation of food, weaving and many others. Buffalo Bird Woman held to the traditional ways of her culture and generously shared them through her stories and teachings. She was interviewed by Gilbert Wilson and this gave rise to the documenting the Hidatsa traditions. Through oral tradition she described her own experience and the lives and work and work of women in Hidatsa culture. She describes in detail the steps involved in preparing garden from clearing the field, tools required, dealing with trees in the field, and burning over the field. Other chapters cover planting, caring for, and harvesting sunflowers, corn, squash, and beans. Additional topics describe various tools, storage techniques, and growing tobacco.