This year, the first book on my winter reading list pertaining to gardening was “Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden” by Gilbert Wilson, first published in 1917.
Wilson was an anthropologist at the University of Minnesota. He collected his information with the help of Buffalo Bird Woman’s son, Edward Good Bird, who translated her descriptions of how she gardened as a child and young woman.
It is more of an anthropology book than a gardening book, but I think gardeners will enjoy reading it and may find some things to try from it.
Most people don’t think of Native Americans from the plains as gardeners and many were not. The Lakota Sioux, along with the Cheyenne, Comanche and Blackfeet followed the buffalo and did not stay in one place long enough to grow a season of crops on the plains.
Buffalo Bird Woman was a member of the Hidatsa tribe, which was associated with the Mandan and Arikara tribes. They lived in permanent earthen lodges on the natural terraces above the Missouri River in North Dakota and gardened in the bottom lands along that river.
The Mandans are known for hosting the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-05 during the first winter of their voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Buffalo Bird Woman was born about 1839. Between the time that Lewis and Clark visited the area and when Buffalo Bird Woman was born, all Native Americans of the plains suffered catastrophic population losses due to smallpox.
This book is about gardening in central North Dakota at a place called “Like-a-fishhook” village, where the Knife River makes a sharp bend before entering the Missouri River. There is a historic site there now called the Knife River Indian Villages near the town of Stanton, N.D. You can still see where the soil circles remain from their earthen shelters.
Manure wasn’t used in Hidatsa gardening because they found that it contained too many weed seeds that were difficult to get rid of. They learned the practice of leaving gardens fallow for a couple of years to rejuvenate the soil, resulting in better crop yields.
More experienced gardeners practiced selective harvest of their seeds and only kept the best cobs of corn. They collected two years’ worth of seed each year and the extra seeds ensured good seed even after a crop failure. Extra seeds could be traded for other items. They noticed how corn “traveled” between varieties of corn planted near each other.
Gardening was the work of the women and their daughters. Men sometimes helped with the heavier tasks, but typically men tended only to their highly valued tobacco plants, which they grew next to their homes.
It is well known that metal knives were a highly desired trade item. Native women appreciated knives, but they especially appreciated the metal garden hoe. Before the arrival of the garden hoe, they used the shoulder blade bones of buffalo attached to sticks for land clearing, weeding and cultivation.
They also used straight planting sticks made of ash for planting and cultivation. Rakes were made of forked sticks or deer antlers tied to sticks.
The land chosen for gardening was usually brushy and near a river. Areas of trees were avoided because they were too difficult to clear. The prairie areas were avoided because the sod was difficult to break through and these areas were too dry to support a full season of growth.
The willows and brush they took off their garden plots were distributed evenly across the ground and burned, leaving the soil soft and easier to cultivate. Personally, I have noticed that the soil under my own burn piles is soft.
Their four cultivated crops were sunflowers, corn, squash and beans. Sunflowers were the first seeds planted and the last crop harvested. They were planted on the outside edges of a garden. Three seeds were planted in each hole, and the holes were eight feet apart.
Corn planting started when the wild gooseberry plants leafed out in May and lasted for a month. Near the end of the planting season, the seeds were soaked in tepid water to give them a chance to catch up with the earlier-planted seeds. Six to eight seeds were planted in a hill 18 inches in diameter and these hills were four feet apart.
The Hidatsa planted seven different kinds of corn. Some kinds were eaten like sweet corn but would probably not pass as acceptable sweet corn, given current taste expectations. Each variety had different characteristics and special uses.
The better ears of corn were braided for easier handling. Hidatsa frequently traded with the Lakota Sioux. A braid of corn, containing about 55 ears, could be traded for a tanned buffalo hide.
Squash seeds were sprouted in leather pouches and then planted in hills between patches of corn. Squash was picked every four days. It was eaten fresh like summer squash early on, and as the season progressed, it was allowed to mature. It was then sliced with bone knives and air-dried to preserve it underground in caches for the winter months.
Squash was the most difficult to keep during the winter and was kept in the centers of the caches to keep it free of mold. Beans were planted in hills between the hills of corn after the danger of frost had passed. Beans were eaten green or as dried seeds.
The book doesn’t mention the concept of a Three Sisters garden, another popular growing arrangement among Indigenous people, but the same principles were applied with the sunflowers added to the corn, beans and squash. Some sources call their garden crops the Four Sisters.
The Hidatsa built stages, or elevated platforms, in their gardens. These were used mostly to protect their crops from horses, wild animals and young boys who relished a meal of fresh roasted corn cobs. Other stages were built closer to their homes and were used for processing, drying and cleaning their crops for winter storage.
“Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden” contains many descriptions of how the Hidatsa prepared their food. One that was particularly interesting was sunflower seed balls. On long journeys, they would carry these balls in bags made from buffalo heart sacs, and these could restore a weary traveler.
These would have been our first energy bars and sandwich bags. Other readers will want to try some of her other recipes.
Buffalo Bird Woman was probably named after the buffalo birds that we now know as brown-headed cowbirds. They are the size of and look like other types of black birds except for their brown heads. They followed herds of buffalo and ate the insects that buffalo disturbed as they grazed.
Because the buffalo herds never stayed in one place, the birds couldn’t tend to their own nests and still eat their preferred food, so instead they laid eggs in the nests of other nesting birds, letting other birds raise their young, often at the expense of their own offspring.
Cowbirds are not uncommon in Minnesota and can be found in rural areas around livestock or even in suburban areas around bird feeders.
I found my copy of “Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden” on Hoopla, an app on my cell phone that allows me to check out and read books on my phone, which is free to use through our library. The book is also available on Amazon.
These local garden articles will reach you each week throughout the gardening season, but gardening information can be found year-round by clicking on “Yard and Garden” at the University of Minnesota Extension website,
www.extension.umn.edu,
or by visiting our Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/Beltramicountymastergardeners.
Local Master Gardeners will respond to questions via voicemail. Call
(218) 444-7916,
and leave your name, number and question.
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