When all the corn was cooked, I loaded the ears in my basket and bore them out upon the drying stage, where I laid them in rows, side by side, upon the stage floor. There I left them to dry over night.

The work of bringing in the five basketfuls of corn from the field and boiling the ears took all day, until evening.

In the morning the corn was brought into the lodge again. A skin tent cover had been spread on the floor and the half boiled ears were laid on it, in a pile. I now sat on the floor, as an Indian woman sits, with ankles to the right, and with the edge of the tent cover drawn over my knees, I took an ear of the half boiled corn in my left hand, holding it with the greater end toward me. I had a small, pointed stick; and this I ran, point forward, down between two rows of kernels, thus loosening the grains. The right hand row of the two rows of loosened kernels I now shelled off with my right thumb. I then shelled off all the other rows of kernels, one row at a time, working toward the left, and rolling the cob over toward the right as I did so.

There was another way of shelling half boiled corn. As before, I would run a sharpened stick down two rows of kernels, loosening the grains; and I would then shell them off with smart, quick strokes of a mussel shell held in my right hand. We still shell half boiled corn in this way, using large spoons instead of shells. There were very few metal spoons in use in my tribe when I was a girl; mussel shells were used instead for most purposes.

If while I was shelling the corn, a girl or woman came into the lodge to visit, she would sit down and lend a hand while we chatted; thus the shelling was soon done.

The shelling finished, I took an old tent cover and spread it on the floor of the drying stage outside. On this cover I spread the shelled corn to dry, carrying it up on the stage in my basket.

At night I covered the drying corn with old tent skins to protect it from dampness.

The corn dried in about four days.

When the corn was well dried, I winnowed it. This I sometimes did on the floor of the drying stage, sometimes on the ground.

Having chosen a day when a slight wind was blowing, I filled a wooden bowl from the dried corn that lay heaped on the tent cover; and holding the bowl aloft I let the grain pour slowly from it, that any chaff might be winnowed out.

The corn was now ready to be put in sacks for winter.

Corn thus prepared we called maada´ckihĕ, from ada´ckihĕ, treated-by-fire-but-not-cooked, a word also used to designate food that has been prepared by smoking.

All varieties of corn could be prepared in this way.[11]

The Arikaras on this reservation have a different way of preparing and drying green corn. They make a big heap of dried willows, and upon these lay the ears, green and freshly plucked, in the husk. When all is ready, they set fire to the willows, thus roasting the corn; and they often roast a great pile of corn at one time, in this way. The roasted ears are husked and shelled, and the grain dried, for storing. Corn that has been roasted in the Arikara way, dries much more quickly than that prepared by boiling.

Of late years some Mandan and Hidatsa families occasionally roast their corn in imitation of the Arikara way; but I never saw this done in my youth.

I do not like to eat food made of this dried, roasted corn; it is dirty!

Mapë´di (Corn Smut)

Mapë´di

Mapë´di is a black mass that grows in the husk of an ear of corn; it is what you say white men call corn smut fungus. Sometimes an ear of corn appears very plump, or somewhat swelled; and when the husk is opened, there is no corn inside, only mapë´di, or smut; or sometimes part of the ear will be found with a little grain at one end, and mapë´di at the other. These masses of mapë´di, or corn smut, that we found growing on the ear, we gathered and dried for food.

There is another mapë´di that grows on the stalk of the corn. It is not good to eat, and was not gathered up at the harvest time. The mapë´di that grows on the stalk is commonly found at a place where the stalk, by some accident, has been half broken.

We looked upon the mapë´di that grew on the corn ear as a kind of corn, because it was borne on the cob; it was found on the ears the grain of which was growing solid, or was about ready to be eaten as green corn. We did not find many mapë´di masses in one garden.

Harvest and Uses

We gathered the black masses and half boiled and dried them, still on the cob. When well dried, they were broken off the cob. These broken off pieces we mixed with the dried half boiled green corn, and stored in the same sack with them.

Mapë´di was cooked by boiling with the half-boiled dried corn. We did not eat mapë´di fresh from the garden, nor did we cook it separately. Mapë´di, boiled with corn, tasted good, not sweet, and not sour.

I still follow the custom of my tribe and gather mapë´di each year at the corn harvest.

The Ripe Corn Harvest

Husking

As the corn in the fields began to show signs of ripening, the people of Like-a-fishhook village went hunting to get meat for the husking feasts. This meat was usually dried; but if a kill was made late in the season, the meat was sometimes brought in fresh.

When the corn was fully ripened, the owners of a garden went out with baskets, plucked the ears from the stalks and piled them in a heap ready for the husking. The empty stalks were left standing in the field.

A small family sometimes took as many as three days to gather and husk their ripe corn; this was because there were not many persons in the family to do the work.

In a big family, like my fathers, harvesting was more speedily done. We had a large garden, but we never spent more than one day gathering up the corn, which we piled in a heap in the middle of the field.

The next day after the corn was plucked, we gave a husking feast. We took out into the field a great deal of dried meat that my mothers had already cooked in the lodge; or we took the dried meat into the field and boiled it in a kettle near the corn pile. We also boiled corn on a fire near by. The meat and corn were for the feast.

Instead of dried meat, a family sometimes took out a side of fresh buffalo meat and roasted it over a fire, near the corn pile.

Having then arrived at the field, and started a fire for the feast, all of our family who had come out to work sat down and began to husk. Word had been sent beforehand that we were going to give a husking feast, and the invited helpers soon appeared. There was no particular time set for their coming, but we expected them in one of the morning hours.[12]

For the most part these were young men from nineteen to thirty years of age, but a few old men would probably be in the company; and these were welcomed and given a share of the feast.

There might be twenty-five or thirty of the young men. They were paid for their labor with the meat given them to eat; and each carried a sharp stick on which he skewered the meat he could not eat, to take home.[13]

The husking season was looked upon as a time of jollity; and youths and maidens dressed and decked themselves for the occasion.

Of course each young man gave particular help to the garden of his sweetheart. Some girls were more popular than others. The young men were apt to vie with one another at the husking pile of an attractive girl.

Some of the young men rode ponies, and when her corn pile had been husked, a youth would sometimes lend his pony to his sweetheart for her to carry home her corn. She loaded the pony with loose ears in bags, bound on either side of the saddle, or with strings of braided corn laid upon the pony’s back.

The husking season, like the green corn season, lasted about ten days. The young men helped faithfully each day, and when they had husked all the corn in one field, they moved to another. Thus all the corn piles were speedily husked.

The husking was always done in the field. We never carried the corn to the village to be husked, as the husks would then have dried, and hurt the hands of the husker. As we plucked the ears, we piled them in a heap in the field, to keep the husks moist and soft.[14]

Rejecting Green Ears

As the huskers worked they were careful not to add any green ears to the husked pile. A green ear would turn black and spoil, and be fit for nothing.

Every husker knew this; and if a young man was helping another family husk, he laid in a little pile beside him, any green ears that he found. These green ears belonged to him, to eat or to feed to his pony.

Last year a white man hired me to gather the corn in his field and husk it; and I kept all the green ears for myself, for that is my custom. I do not know whether that white man liked it or not. It may be he thought I was stealing that green corn; but I was following the custom that I learned of my tribe.

I am an Indian; if a white man hires me to do work for him, he must expect that I will follow Indian custom.

Braiding Corn

Most of the corn as it was husked was tossed into a pile, to be borne later to the village. This was true of all the smaller and less favored ears: the best of the larger ears were braided into strings.

As we husked, if a long ear of good size and appearance was found, it was laid aside for braiding. For this purpose the husk was bent back upon the stub of the stalk on the big end of the ear, leaving the three thin leaves that cling next to the kernels still lying on the ear in their natural position. The part of the husk that was bent back was cut off with a knife; the three thin leaves that remained were now bent back on the ear, and the ear was laid aside. Another ear was treated in the same way and laid beside the first, also with its thin leaves bent back. And thus, until a row of ears lay extended side by side upon the ground, all the ears lying point forward.

Another row was started; and the ears, also lying point forward and leaned against the first row, were laid so as to cover the thin bent-back leaves of the first row, to protect them from the sun. As the braiding was done with these thin leaves, if they were too dry—as the sun was very apt to make them—they would break.

When a quantity of these ears, all with thin husk leaves bent back, had accumulated, one of the huskers passed them to someone of the young men, who braided them; or one of the women of the family owning the field might braid them.

Even with care the thin leaves were sometimes too dry for the braider to handle safely; and he would fill his mouth with water and blow it over the leaves.

Fifty-four or fifty-five ears were commonly braided to a string; but the number varied more or less. In my father’s family, we often braided strings of fifty-six or fifty-seven ears.

I do not know why this number was chosen; but I think this number of ears was about of a weight that a woman could well carry and put upon the drying stage.

When the string was all braided, the braider took either end in his hand, and placing his right foot against the middle of the string, gave the ends a smart pull. This stretched and tightened the string, and made it look neater and more finished; it also tried if there might be any weak places in it.

We braided all varieties of corn but two, atạ´ki tso´ki, or hard white, and tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow. These varieties we reckoned too hard to parch, and for this reason they were not braided. We did, however, sometimes parch hard yellow to be pounded up into meal for corn balls.

The strings of braided corn were borne to the village on the backs of ponies. Some families laid ten strings on a pony; but in my father’s family we never laid on so many, believing it made too heavy a load for the poor beast.

The braided strings were hung to dry on the drying stage upon the railing that lay in the upper forks; and if there was need, poles or drying rods were laid across the rails and strings were hung over these also.[15]

These drying rods were laid across only where the forks supported the rails (at the same places the staying thongs were tied), for at these places the stage could better bear the weight of the heavy strings of corn; the drying rods were bound at either end to the railing, to stay them.

The Smaller Ears

Meanwhile the smaller and less favored ears were being carried home in baskets. It took the members of my father’s family a whole day, and the next day following until late in the afternoon, to get this work done.

Each carrier, as she brought in a basket of corn, ascended the log ladder of the stage and emptied the corn on the stage floor. Here the corn lay in a long heap, in the middle of the floor; for a free path was always left around the edge for us women; having this path for our use, we did not have to tread on the corn as we moved about. Also, if a pony came in with a load of braided corn, the heavy strings could be handed up to us women on the stage as we moved around in this free path.

As I now remember, our family’s husked corn when piled on the stage floor, made a heap about eight yards long and four yards wide, and about four feet high in the middle, from which point the pile sloped down on all sides. This was the loose corn, the smaller ears; and besides these there were about one hundred strings of braided corn hung on the railing above the heap. I give these measurements, judging as nearly as I can from the size of our drying stage, and from our average yearly corn yield, when I was a young woman. I think the figures are approximately accurate.

For about eight days the corn lay thus in a long heap upon the stage. At the end of that time the ears on the top of the heap had become dry and smooth and threatened to roll down the sides of the pile. We now took drying rods and laid them along the floor against the posts, two or three of them, for the whole length of the stage on either side, and on the ends of the stage. Planks split from cottonwood trunks were leaned against these drying rods, on the side next the corn. The corn heap was now spread evenly over the floor of the drying stage for the depth of about a foot; the split planks prevented the dry smooth ears from sliding off the stage. The dry ears had a tendency to roll or slide down the sides of the corn pile, as fresh ears did not.

This spreading out the corn heap evenly had also the effect of stirring up the underlying ears and exposing them to the air.

If rain fell while the corn was thus drying on the stage, it gave us no concern. The corn soon dried again, and no harm was done it.

The corn, spread thus in an even heap, took about three more days to dry, or eleven days in all. Then we began threshing.

Drying the Braided Ears

The strings of braided corn hanging on the rails at the top of the posts of the drying stage, dried much more quickly than the loose ears heaped on the stage floor. The wind, rattling the dry ears of the strings together, was apt to shell out the drying kernels; it was therefore usual for us before threshing time to tie these braids together so that the wind could not rattle them.

To do this I would ascend the ladder and make my way along the edge of the stage floor, making places in the corn with my feet as I walked, so that my feet would be on the stage floor and not tread on the drying corn. I would push ten of the braided strings together on the rail or the drying rod on which they hung, and tie them by passing around them a raw hide thong.

These braided strings, bound thus in bundles of ten, hung on the stage until we were ready to store them in the cache pit; and this we could not do until we had our main harvest, the loose ears, threshed and ready to store also.

Seed Corn

Selecting the Seed

I have said that for braiding corn we chose the longest and finest ears. In my father’s family we used to braid about one hundred strings, some years less, some years more, as the season had been wet or dry; for the yield of fine ears was always less in a dry year. Of these braided strings we selected the very best in the spring for seed.

My mothers reckoned that we should need five braided strings of soft white, and about thirty ears of soft yellow, for seed. Of ma´ikadicakĕ, or gummy, we raised a little each year, not much; ten ears of this, for seed, my mothers thought were a plenty.

Hard white and hard yellow corn, I have said, were not braided, because not used for parching. For seed of these varieties, some good ears were taken from the drying pile on the corn stage and stored in the cache pit for the next year with loose grain of the same variety. The ears were not put in a sack, but thrown in with the loose grain.

When I selected seed corn, I chose only good, full, plump ears; and I looked carefully to see if the kernels on any of the ears had black hearts. When that part of a kernel of corn which joins the cob is black or dark colored, we say it has a black heart. This imperfection is caused by plucking the ear when too green. A kernel with a black heart will not grow.

An ear of corn has always small grains toward the point of the cob, and large grains toward the butt of the ear. When I came to plant corn, I used only the kernels in the center of the cob for seed, rejecting both the small and the large grains of the two ends.

Seed corn was shelled from the cob with the thumb; we never threshed it with sticks. Sometimes we shelled an ear by rubbing it against another ear.

Keeping Two Years’ Seed

Corn kept for seed would be best to plant the next spring; and it would be fertile, and good to plant, the second spring after harvesting. The third year the seed was not so good; and it did not come up very well. The fourth year the seed would be dead and useless.

Knowing that seed corn kept good for at least two years, it was my family’s custom to gather enough seed for at least two years, in seasons in which our crops were good. Some years, in spite of careful hoeing, our crops were poor; the ears were small, there was not much grain on them, and what grain they bore was of poor quality. We did not like to save seed out of such a crop. Also, frost occasionally destroyed our crop, or most of it.

When, therefore, we had a year of good crops, we put away seed enough to last for two years; then, if the next year yielded a poor crop, we still had good seed to plant the third season.

In my father’s family we always observed this custom of putting away seed for two years; and we did this not only of our corn, but of our squash seeds, beans, sunflower seeds, and even of our tobacco seeds; for if I remember rightly, the tobacco fields were sometimes injured by frost just as were our corn fields.

Not all families in our village were equally wise. Some were quite improvident, and were not at all careful to save seed from their crops. Such families, in the spring, had to buy their seed from families that were more provident.

Saving a good store of seed was therefore profitable in a way. In my father’s family we often sold a good deal of seed in the spring to families that wanted. The price was one tanned buffalo skin for one string of braided seed corn.

Even to-day, families on this reservation come to me to buy seed corn and seed beans. A handful of beans, enough for one planting, I sell for one calico—enough calico, that is, to make an Indian woman a dress, or about ten yards.

Threshing Corn

The Booth

The threshing season was always a busy one, for all the families of the village would be threshing their corn at the same time.

Corn was threshed in a booth, under the drying stage.

To make the booth, I began with the section at one end of the stage. As is shown in figure 12, on the posts A and D, and B and C, were bound two poles, e and f, at about two feet below the stage floor; upon these were bound two other poles, g and h; the poles e, f, and h were bound outside of the posts that supported them.

A long raw hide thong was used for the corner ties. The first pole was raised in position and bound firmly to the post; and if a second pole was to be laid over the first—as was done at two of the corners—the thong was drawn up and made to bind it also to the post. We always kept a number of these raw hide thongs in the lodge against just such uses as this; they were strong, and served every purpose of ropes; we oiled them to keep them soft.

A tent cover was now fetched out of the lodge. Tents were of different sizes, from those of seven, to those of sixteen buffalo cow hides. A woman used whatever sized tent cover she owned; but a cover of thirteen skins was of convenient size.

Around the curved bottom of the tent cover was a row of holes, through which wooden pins were driven to peg the tent to the ground. The tent cover was bound to the four over-hanging poles, inside of the four posts, by means of a long thong woven in and out through the holes, as shown in figure 13.

Bound thus to the poles, and quite enclosing the space within them, the tent cover made a kind of booth. The upper parts of the cover, including the smoke flaps, that now hung sweeping the ground, were drawn in and spread flat on the ground to make a floor for the booth; and stones laid upon them weighted the cover against the wing.

In figure 12 the four posts, A, B, C, and D, enclose one section of the drying stage; the booth did not enclose the whole ground space of this section, but about three fifths of it.

Figure 14, I think, will explain the arrangement of the booth. The end corners, X and Y, were bound to opposite posts, M and N, respectively, the lapping edges, at O, forming a door through which the threshers entered the booth; P and P´ were bound to posts at p and p´; the final corner, M, was left untied until the threshers had entered and were ready to begin their task. (Compare with figure 12, in which, however, the posts are differently lettered.)

Before they did this they went above and removed the planks and drying rods laid around the edge of the stage floor, and pushed the corn back toward the middle of the floor into a long heap again, that it might not fall over the edge, now that the planks were taken away. One of the floor planks was now removed, at R. Through the aperture thus made, corn was pushed down to left and right of R; this was continued until there was a pile of corn just under the aperture, and running the width of the booth, about eighteen or twenty inches high.

The threshers now entered the booth and tied the corner at M, closing the door. In my father’s family there were usually three threshers, women; and they sat in a row on the floor of the booth, facing the pile of corn. Each woman had a stick for a flail, with which she beat the corn.

Flails were of ash or cottonwood. An ash flail would be about three and a half feet long and from three quarters of an inch to an inch in diameter, and was cut green. A cottonwood flail was seldom used green; and as it was therefore lighter than the green ash, a cottonwood flail was a little greater in diameter, but of the same length. We were careful that a flail should not be too heavy, lest it break the kernels in the threshing. Kinikinik sticks were sometimes used for flails.

A diagram (figure 15) has been drawn to illustrate how I worked in a threshing booth when I was a young woman. As shown, I sat on the extreme left; one of my mothers and my sister sat as indicated, on my right. More than three seldom worked in a threshing booth at the same time, at least in our family; however, I have known my sister, Not-frost, to make a fourth. I have even known five to be threshing in the booth of some other family in the village, but never more than five.

To thresh the corn, I raised my flail and brought it down smartly, but not severely, upon the pile of corn. The grain as it was thus beaten off the dry cobs would fall by its own weight into the pile, and work its way to the bottom; while the lighter cobs would come to the top of the pile.

Beating the ears with the flails caused many of the kernels to leap and fly about; but the tent cover, enclosing the booth, caught all these flying kernels. It was, indeed, for this that the booth was built.

As the cobs, beaten empty of grain, accumulated on the pile, we drew them off and cast them out of the door of the booth upon a tent cover, spread to receive them, under the middle section of the stage. Many of these cobs had a few small grains clinging to them; and these must be saved, for we wasted nothing.

Having paused then to throw out the cobs, we returned to the pile and thrust our flails in under it, drawing them upward through the corn, thus working the unthreshed ears to the top. As much as we could, we tried to keep the unthreshed ears in the middle of the pile, and the threshed grain pushed to right and left, as will be seen by studying the diagram. To thresh one pile, or filling of corn in a booth, took a half day’s work.

Order of the Day’s Work

Our habit was to begin quite early in the morning, enclose the booth with the tent cover, and set to work threshing; finishing the first filling, or pile, about midday. In the afternoon we began a second pile, first heaping the already threshed grain to right and left, and behind the threshers.

I have said that on the ground under the second section of the stage, a second tent cover was spread to catch the cobs. A part of this tent cover was drawn in under the edge of the booth to help carpet the floor of the booth.

At the end of the day we turned our attention to the pile of cobs; and with our thumbs we shelled off every grain that clung to the cobs. From the cobs of a day’s threshing we collected about as many grains of corn as would fill a white man’s hat. This was taken into the booth and thrown on the pile of threshed grain.

We now disposed of the grain for the night. If we had gotten through threshing rather early in the day, we bore the newly threshed grain in baskets into the lodge, and emptied it into a bull boat.

If we had gotten through our threshing rather late in the day, we made the door of the booth tight, and left the grain on the booth floor throughout the night.

The Cobs

The day’s threshing over, we attended to the cobs. I have said that we shelled off any kernels that clung to them after threshing, so that they were now quite clean of grain.

All day long, as we threshed, we had watched that no horses got at the cobs to trample and nibble them, or that any dog ran over them, or any children played in them. Then, in the evening, if the weather was fine, and there was little wind, one of my mothers or I carried the cobs outside of the village to a grassy place and heaped them in a pile about five feet high. A pile of cobs of such a height I usually gathered from a day’s threshing.

In our prairie country, on a fair day, the wind usually dies down about sunset; and now, when the air was still, I fired the cob pile. As the pile began to burn, I could usually see the burning cob piles of two or three other families lighting up the gathering dusk.

I had to stay and watch the fire, to keep any mischievous boys from coming to play in the burning heap. Children of from ten to fifteen years of age were quite a pest at cob-firing time. They had a kind of game they were fond of playing. Each would cut a long, flexible, green stick, and at the edge of the Missouri he would get a ball of wet mud and stick it on his stick. He would try to approach one of the burning piles, and with his stick, slap the mud ball smartly into the burning coals, some of which, still glowing, would stick in the wet mud. Using the stick as a sling, the child would throw the mud ball into the air, aiming often at another child. Other children would be throwing mud balls at one another at the same time, and these, with the bits of glowing charcoal clinging to them, would go sailing through the air like shooting stars. Knowing very well that the children would get into my burning cobs if I even turned my back, I was careful to stay by to watch.

At last the fire had burned down and the coals were dead; and nothing was left but a pile of ashes. It was now night, and I would go home. Early the next morning, before the prairie winds had arisen, I would go out again to my ash heap. On the top of the ashes, if nothing had disturbed them in the night and an unexpected wind had not blown them about, I would find a thin crust had formed. This crust I carefully broke and gathered up with my fingers, squeezing the pieces in my hand into little lumps, or balls. Sometimes I was able to gather four or five of these little balls from one pile of ashes; but never more than five.

These balls I carried home. There were always several baskets hanging in the lodge, ready for any use we might want of them; and it was our habit to keep some dried buffalo heart skins, or some dried buffalo paunch skins, in the lodge, for wrappers, much as white families keep wrapping paper in the house. The ash balls I wrapped up in one of these skins, into a package, being careful not to break the balls. I put the package in one of the baskets, to hang up until there was occasion for its use.

These ash balls were used for seasoning. I have explained elsewhere how we used spring salt to season our boiled corn; and that every day in the lodge, we ate mä´dạkạpa, or pounded dried ripe corn boiled with beans. But in the fall, instead of seasoning this dish with spring salt, or alkali salt as you call it, we preferred to use this seasoning of ash crust.

In my father’s family, for each meal of mä´dạkạpa we filled the corn mortar three times, two-and-a-half double handfuls of corn making one filling of the mortar. Each time we filled the mortar, we dropped in with the corn a little of the ash crust, a bit about as big as a white child’s marble. Finally, a piece about as big, or perhaps a little larger, was also dropped into the boiling pot.

We Indians were fond of this seasoning; and we liked it much better than we did our spring salt. We did not use spring salt, indeed, if we had ash balls in the lodge.

We called these ash balls mä´dạkạpa isĕ´pĕ, or mä´dạkạpa darkener.

We did not make ash balls if the dogs or horses had trampled on the cobs; or if children had mussed in the fire; nor would we make ash balls if the day had not been rather calm, for a high wind was sure to blow dust into the cobs.

We burned cobs and collected ash balls after every threshing day, unless hindered by storm or high wind. But even if the harvest was a good one, the ash balls that we got from the burned cobs for seasoning never lasted long. We were so fond of seasoning our food with them that every family had used up its store before the autumn had passed.

Winnowing

I have said that after the day’s threshing we stored the newly threshed grain for the night, either in the booth or in a bull boat in the earth lodge; and that we then fired the cobs that had accumulated during the day.

The next morning we spread an old tent cover outside the lodge, near the drying stage; and we fetched the loose grain of the previous day’s threshing out of the booth, or the earth lodge and spread it evenly and thinly upon the tent cover. The grain was here left to dry until evening.

A little before sunset, and before the prairie wind had died down, we fetched baskets and winnowed the grain. The basket was half filled with grain, held aloft, and the grain poured gently out in the wind. Wooden bowls were often used for winnowing, instead of baskets; but they did not hold as much grain.

The winnowing over, I would take up a few grains of the corn to test with my teeth. If, when I bit a kernel in two, it broke with a sharp, snappy sound, I knew it was quite dried; if it broke dull and soft, I knew the grain needed another day’s drying; but at the most, this second day’s drying was enough.

The winnowed grain, now well dried, was borne into the earth lodge and stored temporarily in bull boats. In the diagram (figure 16), is shown where the bull boats full of grain used to stand in my father’s lodge. Some years our harvest filled three bull boats of threshed grain; some years it filled five. In the year illustrated by this diagram, there were three bull boats standing between the planks at the left of the door, and the fire; and two bull boats on the other side of the fire, all full of grain.

The threshed grain, I have said, received its final drying and winnowing upon a tent cover (or covers) spread on the ground near the earth lodge. It was my own habit always to spread these tent covers beside the drying stage on the side farthest away from the lodge. However, the particular spot where the winnowing was done, was determined by the convenience of the household.

We did not usually thresh consecutive days. We threshed one day; dried the grain and winnowed it the second; and threshed again the third day.

Removing the Booth

During these days the booth did not remain always in one place. When the corn on the floor of the first section had all been threshed, the booth was removed to another section. I will now explain how this was done.

In figure 17 my son has diagramed the floor plan of my mothers’ stage and threshing booth, as I remember them.

The stage stands in front of Small Ankle’s lodge, which faces toward the west. The stage is divided into three sections, A, B, C. The posts upon which the floor of the stage rests are d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k.

The booth was first raised under section A, based upon fg and enclosing ground space lmfg.

Sometimes we got up early, bound the poles to the posts and erected our booth before breakfast; then after we had eaten, three or four of us would go out to thresh, one first going up to push down the corn. She raised a plank along the side, fg, just within the booth; this, if the door of the booth was on the side lm. The corn on the floor of the stage in section A was then shoved down as wanted.

The corn pushed down for one threshing, made a pile running the width of the booth, and about forty inches wide and twenty inches high. When the pile was threshed one of the women went up and shoved down another pile. The corn in one section was threshed in about three such piles.

Sometimes, if we worked hard and had plenty of help, we threshed one whole section in one day; but the beating, beating, beating of the corn was hard work, and we more often stopped when wearied and rested until the next day. I have already said that we often spent the next day at the lighter work of drying and winnowing.

When the corn in section A was all threshed, the booth was moved over under the floor of section B, enclosing fgno; and again a plank was taken up to let down the corn. Now this plank was always taken up above the side of the booth opposite the door; and the door was always placed down wind. Thus, if the wind was from the north, the door would be placed on the south side of the booth, and the plank was taken up on the north side, just within the booth. Corn was always threshed in the booth on the side opposite the door.

Sections A and B of my mothers’ stage, as shown in diagram (figure 17) contained only yellow corn. Section C, or a part of it, contained white corn. Braided strings of corn were also hung all around the railing above, but these were not to be threshed.

Section B having been threshed, the booth was removed to section C, enclosing hiqp. I have said that this section had white corn. Now this white corn was piled toward the south end of the stage; and between it and the yellow corn was left a narrow vacant place on the floor. Above this vacant place, meat was often dried; but this meat was removed when we were ready to thresh.

Placing the booth to enclose hiqp, directly under the vacant place, made it easy for us to raise a plank here to push down the white corn. If we had placed the booth on the south end of this section, we should have had to dig into the corn piled here, in order to raise a plank.

Our family’s threshing lasted about five days in a year of good yield; if the year was a poor one, threshing lasted only two or three days.

Threshing Braided Corn

The strings of braided corn were stored in the cache pit (which I will describe later) in the whole ear. If, during the winter, or the following spring, I wanted to thresh a string of braided corn, I put the whole string into a skin sack; and this sack I beat and shook, turning it over and around until all the grain had fallen off the cobs. The sack was then emptied.

Amount of Harvest

Our harvested corn, in a good year, lasted my father’s family until the next harvest, with a small quantity even then unused. Some years we ran out of corn before the harvest came, but not often. We ate our corn as long as it lasted, not husbanding it toward the last, because we knew there were elk and buffalo and antelope to be had for the hunting. If we ran out of corn at all, it was about the first of August; sometimes a little earlier. Sometimes when we had eaten all our last year’s harvest there was a small quantity from the previous season’s harvest with which we eked out our shortage.

My mothers, however, were industrious women, and our shortage, if any, was never for long. Some families, not very provident, had consumed all their harvest as early as in the spring; but such never happened in my father’s family.

Sioux Purchasing Corn

The Standing Rock Sioux used to buy corn of us, coming up in midsummer, or autumn. They came not because they were in need of food, but because they liked to eat our corn, and had always meat and skins to trade to us. For one string of braided corn they gave us one tanned buffalo robe.

Varieties of Corn

Description of Varieties

We raised nine well marked varieties of corn in our village. Following are the names of the varieties:

Our Hidatsa word for corn is ko´xati; but in speaking of any variety of corn, the work ko´xati is commonly omitted. In like manner, atạ´ki means white; but if one went into a lodge and asked for “atạ´ki” it was always understood to mean soft white corn.

Of the nine varieties, the atạ´ki, or soft white, was the kind most raised in our village. The ma´ïkadicakĕ, or gummy, was least raised, as almost its only use was in making corn balls.

In my father’s family, we raised two kinds of corn, tsï´di tso´ki, or hard yellow; and atạ´ki, or soft white.

The names of the varieties suggest pretty well their characteristics. The atạ´ki aku´ hi´tsiica, or white-with-light-red, was marked by a light red or pink color toward the top or beard end of the ear. The name pink-top which you suggest for this variety will, I think, do for an English name, if the literal translation of the Indian term is, as you say, rather clumsy.

We planted each variety of corn separately. We Indians understood perfectly the need of keeping the strains pure, for the different varieties had not all the same uses with us.

How Corn Travels

We Indians knew that corn can travel, as we say; thus, if the seed planted in one field is of white corn, and that in an adjoining field is of some variety of yellow corn, the white will travel to the yellow corn field, and the yellow to the white corn field.

Perhaps you do not understand what I mean by corn traveling. Well, let us suppose that there are two fields lying side by side, the one in yellow, the other in white corn. When the corn of the two fields is ripe, and the ears are opened, it will be found that many of the ears in the yellow rows that stand nearest the white field will have white kernels standing in the cob; also, in the rows of white corn that stand nearest the yellow field, there will be many ears with yellow kernels mixed in with the white kernels.

We Indians did not know what power it was that causes this. We only knew that it was so. We also knew that when a field stands alone, away from other fields, and is planted with white corn, it will grow up in white corn only; there will not be any yellow grains in the ears. And so of any other variety.