ABSTRACT
The land is the common denominator in the stories collected for this anthology. It is appropriate, therefore, to begin with the narration of Buffalobird-woman, who describes the Hidatsa way of planting a garden. Buffalobird-woman (Maxi'-diwac) was the daughter of Small Ankle, one of the leaders of the Hidatsa Indians. She was born about 1839 at Knife River on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Her son, Edward Goodbird, served an an interpreter for Gilbert L. Wilson, who recorded Buffalobird-woman's account of gardening. Wilson says in his introduction to Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians that he “claims no credit beyond arranging the material and putting the interpreter's Indian-English translations into proper idiom.” While Buffalobird-woman's narration focuses on agricultural techniques, it also provides glimpses of family and community relations, tribal values, and women's roles. The first excerpt below describes the process of breaking up land for new gardens. The second excerpt contrasts traditional Indian methods of farming in the 1840s with new methods introduced by the government in the 1870s.
