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Buffalo Bird Woman,(c.1839-1932) or as known as Waheenee, or Maxidiwiac in her native Hidatsa language was born in 1839 in an earthlodge village along the Knife River where present day North Dakota is located today. She had traditional Hidatsa upbringing in terms of culture, but throughout her life, Buffalo Bird Woman experienced a world rapidly changing in front of her eyes with Western influence in terms of culture and lifestyle.

Early Life:
Waheenee had a father who went by the name of Small Ankle and a mother who went by Weahtee. Following a clan system on her mothers side, Waheenee belonged to the Prairie Chicken Clan, which consisted of her mother and her three sisters (Strikes Many Woman, Red Blossom, and Stalk of Corn). When Waheenee’s mother died in 1845 from smallpox, the 3 sisters took her in as their daughter, following a system of having no orphans or women without a child.

When Waheenee was around six years old, her village moved to a place called Like-a Fishhook Village, which was later known as the Fort Berthold Reservation due to an influx in smallpox cases in along the Knife river and the threat of violence from their enemy, the Sioux. During the move, Waheenee’s family would use tipis as shelter along the way and her grandmother would carry a pouch full of seeds with her. Upon arrival of the new location, the first thing her grandmother did was use the seeds to make a garden even before building the new shelter. Her grandmother always made sure that the platform for her garden was made in a tree or by a tree. The concept of singing to a child to comfort and provide strength was used on the garden. These songs sung were known as “watch garden” songs.

Buffalo Bird Woman has a son named Goodbird, who grew up with traditional influences in his upbringing, but in terms of education he was very well educated, attending school in a frame house and raised cattle. Compared to his mother, Goodbird was much more progressive, embracing religion as a Christian convert. The differences between the upbringing of Buffalo Bird Woman and her son and her memories of her past as a girl and the agriculture techniques of her garden channel the disappointment in the change in her culture through the years but also stigmatize the Indians as those who are not able to let go of their traditional values in an advancing society.

Hidatsa Agriculture:
The background of Buffalo Bird Woman’s garden originated from the generations past, as the Hidatsa Indians once lived along the Missouri River. They had built gardens beside their earth lodges and planted wild beans and potatoes in these small gardens. Their knowledge of vegetables was limited at that point, but one day a group of the Hidatsa noticed a different tribe across the Missouri. These were people of the Mandan Tribe. Since both tribes were too scared to make the trek across the river to approach each other for fear of being enemies, the Mandan shot an arrow with an ear of corn over the river and the Hidatsa brought the sample back to their people. With no interest in the newfound vegetables, it wasn’t until a couple years later that a war party of Hidatsa’s crossed the river and met the Mandan’s, where their chief broke an ear of corn in half and gave it to the Hidatsa’s to use as a seed, which resulted in the Hidatsa’s beginning to grow yellow corn. Although there is no story telling proof, the Mandan’s might have also supplied the Hidatsa’s with different varieties of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers.

This friendship between the Hidatsa’s and the Mandan’s spanned across hundreds of years, and the two tribes lived near each other along the Knife river until a smallpox outbreak killed more than half of the people in both tribes. Those who survived moved up the Missouri and lived together as one tribe in what is now known as Fort Berthold.

Buffalo Woman’s Garden
Since Buffalo Bird Woman grew up right after the smallpox outbreak, the traditional agriculture techniques of the Hidatsa’s that she practiced in the gardens were from her childhood, since she grew up learning the essential skills to give that gave Hidatsa women a form of status in their culture before Western influence and the use of plows by the tribe. For its time, the cultivating techniques of vegetables in the garden as described by Buffalo Bird Woman were very intuitive and sophisticated in terms of reliable growth. The vegetables primarily grown were sunflower seeds, corn, squash, and beans, building of stages and proper storage of vegetables for the winter season, yet Buffalo Bird Woman provides extensive knowledge on the proper techniques of planting, growing, harvesting of each vegetable.