A young Native American girl recounts her experiences growing up in North Dakota in the years following the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1839.

A young Native American girl recounts her experiences growing up in North Dakota in the years following the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1839.

This that I now tell is as I saw my mothers do, or did myself, when I was young. My mothers were industrious women, and our family had always good crops; and I will tell now how the women of my father's family cared for their fields, as I saw them, and helped them. --Buffalo Bird Woman

Buffalo Bird Girl (ca. 1839-1932) was a member of the Hidatsa, a Native American community that lived in permanent villages along the Missouri River on the Great Plains. Like other girls her age, Buffalo Bird Girl learned the ways of her people through watching and listening, and then by doing. She helped plant crops in the spring, tended the fields through the summer, and in autumn joined in the harvest. She learned to prepare animal skins, dry meat, and perform other duties. There was also time for playing games with friends and training her dog. When her family visited the nearby trading post, there were all sorts of fascinating things to see from the white man’s settlements in the East. Award-winning author and artist S. D. Nelson (Standing Rock Sioux) captures the spirit of Buffalo Bird Girl by interweaving the actual words and stories of Buffalo Bird Woman with his artwork and archival photographs. Backmatter includes a history of the Hidatsa and a timeline.

Presents a biographical dictionary profiling important Native American women, including birth and death dates, major accomplishments, and historical influence.

Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians is the account of anthropologist Gilbert Wilson on the Hidatsa Indian's agricultural practices. Wilson formed a close friendship with Buffalo Bird Woman and her son and compiled all this information from their routine practices to provide this research.