(This is an excerpt from the book, ‘Locusts on the Horizon‘)

An excellent book on traditional Native American farming techniques, which we have also mentioned in other chapters of this book, is “Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden”.

Buffalo Bird Woman

This is a memoir, a priceless gem, originally written in 1917 to document a firsthand account of the old style, traditional Native American farming methods by Buffalo Bird Woman of the Hidatsa tribe in North Dakota.

Buffalo Bird Woman lived a traditional existence most of her life, and her family didn’t even have a metal cooking pot until she was 19 years old. This book not only covers traditional gardening methods, but their traditional methods of food preservation, storage, and preparation.

Originally documented a century ago as a means to record the past, “Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden” is a survival manual for the future. The gardening methods of the Hidatsa, and the similar methods of many other Native American tribes, helped keep the people of this continent alive since at least the end of the last Ice Age.

‘Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden’ is free on the Internet, downloadable in several formats:

http://archive.org/details/agriculturehidatsa00waherich

Her book is also online as a webpage:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html

© Plan B Writer’s Alliance – Permission to copy and reprint this article is given so long as reference to the original author and the website http://www.locustsonthehorizon.com are mentioned.