Note 13 — Chapter IV · CORN
Reading edition
Water Chief having strolled into the cabin while Buffalobird-woman was dictating, here interrupted with the following:
“The owner of a field would come and notify the crier of some society, as the Fox or Dog society, or some other. The crier would go on the roof of the society’s lodge and call, ‘All you of the Fox society come hither; they want you to husk. When you all get here, we will go to that one’s garden and husk the corn!’
“We young men of the society all gathered together and marched to the field to which we were bidden. In old times we took our guns with us, for the Sioux might come up to attack us. As we approached the field we began to sing, that the girls might hear us. We knew that our sweethearts would take notice of our singing. The girls themselves did not sing.
“At the corn pile in each garden would be the woman owner and maybe two or three girls. On our way to some field, if we passed through other fields with corn piles at which were girls, each young man looked to see if his sweetheart was there; and if he saw her he would yell, expecting that she would recognise his voice.
“Sometimes two societies husked at one corn pile. Any of the societies might be asked. If the pile was too big for one society, another society was asked, if the owner could afford the food for the feast.
“Different societies would be husking in different gardens all at the same time.
“Sometimes a group of young men belonging to different societies were asked to come and husk. This was chiefly at small gardens; the societies were usually asked to come and husk the big corn piles of the larger gardens.
“If a society went early, they got through just after midday. By early I mean nine o’clock in the morning.
“When we had finished husking one pile, we went to another. We worked late, by moonlight, even.
“Some man of the family and his wife would be out all night and watch by the corn if they had not gotten all the husked ears borne in to the village. Also while the pile awaited husking watchers stayed by to protect against horses.”