Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story

Born in the 1830s, Buffalo Bird Girl was a member of the Hidatsa people – 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, listening, and then doing. She helped plant crops in the spring, tended the fields throughout the summer – scaring off birds and other animals as well as hungry young boys! – and in autumn joined in the harvest. She also learned to prepare animals skins, dry meat, and perform other household duties. Along with her chores, however, there was time for playing games with friends or training her dog. Her family also visited the nearby trading post, where all sorts of magnificent things from the white man's settlement in the East could be seen. Interweaving the actual words and stories of Buffalo Bird Woman with his artwork and archival photographs, award-winning author and artist S. D. Nelson has woven a poignant yet vib