Originally published in 1917, reissued in 1987, now released again with a new introduction by Jeffrey R. Hansen, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden presents an agricultural calendar year's activities as remembered by Buffalo Bird Woman, an accomplished Hidatsa gardener born around 1839. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden was a doctoral dissertation by a man who believed "It is of no importance that an Indian's war costume struck the Puritan as the Devil's scheme to frighten the heart out of the Lord's annointed. What we want to know is why the Indian donned the costume, and his reasons for doing it (p.xix)." Wilson also went on to write Goodbird the Indian His Story and Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story (biography of Buffalo Bird Woman, 1839-1921). Using biography to study a culture was effective because it highlighted the variety of traumatic cultural shifts, changes, and transmutations painfully experienced by Buffalo Bird Woman and her family. The use of empathy informs the dated, 'superior' dominant culture outlook. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden has been called a classic anthropological document. It certainly is that and more. As a model of respectful viewing and learning, as a mirror of the complex lifeway of ;the agricultural Plains Indians, as a chronicle of human adaptation, survival and ingenuity in the face of cultural disenfranchisement, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden sets the bar for the standard. In addition, it gives eloquent testimony to one of the enduring gifts of the Hidatsa - their varieties of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers. Even more enduring, perhaps, is the contribution highlighted by Jeffrey Hanson: "buffalo Bird Woman's Garden is not the end, but the beginning. It is a foundation, a viewpoint, and it presents a cultural relationship with nature that we can all appreciate and from which we can all derive benefit. (p.xxiii). Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden describes planting, preparation, cultivating, harvesting and storing practices, as well as traditional songs and prayers sung to honor and encourage the garden's yield. Beautifully detailed drawings by her son Edward Goodbird illustrate Buffalo Bird Woman's descriptions of gardening and storing produce and other activities. It is easy to see that modern ethnologists and authors such as W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear drew fairly heavily from the information presented in Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. This is an enduring testament to a lifeway revalued today perhaps more as it should be.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This is a Minnesota Historical Society reprint of the anthropological study done by Gilbert Wilson in 1917, originally published as "Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation." Wilson was among the first of a new school of American anthropologists that felt Indian cultures should speak for themselves, and not be spoken for by "white man's" interpretations. Consequently, the book really is, as the subtitle says, "an Indian interpretation." Most of the text is translated directly from Buffalo Bird Woman's own words, complete with stories, jokes, and personal anecdotes about village life. By the time you are done reading it, you will feel as if you met her personally.

I bought it because I am a Minnesota gardener, so I wanted to see what tips I might pick up from the ways of the indigenous people. The book is rich with useful gardening lore, including diagrams of various tools and structures, along with detailed descriptions of the different kinds of beans, corn, and squash that the Indians grew. Plus, there are native recipes you can try.

I was surprised to learn that, when the Indians dried squash, they didn't use mature fruits with hard skins like we do today, but preferred to cut them when they were 4 days old -- at about 3 1/2 inches diameter. They were more tender that way, easier to slice, and they dried better. The best squashes were marked in the field and allowed to mature for seed.

I also found it interesting that the Indians kept the different colors of corn separate, not like the multi-colored "Indian corn" we buy today for fall decorations. Although Buffalo Bird Woman did not understand the science behind genetics, she and her fellow Hidatsa gardeners did notice that corn varieties will "travel" (her word) from one patch to another if different colors are planted too closely together. So, women with adjoining fields would agree to plant the same varieties side-by-side, to help prevent this "traveling."

The Hidatsa women also understood the principles of good seed-saving techniques, and carefully chose seed from the very best squashes and corn ears in the crop, thereby improving their strains from year to year. Composting, however, was apparently unknown. Leaves and brush were burned, not composted, and they regarded manure as a dirty substance to be removed from the garden. But the Hidatsa did know the value of fallowing, and would allow a less-productive field rest a minimum of two years to renew itself.

Some of the techniques in this book are still quite useful today. I have begun pre-spouting my squash seeds, and planting them in the SIDES of the hills instead of on top, to help prevent the heavy rains from damaging the seedlings. Some of the fencing designs have found their way into my rustic Minnesota garden, too.

This book is also a priceless resource for "living history" re-enactors or "back to the land" homesteaders who might want to know how to build a traditional corn-drying platform, a food-storage cache, a homemade rake, or any of the other tools used successfully for many centuries before the Europeans came here. Simply a delightful book!

If you are at all interested in natural history, history, the prairie, Oklahoma, or families in general, this is a book you will greatly enjoy. It 's also a beautiful book with generous numbers of great black and white photos. Definitely a "must read."

The Buffalo Creek Chronicles is a team effort, uniting the photographs and commentary of Don House, memoirs by Sue Selman and observations by Gary Lantz focusing on the personal, cultural and natural history of the Selman Ranch, some 16,000 acres of native prairie along Buffalo Creek in northwest Oklahoma.

The ranch dates back to when founder J.O. Selman herded longhorns up from Texas during the 1890s while he accumulated land of his own in the big, unfenced cattle country known as the Cherokee Strip.

J.O., or "Jimmy Few Clothes" as he was called due to the stark poverty that inspired him to join a trail drover crew at age 15, eventually amassed more than 60,000 acres between the North Canadian and Cimarron Rivers. Today Sue Selman's children represent the family's fourth generation to live and work on the ranch.

Lantz and House spent over a year exploring the ranch from every angle-on foot, through the window of a pickup truck, in the saddle, in a wagon pulled by a team of draft horses.

During that time they became acquainted with Selman family history, the sodbusters who lived in dugouts carved into dirt bluffs, pioneers who arrived here in covered wagons, epidemics that swept the countryside, plagues of grasshoppers, cowboys with a taste for whiskey, the last horseback bank robbery in Oklahoma, blizzards, dust storms, droughts. The authors found Indian artifacts and ancient buffalo bones half buried in the banks of Sleeping Bear Creek. They rode with the Selmans as they celebrated their family heritage during a two day longhorn cattle drive held on the ranch. The men dodged rattlesnakes, made the acquaintance of a few porcupines, helped guide hunters from as far away as Buffalo, New York and watched a remnant flock of lesser prairie chickens stage a spring courtship drama that once thundered from every suitable knoll stretching from the Cimarron River sandhills to the rainshadow of the Rockies.

A sampling of some of each can be found in this book, along with Sue Selman's recollections of growing up in the rough 'n tumble Buffalo Creek cattle country during the 1950s, a time when little girls learned to rope as well as cope in what was traditionally a man's hard-edged, sunburned world.

This book is about cows, grass and a proud heritage and culture seeking new ways to survive. Fickle cattle markets have prompted Sue and her children to explore nontraditional land use practices, including fee hunting and nature tourism, to keep the family together and the ranch intact.

A special section devoted to Don House's black and white photographs seeks to portray the stark dignity of a landscape that oftentimes unnerves visitors due to the encircling bigness of it all. Capturing he Buffalo Creek country on film is an exercise in interpreting overpowering horizons, a landscape that must be dissected and examined in increments, then somehow visually and philosophically reconnected to grasp the sum of all the parts.

Don's camera examines not just the landscape, but also moments of time and space contained within that landscape. In addition to his contemporary photographs, he has judiciously selected and edited historical pictures that add faces and places to the personalities represented in the text.

The mission of the Buffalo Creek Chronicles was to write the biography of a ranch that continues to defy all odds and exist under the founder's name, along with the people, the plants, the animals and the weather that comprise the character of this particular place on earth. The Buffalo Creek country can have a hard edge to it, and the people must acquire a special toughness to survive here. Yet at the same time this land can be beautiful and brimming with life. The writers hope this book will give readers a new appreciation for not only our rapidly disappearing native grasslands, but also the ranchers who do so much to preserve what little remains

I was intrigued right from the start. The author combines romance with a touch of suspense and wry humor to create a real winner. A Seattle heroine (okay, it can't be all bad if she's from my home town) gets plunked down in North Dakota with a pregnant bison and a hunk of a ranch foreman. A very nice change of pace from the standard fare I've read lately. The secondary characters are great, and the hero and heroine have plenty to keep them apart. The ending was very satisfying. This is a new author I will want to follow.

I've heard this is a first book, and it is well worth giving it a try! The story is laugh out loud funny at times, but also is a wonderful romance. I spent the entire book trying to figure out how to get to North Dakota to meet a hero like Mike Winterhawk! Get this book and treat yourself to a delightful read!

I loved this book. Short and sweet, it's an ingenious example of a writer who likes to experiment in unusual perspectives. With creative abandon, LeGuin speaks to you as a tree, animals, and people from the future. In this book and others, she shows her ability to develop rich characters while going as far from "realism" as she can get. This book includes poems that are each short, meaningful, and awareness-building; if you're a writer they will inspire you to think outside the box. "The Wife's Story" is a must read, very intriguing! She is my favorite write by far!

This is amazing how Ursula K. Le Guin can write. When you are reading about her character you can feel their thoughts - you get new sense which enables you to live the life of the book. In "Buffalo Gals..." you learn about animals and you can take a look at the humankind from outside. Poems in the book show rather unexpectable aspects of what they describe - this is another great ability of UKL. But I recommend this book to the poeple who want to meditate about things, not just to read it.

Buffalo Jones had to deal with horrible weather, a pack of wolves, and other difficulties in his quest to capture buffalo calves. The clever way he outwitted the wolves adds a surprising twist to an exciting story. Especially good for readers 8 to 12 who like true adventure, but older readers (including adults) will enjoy it, too.

Fast-paced and colorful, this book describes one of Jones' expeditions in which he captured buffalo calves to create a captive herd and preserve the species. The difficulties Jones had to overcome make exciting reading, especially the ingenious way he protected the calves from wolves. Great for ages 7 to 10, but older and younger folks will enjoy it, too.

This is a great introductory book for those of us who are unfamiliar with the great sport to be had by these "trash fish". The authors did a wonderful job in creating an entertaining and informative book on fish not many consider to be worthy adversaries. This is a great book for those interested in learning more about tapping into underutilized fish.

In Fishing For Buffalo, Rob Buffler and Tom Dickson guide the reader to an understanding of how entertaining, absurd, and precious species like gar, buffalo, and suckers can be. With this book, they intelligently and humorously open up a new world of fishing that previously was closed off by ignorance. They include natural history, recipes, fishing techniques, and even poetry to make their work thoroughly satisfying. Fishing For Buffalo has changed my fishing life.

If you are a fan of western books, i strongly recommend that you find and read any of the Lone Star series. Every book is packed with loads of action ranging from gun fights to martial arts duels. Jessica Starbuck is awesome, and Ki if was real would be one of the best martial artists in the world today.

Okay adult western fans, this ones got it all! From martial arts and shoot-outs, to rape and down right sex! Jessie and Ki find themselves mixed up with some rough types when they cross paths with a group of Buffalo Hunters. I've read all but about five of this series, and let me tell you, of the hundred plus written, Buffalo Hunters is one of, if not THE best yet.

By page 3 of this wise, honorable and lovely book, Great Lakes Book Award winner Gloria Whelan gives us both a serious problem and a mystery. We are hooked. Miranda is a 10-year-old whose artist mother is the widow of a cavalryman killed at Little Big Horn. Narrator of what happens before and afer her nearly penniless mother signs on as backdrop painter for Buffalo Bill's touring Wild West Show, she is entirely believable. The sometimes rebelious conclusions she draws along her story's way are never wise beyond her years. Her speech is that of an artist's daughter. ["There was a flourish in all (Wild Bill Cody) did, like the curlicues people put in their writing." The eyes of the Sioux girl who befriends her on Cody's show "were the color of brown stones shining in water." Frost leaves flowers looking like wet mops.] Readers Miranda's age will like her. MIRANDA'S LAST STAND begins with a brilliantly vivid and succinct presentation of the whites' point of view after the Battle of Little Big Horn. Then with the dry perception, lively but careful historical detail, and beautiful but never intrusive lyric passages that one can expect from Gloria Whelan, we are subtly led toward another point of view--that of Sitting Bull's Sioux. Exploring her grandparents' Dakota Territory farm, Miranda comments about the creatures whose nests and burrows she comes upon, "Everywhere I looked, something was there before us." Then she finds an arrowhead. Miranda travels just as far in her mind as in the Company of Wild Bill Cody, and both journeys are conveyed by Gloria Whelan as smoothly as if she had seen and done everything she writes about. In a clear but unforced way, she makes the reader see the problems, moral and physical, of young people like Miranda and her new friend Quick Fox, whose people want the same space and haven't found a way to share it--problems Miranda's readers face today.

Miranda was just two when her papa died at the Battle of Little Bighorn, eight years ago. Her mama has hated Indians ever since, and so has Miranda. When they join the Wild West Show, Miranda's views change. But will her mother's ever? This was a very good book.

Moon Over Buffalo, is a refreshingly hilarious script. Once I began to read it, I could not put it down. It is a fast paced, farce that captures the attention of anyone reading it. It is just as fast on stage, and was a wonderful production. With a simple set, and a great varity of characters any group from a college theatre club to a community theatre can pull it off. It was a joy to direct, and I was told it was a joy to act in. I highly recommend it. Read it, Watch it, or Perform it, anyway you are promised a hit.

When you are reading a book or a script, do you find yourself bored, or rarely interrested? Well, I never laugh out loud while reading and I about died from it after reading this script. It is THE funniest play I have EVER read and I reccomend it to any theater company... except maybe a children's company. There is no lack of raunchy sex jokes and misunderstood situations. George and Charlotte Hay, a famous acting couple, are doing Rep. at a sham theater in Buffalo, New York. They are horribly upset that director Frank Capra in Hollywood has not chosen them to star in his new movie, "The Twilight of the Scarlet Pimpernel."
In the mean time, Charlotte finds out from Richard Maynard (a lawyer friend of the Hay's who continually tries to sweep Charlotte off her feet) that their company isn't making the payroll and their financial situation is quite serious. In the meantime Paul, Charlotte and George's stage manager, tries to find George and tell him that he has impregnated Eileen, an actress in the company. In the midst of all the chaos, Rosalind, George and Charlotte's daughter, has come to tell the family that she is getting married and has brought her fiancee (the rather nerdy weather man, Howard.) to meet the family (who unfortunately meets him, first. Ethel, her slightly deaf grandma, for example). Paul happens to be an old flame of Roz's. In fact, they were almost married, but Roz wanted to lead a normal life. Charlotte finds out that her husband has been sleeping with Eileen and all hell breaks loose when George disappears, then shows up drunk as a skunk a half hour before the matinee. This play is an absolute riot. It's a big audience pleaser, and good for a laugh if you just need something funny to read.

"In the winding streets of Naples, mozzarella cheese is made daily from buffalo milk." Buffalo mozzarella is part of the everyday diet of Neapolitans and others who live in the southern Italian countryside of the Campania region. Buffalos made their way to southern Italy from India sometime in the sixteenth century. "Mozzarella di bufala" is almost synonomous with Naples, a city where Pizza Napoli was created about three hundred years ago.

When the royal couple of Italy visited Naples in 1899, they ordered pizza to show their solidarity with the people. Legend has it that a Neapolitan baker topped this famous pizza with the colors of the Italian flag by using thick, white slabs of mozzarella di bufala, sliced red tomatoes, and green basil leaves. The baker named his creation after the Italian queen, Margherita, and, to this day, we still order Pizza Margherita in restaurants and bake it at home. The word "mozzarella" derives from the Italian verb "mozzare," that! is, "to cut off, the action of breaking the cheese curd into smaller, more manageable pieces."

The process of making mozzarella di bufala is fascinating. I have seen American food television cooking shows that show it, beginning when the buffalo milk is poured into large metal vats; heated to 95 degrees for several hours; and then a "caglio" (coagulant) is added, which causes a curd to be formed. Next this curd is broken into smaller pieces, the liquid is drained off, and buffalo ricotta is formed, which is then heated for several hours. Finally, the cheesemaker scoops it up with a wooden palette to test it for readiness. When ready, the cheese is rolled into balls by hand, an art learned over years of apprenticeship, and then soaked in brine for several hours. The fresh cheese is best eaten within a day or two, but will keep up to five days. This art of cheesemaking is usually passed down through generations in southern Italian families. However, there are some large !manufacturers who treat the fresh milk with chemicals in order to give the resulting cheese a longer shelf live, but the fresh taste, aroma, and texture are then sacrificed.

After I saw this entire process, I came to appreciate why the cost of mozzarella di bufala is higher than that of regular mozzarella. Also, as long as it is authentic mozzarella di bufala, someone who has lactose intolerance should be able to enjoy it without the uncomfortable side effects that would result from eating mozzarella made from cow's milk. To me, summer means eating an insalata of thick-sliced fresh mozzarella di bufala, sliced vine-ripened tomatoes, with basil leaves and a splash of balsamico fino.

Besides a history of mozzarella di bufala, this beautiful book offers 61 excellent recipes, with a color photo accompanying each one. Top chefs from 21 British restaurants have contributed these recipes, which are grouped in chapters: Insalata; Pane; Pasta; Legumi; Riso e Risotto; Pesc!e e Crostace; and Carne. There is a glossary of terms, with some recipes (Brioche, Mayonnaise, Pesto, Tomato Sauce), followed by an index.

At first, I thought, "Why would I want an Italian cookbook with recipes from British chefs?" After I tested some of the recipes, I have come to love this book. Now I have so many more ways to use my favorite mozzarella di bufala other than in the classic insalata. I enjoy making Eggplant Salad & Carta Musica; Fresh Linguine with Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Smoked Mozzarella; Spaghetti alla Sorrento; Gâteau of Grilled Vegetables & Mozzarella; Buffalo Mozzarella, Tomato & Pesto Tart; and San Daniele Prosciutto with Mozzarella, Figs & Balsamic Dressing.

If you love mozzarella di bufala or have been eager to try it, you will like these recipes. Some of the ones with pane do take a while when made from scratch, but there are many other whimsical, easy, and creative recipes here, too.

If you love buffalo mozzarella (and who on God's green earth does NOT?) you HAVE to buy this book (and you HAVE to buy it from amazon.com!!!). Particularly scrumptious is the braised eel stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and squid!