Buffalo Bird Woman

Waheenee, also referred to as the Buffalo Bird Woman (ca. 1839–1932) was a traditional Hidatsa woman who lived on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Her Hidatsa name was Waheenee, though she was also called Maaxiiriwia (variously transcribed as Maxidiwiac and Maxi'diwiac).

She was known for maintaining the traditional lifestyle of the Hidatsa, including gardening, cooking, and household tasks. She passed on the traditional ways of her culture and oral tradition through interviews with Gilbert Wilson, in which she described her own experience and the lives and work of Hidatsa women.

Biography

Early life Waheenee was born to Want-to-be-a-woman and Small Ankle, both of the Native American Hidatsa tribe. The exact date of her birth is unknown, but is believed to be circa 1839. She also had a brother, Wolf Chief.

Recovering after a smallpox epidemic in 1837, the Hidatsa moved to the newly created Like-a-Fishhook Village in North Dakota in 1845. Waheenee was four years old at the time. The Hidatsa was joined by the Mandan and, in 1863, the Arikara tribes as well. Together, the tribes are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.

When she was six, Waheenee's mother died of smallpox during another outbreak. From that time, she was raised by her grandmother Turtle and her great-grandmother's adopted daughter Otter. Between 1907 and 1918, Wilson conducted interviews with Waheenee, Henry Wolf Chief, and Goodbird. Conversations with the former were the basis of his doctoral dissertation, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians. Wilson published the dissertation in the University of Minnesota's Studies in the Social Sciences academic journal in 1917. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden is also accessible for free on the University of Pennsylvania's Digital Library website. "

A children's picture book, Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story was published in 2012. Written by S.D. Nelson, the book uses Wilson's dissertation to construct a fictionalized account of Waheenee's childhood.

Books by Buffalo Bird Woman

Buffalo Bird Woman. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987. . Buffalo Bird Woman. Waheenee, an Indian girl's story. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.