author
Waheenee
d. 1932
Remembered as Buffalo Bird Woman, she preserved Hidatsa knowledge in vivid first-person accounts that still bring everyday life on the northern plains into view. Her books are valued both as personal storytelling and as an important record of Indigenous agriculture, family life, and tradition.
1 Audiobook
Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story
by Waheenee, Gilbert Livingstone Wilson
About the author
Waheenee, also known as Buffalo Bird Woman or Maxi’diwiac, was a Hidatsa woman born around 1839 near the Knife River in what is now North Dakota. She later lived on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and her recollections became some of the best-known firsthand accounts of traditional Hidatsa life.
Working with anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson and with translation help from her son Edward Goodbird, she shared detailed memories of childhood, community life, farming, food preparation, and the knowledge passed down by Hidatsa women. Her best-known work, Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden (originally published in 1917), is especially noted for its rich description of Indigenous agricultural practices.
Her writing endures because it feels both practical and personal: it teaches, remembers, and speaks in a clear human voice. For many readers, Waheenee offers not just history, but a living sense of how Hidatsa culture was carried forward through memory, work, and story.