author
Waheenee
d. 1932
A Hidatsa elder remembered for preserving traditional knowledge, she shared vivid firsthand accounts of village life, farming, food, and family on the northern Plains. Her words have become an important record of Hidatsa culture in the nineteenth century.
2 Audiobooks
Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation
by Waheenee, Gilbert Livingstone Wilson
Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story
by Waheenee, Gilbert Livingstone Wilson
About the author
Born around 1839 near the Knife River in what is now North Dakota, Waheenee was also known as Buffalo Bird Woman and by the Hidatsa name Maxi'diwiac. She lived through a time of major change for the Hidatsa people and later lived on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
She is best known for recounting traditional Hidatsa lifeways in collaboration with ethnologist Gilbert L. Wilson. Her remembered stories and teachings were published in works including Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, which preserves detailed knowledge about agriculture, food preparation, and everyday community life.
What makes her writing and oral history so compelling is its closeness to lived experience. Through practical detail and personal memory, her work offers readers a rare, human view of Hidatsa culture from someone who knew it from the inside.