Harvesting Maize Late summer is when we begin to harvest maize, or corn, our most important crop.  Here, a mother and daughter pick ripe ears of maize and put them into a woodsplint pack basket. The mother makes the job easier by using a woven strap called a tumpline across her forehead, so that her hands are free to pick the maize and the basket is always right where she needs it.  Women do most of the work in our gardens, but children, teenagers, and elders help. Families and friends pitch in and work together. Harvesting isn't all work, though; it's a time to chat, catch up on news, laugh, and tell stories. It's also an opportunity for adults to teach children all about growing crops. Even before the harvest, we do all of the work in the garden by hand, without the help of domesticated animals. We break up the ground using stone hoes, and make holes for the seeds with a dibble, or digging stick;  there's one lying on the ground near the center of this scene, next to the clamshell hoe.  For weeding, we use the shell hoe, as well as the type of hoe that's leaning against the burned stump over near the sunflowers.  It's made from the shoulder bone of a deer. In addition to weeding, we use the hoes to mound up the dirt around the maize several times throughout the growing season. The harvest is also done by hand. It's hard work; but the bushels of maize, beans, and squash make it all worthwhile. By the end of the harvest, each family will probably have more than 100 basketfuls of maize; that's a lot of maize. We'll have a festival and eat our fill of fresh ears that we roast in the fire or boil, but we don't eat most of the harvest right away. That's why maize is so important to us: because we count on it to last through much of the winter. In order to prevent our maize from spoiling, we dry it. Sometimes we pull back the husks and braid them, and then we hang the ears from the rafters of our houses. Often, though, we spread the ears out on mats and leave them in the sun for a few days. After the maize has dried, we remove the kernels and place them in underground storage pits three or more feet deep; you can see the top of one, uncovered, beside the mat. We keep dried beans here, too. You'll notice some grass around the perimeter, because we line the pits with a special kind of grass that is mold resistant. During the months when it is too cold to grow crops, we're glad that we have succotash, stews, breads, and other meals that we make from our summer harvest.