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Turtle, I think, was the last woman in the tribe to use an old-fashioned, bone-bladed hoe

Turtle, I think, was the last woman in the tribe to use an old-fashioned, bone-bladed hoe.jpg My father stabled his horses at night in our lodge, in a little corral fenced off against the wallThumbnailsTurtle’s hoe was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo set in a light-wood handle, the blade firmly bound in place with thongMy father stabled his horses at night in our lodge, in a little corral fenced off against the wallThumbnailsTurtle’s hoe was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo set in a light-wood handle, the blade firmly bound in place with thongMy father stabled his horses at night in our lodge, in a little corral fenced off against the wallThumbnailsTurtle’s hoe was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo set in a light-wood handle, the blade firmly bound in place with thongMy father stabled his horses at night in our lodge, in a little corral fenced off against the wallThumbnailsTurtle’s hoe was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo set in a light-wood handle, the blade firmly bound in place with thongMy father stabled his horses at night in our lodge, in a little corral fenced off against the wallThumbnailsTurtle’s hoe was made of the shoulder bone of a buffalo set in a light-wood handle, the blade firmly bound in place with thong

Turtle was old-fashioned in her ways and did not take kindly to iron tools. “I am an Indian,” she would say, “I use the ways my fathers used.” Instead of grubbing out weeds and bushes, she pried them from the ground with a wooden digging stick. I think she was as skillful with this as were my mothers with their hoes of iron.