The greater part of the product of this cooking is now to be prepared for winter use by pulling the leaves apart and pounding them into pulp. This can be kneaded and handled much the same as dough, and while in this plastic state is formed into[pg 019] large cakes two inches thick and perhaps three feet long. These are dried in the sun, when they have all the appearance of large slabs of India rubber, and are easily packed on horses for the homeward journey.
This dried mescal may be eaten without further preparation, but it is generally made into a gruel by mixing with water. Alone it is very sweet, and berries of the aromatic sumac, and frequently walnuts, are crushed with it to give it flavor.
The fruit of the opuntia, or prickly-pear cactus, which the Apache call hush, is much used for food both in its fresh state and dried. It is picked from the plant with pincers of split sticks. When the tú̆tza, or burden basket, is filled its contents are poured on the ground and the fruit is brushed about with a small grass besom until the spines are worn off. In preparing hush the women grind seeds and pulp into a mass, thus retaining the full food value of the fruit.
Manzanita, piñon nuts, juniper berries, acorns of the scrub oak, fruit of the yucca, wild potatoes, wild onions, mesquite pods, and many varieties of fungi also furnish food. As a drink the Apache make a tea from the green or dried inner bark of the piñon.
The intoxicant and curse of their lives is túlapai, or tizwin as it is sometimes called. Túlapai means "muddy or gray water." It is, in fact, a yeast beer. In preparing it corn is first soaked in water. If it be winter time the wet corn is placed under a sleeping blanket until the warmth of the body causes it to sprout; if summer, it is deposited in a shallow hole, covered with a wet blanket, and left until the sprouts appear, when it is ground to pulp on a metate. Water and roots are added, and the mixture is boiled and strained to remove the coarser roots and sprouts. At this stage the liquid has the consistency of thin cream soup. It is now set aside for twenty-four hours to cool and ferment, when it is fit for drinking. As the túlapai will spoil in twelve hours it must be drunk quickly. Used in moderation it is not a bad beverage, but by no means a pleasant one to the civilized palate. The Apache, however, knows no moderation in his[pg 020] túlapai drinking. He sometimes fasts for a day and then drinks great quantities of it,—often a gallon or two—when for a time he becomes a savage indeed.
Filling the Pit - Apache
From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis
Another intoxicant, more effective than túlapai, is made from the mescal—not from the sap, according to the Mexican method, but from the cooked plant, which is placed in a heated pit and left until fermentation begins. It is then ground, mixed with water, roots added, and the whole boiled and set aside to complete fermentation. The Indians say its taste is sharp, like whiskey. A small quantity readily produces intoxication.
Of game foods the Apache has deer, antelope, and wild turkey, with quail, some water fowl, smaller birds, rabbits, and wood-rats. Fish and bear meat are strictly tabooed.