The nation return towards their village in the month of August, having visited for a short time the {194} Pawnee villages, for the purpose of trading their guns for horses.
They are sometimes so successful in their expedition, in the accumulation of meat, as to be obliged to make double trips, returning about mid-day for half the whole quantity which was left in the morning. When within two or three days journey of their own village, runners are despatched to it, charged with the duty of ascertaining the safety of it, and the state of the maize.
On the return of the nation, which is generally early in September, a different kind of employment awaits the ever-industrious squaws. The property buried in the earth is to be taken up and arranged in the lodges, which are cleaned out and put in order. The weeds which, during their absence, had grown up in every direction through the village, are cut down and removed.
A sufficient quantity of sweet corn is next to be prepared for present and future use. Whilst the maize is yet in the milk or soft state, and the grains have nearly attained to their full size, it is collected and boiled on the cob; but[pg303] the poor who have no kettles, place the ear, sufficiently guarded by its husk, in the hot embers until properly cooked; the maize is then dried, shelled from the cob, again exposed to the sun, and afterwards packed away for keeping, in neat leathern sacks. The grain prepared in this manner has a shrivelled appearance, and a sweet taste, whence its name. It may be boiled at any season of the year with nearly as much facility as the recent grain, and has much the same taste.
They also pound it into a kind of small hominy, which when boiled into a thick mush, with a proper proportion of the smaller entrails and jerked meat, is held in much estimation.
When the maize which remains on the stalk is fully ripe, it is gathered, shelled, dried, and also packed away in leathern sacks. They sometimes {195} prepare this hard corn for eating, by the process of leying it, or boiling it in a ley of wood-ashes for the space of an hour or two, which divests it of the hard exterior skin; after which it is well washed and rinsed. It may then be readily boiled to an eatable softness, and affords a palatable food.
The hard ripe maize is also broken into small pieces between two stones, one or two grains at a time, the larger stone being placed on a skin, that the flying fragments may not be lost. This coarse meal is boiled into a mush called Wa-na-de. It is sometimes parched previously to being pounded, and the mush prepared from this description of meal is distinguished by the term Wa-jun-ga. With each of these two dishes, a portion of the small prepared intestines of the bison, called Ta-she-ba, are boiled, to render the food more sapid.
Their pumpkins, Wat-tong, are boiled, or rather[pg304] steamed, as the pot is filled with them cut in slices, with the addition of a very small quantity of water. But the greater number of these vegetables are cut into long slips, and, as well as the smaller intestines and stomach of the bison, cut in pieces, are interwoven as before mentioned into a kind of network.
A singular description of food is made use of by some tribes of the Snake Indians, consisting chiefly, and sometimes wholly of a species of ant, (formica, Lin.) which is very abundant in the region in which they roam. The squaws go in the cool of the morning to the hillocks of these active insects, knowing that then they are assembled together in the greatest numbers. Uncovering the little mounds to a certain depth, the squaws scoop them up in their hands, and put them into a bag prepared for the purpose. When a sufficient number are obtained, they repair to the water, and cleanse the mass from all the dirt and small pieces of wood collected with them. The ants are then placed upon a flat stone, and by the pressure of a rolling-pin, are crushed together into a dense {196} mass, and rolled out like pastry. Of this substance a soup is prepared, which is relished by the Indians, but is not at all to the taste of white men. Whether or not this species of ant is analogous to the vachacos, which Humboldt speaks of, as furnishing food to the Indians of the Rio Negro and the Guainia, we have no opportunity of ascertaining.
We could not learn that any one of the nations of the Missouri Indians are accused, even by their enemies, of eating human flesh from choice, or for the gratification of a horrible luxury: starvation alone can induce them to eat of it. An Ioway Indian, however, having killed an Osage,[pg305] compelled some children of his own nation to eat of the uncooked flesh of the thigh of his victim. And a Sioux of the St. Peter's dried some of the flesh of a Chippeway whom he had killed, and presented it to some white men, who ate it without discovering the imposition.