Mäpi´ Nakapa´. I put water in a pot, and in this I dropped a section of a string of dried squash, with some beans. Dried squash was always strung on long grass strings; and having, from one of these strings, cut off a piece I tied the ends together, making a wreath, or ring, four or five inches in diameter. It was this ring of dried squash slices that I dropped into the pot. When well boiled, I lifted the squash slices out by the string and dropped them into a wooden bowl, where I mashed them and chopped them fine with a horn spoon. The mashed squash I dropped back into the kettle again, with the beans; the now empty string I threw away.
Meanwhile corn had been parched, and some buffalo fats had been held over the coals on a stick, to roast. The parched corn and roast fats I pounded together in the corn mortar; and the pounded mass I stirred into the kettle. The mess was now ready to be eaten.
This dish we called mäpi´-nakapa´, or pounded-meal mush; from mäpi,´ something pounded, and nakapa´, mush, something mushy.
The dish was especially a morning meal; after eating it we started to work.
Mä´nakapa. A second way of preparing hard white corn was as follows: I pounded the corn in a mortar to a meal, but without first parching it. Most of this meal was fine, but there were many coarser bits in it, some of them as big as quarter grains of corn.
Water was put in a kettle; I added the pounded meal, and when it boiled put in beans. No fats were added.
As the mess boiled. I stirred it with a wooden paddle to prevent scorching; I did not stir with a horn spoon as the hot water softened and spoiled the horn.
When well boiled, the mess was served.
We called this dish mä´nakapa´.[16]