Cut some beefsteak, round or sirloin, into thin strips. Dry the strips on a stage of small poles (see cut on page 141) in the open air or over a slow fire, or in the kitchen oven, until brittle and hard. Meat thus dried could be kept for months. Warriors and hunters often ate jerked meat raw or toasted over a fire. In the lodge, it was more often boiled a few minutes to soften it; and the broth was drunk as we drink coffee. (See also “Drying Meat”, page 185.)
Pemmican
Take strips of beef, dried as described above, and pound them to shreds between two hard stones. Put the shredded mass in a bowl, and pour over it a little marrow fat from a boiled soup bone, or some melted butter.
Corn Balls
The Hidatsas raised sweet corn for parching. Hunters often carried a pouch of the parched grain for a lunch. Parched ripe sweet corn was often pounded to a fine meal, kneaded with lumps of hot roasted suet, and rolled between the palms into little lumps, or balls, the size of one’s thumb.
Hidatsa custom did not permit a woman to speak to her son-in-law; but she often showed her love for him by making him a bowl of corn balls.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Surrounded by the powerful and hostile Sioux, the two little Hidatsa tribes were compelled to keep relatively close to their stockaded villages and cornfields, which, however, they most sturdily defended. Their weakness proved a blessing. The yearly crops of their cornfields were a sure protection against famine, and in their crowded little villages was developed a culture that was remarkable. The circular earth lodges of the Mandans and Hidatsas represent the highest expression of the house-building art east of the Rocky Mountains.
Three members of Small Ankle’s family are now living: Small Ankle’s son, Wolf Chief, his daughter, Waheenee, or Buffalo-Bird Woman, and her son, Good Bird, or Goodbird. Goodbird was the first Indian of his tribe to receive a common school education. Like many Indians he has a natural taste for drawing. Several hundred sketches by him, crude but spirited and in true perspective, await publication by the Museum.