SWANTON: CATAWBA NOTES 625 



They also employed a fanner (wuski'), and two sifters, the coarser 

 known as no°so' kattcigne, and the finer as kus ompa, and the 

 dishes made from it appear to have been identical with those 

 known to the other southern Indians. Among them were 

 hominy (kuspi seratere), cold meal (kus umpasa'), and the fa- 

 mous dish known to the Creeks as sofki but called by Catawba 

 Indians kusimeyu. The hominy was also mixed with cooked 

 beans and squeezed up into cakes called kusta° notcepetco'. 

 When they ate these they commonly sat in a circle around a big 

 dish of gravy into which each dipped his cake. Like the other 

 southern tribes the Catawba also put commeal dough mixed 

 with beans into cornhusks, and cooked a number of them together 

 in a pot over the fire. Cornmeal dough was sometimes laid 

 upon oak leaves which had been placed upon sand, other oak 

 leaves being raked over the top, and the whole covered with 

 sand, after which a big fire was lighted over all and the dough 

 roasted. Again cornmeal dough was sometimes placed on a 

 short smooth board and cooked in front of the house fire. This 

 dish was called kusta° i°pite° kisa ikta'*. It was occasionally en- 

 riched by adding persimmons, the seeds of which had been re- 

 moved. Parenthetically I was assured that persimmon seeds 

 make excellent coffee. I learned nothing about the use of hick- 

 ory and acorn oil, though it was certainly resorted to but a good 

 flavor was given to hominy by stirring in walnut meats thor- 

 oughly, while the pot was boiling. 



Beef, and at an earlier period venison, was cut into strips and 

 hung aroung the fire to dry. When any of this was desired a 

 piece was taken off and broken up fine in a stone mortar with 

 an iron pestle. The resulting fragments were put into a big 

 pan, gravy was poured over them, and all sat around and ate 

 out of the one dish. Meat was boiled in pots hung over the fire 

 or roasted on wooden spits. Cooking was sometimes performed 

 at the fire inside of the house, sometimes at a fire out of doors. 



Fish were stupefied and then caught in the usual southeastern 

 style, by pounding up buckeye, devil's shoestring, and some 

 other plants and throwing them into a pool of water. 



