DRIED MEAT — WENTWORTH 561 



(christened by the French Canadians parfleches) to make it convenient 

 for travel or storage. Pulverizing was customarily accomplished by 

 use of stone hammers or wooden clubs against stone. Many fragments 

 of rocks were thus included in the "beat meat" or "pounded meat," as 

 the fur trade came to call it. When fully dried, a bison cow was esti- 

 mated to yield 45 pounds of dried meat which was quite a saving in 

 weight in comparison with the original carcass. 



The meat-drying operation was a community and tribal affair. 

 In 1843, Thomas J. Farnham reported quite vividly a picture of meat 

 drying by the Kaw tribe on the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas River 

 in Kansas, near present-day Larned : 



Their wigwams were constructed of bushes inserted into the ground, twisted 

 together at the top, and covered with the buffalo hides which they had been 

 gathering for their winter lodges. Meat was drying in every direction. It had 

 been cut into long narrow strips, wound around sticks standing upright in the 

 ground, or laid over a rick of wicker work, under which slow fires are kept 

 burning. . . . They make a yearly hunt to this region in the spring, lay in 

 a large quantity of dried meat, return to their own territory in harvest time . . . 

 and thus prepare for a long and merry winter. They take with them, on these 

 hunting excursions, all the horses and mules belonging to the tribe, which can 

 be spared from the labor of their fields upon the Konzas River, go south until 

 they meet the buffalo, build their distant wigwams, and commence their labor. 

 This is divided in the following way between the males, females, and children ; 

 the men kill the game ; the women dress and dry the meat, and tan the 

 hides . . . ; the younger shoots of the tribe during the day are engaged in 

 watering and guarding the horses and mules that have been used in the hunt — 

 changing their stakes from one spot to another of fresh grass, and crouching 

 along the heights around the camp to notice the approach of foes and sound 

 the alarm. . . . Unless driven from their game by the Pawnees, or some other 

 tribe at enmity with them, they load every animal with meat and hides about 

 the first of August, and commence the march back to their fields, fathers, and 

 wigwams on the Konzas River. 8 



Not much has been written about half-dry meat. Stefansson states 

 that this is the favorite form of preparation, when the caribou are 

 fat, over Canada from Lake Athabaska northward. 9 First the carcass 

 is split down the back and the side is boned out. The choicest lean for 

 making this preparation is taken from the hams and tenderloins. 

 Some persons, principally traders, do not wish to have too much 

 fat, so the excess is stripped off. Then the boneless side or "rib 

 blanket" is hung like clothes on a wash line. A rawhide or other 

 rope is used for suspension, or the meat may be spread over the branch 

 of a tree. If the flesh is laid on the ground it must be turned at fre- 

 quent intervals. The intention is to have the meat dry on the outside, 

 but on the inside it still retains considerable moisture. Where the 



8 Thomas J. Farnham, Travels in the great western prairies (2 vols.), vol. 1, 

 pp. 63-67, London, 1843. 

 • Stefansson to author, January 26, 1955. 



