730 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



2 or 3 miles from camp. An hour or so before their arrival the 

 various boats from any one camp may be seen slowly approaching 

 from different directions, the boat itself usually hidden among the 

 wokas leaves, its occupant seeming at a distance to glide over the 

 marsh with a spectral motion, unaccompanied by any evident means 

 of support or propulsion. 



A day's harvest, judging from actual measurements of several loads, 

 is ordinarily 4 to 6 bushels of hard pods and a peck to half a bushel 

 of spokwas. (Plate <>.) 



SPOKWAS. 



The basketful of spokwas as it is brought from the boat is emptied 

 into a pit dug in the g-round for the purpose, to which each suc- 

 cessive day's harvest of spokwas is added. The disintegrating pods 

 undergo some process of fermentation, which changes them into a 

 mucilaginous liquid mass having the texture of a thin but very 

 elastic dough. The pits are commonly li to 2 feet in both diameter 

 and depth. The top is covered with grass, tules, or an empt}^ grain 

 sack. These holes may be found anywhere about a wokas camp, 

 and from the inconspicuous character of their covering, among the 

 miscellaneous furniture of an Indian's summer camp, it is altogether 

 too easy to step into one. If a motto were to be suggested for visit- 

 ors, it might well be: Let the stranger in a wokas camp beware of the 

 spokwas hole. 



Other cases were observed in which an old dugout, a large spokwas 

 basket, a grain sack, or even a wooden box was used as the fer- 

 menting receptacle for spokwas. Large holes plug themselves with 

 pieces of the pods and small ones are sealed by the drying of the 

 mucilaginous contents. In every case the receptacle was shaded, a 

 fact which, taken with the limited diameter of the receptacle or pit, 

 which never exceeded 2 feet, suggested that the contents were liable, 

 under adverse conditions, to overfermentation and heating. 



At the end of the period of harvesting by any individual, whether 

 it is one week or live weeks, the contents of the spokwas pits are 

 dipped out and placed in a dugout. Water is then poured in, the 

 whole mass stirred, and the coarser portions squeezed with the hands, 

 much as curdled milk is manipulated in a cheese vat. The seeds, no 

 longer held in suspension in the mucilage, drop to the Itottom, and the 

 floating refuse, nuicilage, and water are removed by skimming, by 

 rocking the boat, and by baling. The wet seeds, with a small amount 

 of mucilage and occasional small scraps of pod adhering, are scooped 

 from the boat and spread on a tule mat (shtap's) in the sun to drain. 

 They are then ready for manufacture into lolensh and subsequently 

 into shnaps. 



