732 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



Lake and Marsh countrv. The wokas .shaker has eommonl}" a diam- 

 eter of 22 to 30 inches, and sonietinies has some slight adornment in 

 figures lighter or darker than the main body of the shaker, Ordi- 

 naril}'^, Indian winnowing trays are of rigid construction, but the 

 wokas shaker, which is the general winnowing implement used b}^ the 

 Klamath s and Modocs for the preparation of a wide variety of seed 

 foods, is flexible, a characteristic which giyes it a more yaried useful- 

 ness than an ordinary stitt' tra3\ 



Al)Out a quart of the seeds, after cracking on a mealing stone, as 

 already described, is placed on the shaker. This is seized ])y the oper- 

 ator in ])oth hands, at opposite points of the margin, each hand, palm 

 upward, grasping from beneath a radial fold in the margin, the end of 

 the thuml> usually extending up over the margin and occupying the 

 inside of the fold. The woman sits with her back to the wind, and, 

 grasping the shaker in the manner just described, proceeds ])v a series 

 of skillful movements to separate the broken shells from the rest of 

 the seed. One of these movements is the rotation of the shaker back 

 and forth upon its own center as an axis. This accomplishes a general 

 shaking up of the contents, through which the seed shells accumulate 

 at the surface, A second movement is a circular motion of the whole 

 shaker, which makes the seeds travel about in it like water in an eddy, 

 the shells gathering in the center. The shells are then shifted to the 

 farther margin by a jerk of the shaker, when they are tossed into the 

 air and are carried away either l)y the wind or, when there is no wind, 

 by blowing. The broken seed shells (tsi'-hlak) thus winnowed from 

 the seeds are used in dyeing, in a maimer to l)e hereafter described. 



In the stage of preparation which the}' have now reached the seeds 

 are known as lolensh (Plate 12, fig, 4). This may be made inmiediately 

 into parched wokas or shnaps, or it may be spread out upon a mat in 

 the sunlight to dry and then stored in sacks, to be parched later as used. 



SHNAPS. 



In the preparation of shnaps from shelled wokas kernels, or lolensh, 

 the primitive method of roasting with live coals in a wokas shaker, as 

 described under shiwulinz, seems to have been entirely discarded. 

 The frying pan is now used instead by all the Indians. A handful or 

 two of lolensh, either the fresh or the dried and stored product, about 

 enough to barely cover the bottom, is thrown into a hot fr3'ing pan 

 and roasted briskly over a fire until it is nicely parched and slightly 

 browned, the pan being shaken meanwhile to prevent scorching. The 

 kernels swell, crack their coats, and roll over like animate objects, but 

 do not explode like popcorn. When the parching is completed the 

 grains are roughly spherical, with a tul^erculate surface (Plate 12, 

 fig. 2), and the bulk of a mass of the kernels has increased two and one- 

 third to three times. A thick-bottomed cast-iron frying pan is much 

 better for parching wokas than a thin-bottomed one of pressed steel, 



