372 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Du Pratz tells us that "the natives put the flesh and the fat of the bear 

 to cook together so that they may detach themselves from each other." 

 This was done either in earthen pots of their own manufacture or in 

 kettles bought of the traders. "When this grease or oil is lukewarm 

 they put it into a faon [deerskin bottle]" (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, 

 vol. 2, pp. 86-89; Swanton, 1911, p. 69). 



A little later we discover via Romans (1775, p. 68) that "the traders 

 have learned [ !] them [the Chickasaw] to make [the flesh of bears] 

 into bacon exactly resembling that of a hog." 



Adair did not observe such treatment of bear meat by this tribe in 

 his time, remarking that, 



The traders commonly make bacon of the bears in winter; but the Indians 

 mastly flay off a thick tier of fat which lies over the flesh, and the latter they cut up 

 into small pieces, and thrust on reeds, or suckers of sweet-tested hiccory or 

 sassafras, which they barbecue over a slow fire. The fat they fry into clear well- 

 tasted oil, mixing plenty of sassafras and wild cinnamon with it over the fire, 

 which keeps sweet from one winter to another, in large earthen jars, covered in 

 the ground. It is of a light digestion, and nutritive to hair. All who are 

 acquainted with its qualities, prefer it to any oil, for any use whatsoever: 

 smooth Florence is not to be compared in this respect to rough America. (Adair, 

 1775, p. 415.) 



The salvages [of Virginia] [says Strachey]use to boyle oysters and mussells 

 togither and with the broaths they make a good spoone meat, thickened with the 

 flower of their wheat ; and yt is a great thrift and husbandry with them to hang 

 the oysters upon strings (being shauld and dried) in the smoake, thereby to pre- 

 serve them all the yeare. (Strachey, 1849, p. 127.) 



These oysters were among the articles with which these Indians 

 traded (Smith, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 10). 



Adair (1775, p. 412) notes that the Chickasaw always boiled hens' 

 eggs very hard. 



There seems to be no reference to cooking in baskets, but a farmer 

 of Polk County, Tex., with whom I stayed during part of my work 

 among the Alabama Indians, gave his father as authority for the 

 assertion that, in his time, the Indians often boiled water and cooked 

 their food in deerskins. The skin was held up at the four corners to 

 such a height above the flames that they touched only that part of 

 it over which there was water. In his own time the Alabama always 

 boiled their meats in pots, or sometimes, when there was to be a feast, 

 in a large tub. 



PRESERVATION OF FOOD 

 (Plate 55) 



Both vegetable and animal food was treated in such a manner that 

 it could be preserved for long periods of time, usually, if sufficient 

 forethought were exercised, until spring. 



