# Rocky Mountains. 213 



I 

 A sufficient quantity of sweet corn is next to be prepared, 



for present and future use. Whilst the maize is yet in the 



milk or soft state, and the grains have nearly attained to their 



full size, it is collected, and boiled on the cob ; but the poor 



who have no kettles, place the ear, sufficiently guarded by its 



husk in the hot embers, until properly cooked ; the maize is 



then dried, shelled from the cob, again exposed to the sun, 



and afterwards packed away for keeping, in neat leathern 



sacks. The grain prepared in this manner has a shrivelled 



appearance, and a sweet taste whence its name. It may be 



boiled at any season of the year, with nearly as much facility 



as the recent grain, and has much the same taste. 



They also pound it into a kind of small hominy, which 

 when boiled into a thick mush, with a proper proportion of 

 the smaller entrails, and jerked meat, is held in much esti- 

 mation. 



When the maize, which remains on the stalk, is fully ripe, 

 it is gathered, shelled, dried, and also packed away in lea- 

 thern sacks. They sometimes prepare this hard corn for 

 eating, by the process of leying it, or boiling it in a ley of 

 wood ashes, for the space of an hour or two, which divests 

 it of the hard exterior skin, after which it is well washed and 

 rinsed. It may then be readily boiled to an eatable softness, 

 and affords a palatable food. 



The hard ripe maize is also broken into small pieces be- 

 tween two stones, one or two grains at a time, the larger 

 stone being placed on a skin, that the flying fragments may 

 not be lost. This coarse meal is boiled into a mush called 

 Wa-ne-de. It is sometimes parched previously to being- 

 pounded, and the mush prepared from this description of 

 meal, is distinguished by the term Wajun-ga. With each 

 of these two dishes, a portion of the small prepared intestines 

 of the bison, called Ta-she-ba are boiled, to render the food 

 more sapid. 



Their pumpkins, Wat-tong, are boiled or rather steamed. 



