17 
wood for the upright drill. The usual method of roasting was to impale 
the meat or fish on a stick, plant it in front of the fire, and turn it occa- 
sionally; an alternative method was to place it on a log in front of the 
fire, or on a staging over it. Not infrequently they roasted meat in ashes. 
For boiling food they used both clay pots 1 and birch-bark kettles; if 
neither were available they filled a hollow in a rock with water, which 
they brought to a boil, like the water in their birch-bark kettles, by drop- 
ping in hot stones. The Ojibwa liked to season their fish with maple sugar, 
and rarely boiled ducks or grouse without adding rice or corn to the water, 
considering fowl not very palatable without some vegetable seasoning. In 
fact, a favourite method of cooking grouse was (and still is) to pound 
them in the corn-meal grinder and add them to corn soup. For beverages 
the Indians had, besides water (which travellers often carried in bags of 
ground-hog skins) , the broths of meat and fish, and soups made from corn 
and wild rice. Furthermore, they made a kind of tea from the leaves of 
various plants, such as wintergreen ( Gaultheria procumbens ) , Labrador tea 
( Ledum groenlandicum ) , and creeping juniper ( Juniperus prostrata). 
Normally the Indians ate two meals a day, breakfast and dinner; 
children, but not adults, had also a light lunch at noon. The principal 
meal was the evening dinner, the remnants of which provided the breakfast 
of the following morning; indeed, men often started out on a day’s journey 
without any breakfast at all. The table dishes were trays of birch bark, 
and an occasional plate made from the hard shell on the back of the 
snapping turtle. Pointed sticks of bone or wood served for forks, clam 
shells for spoons, and a folded strip of birch bark made a satisfactory cup. 
After acquiring metal spoons from the early traders the Ojibwa made 
spoons of wood in imitation of them; but apparently these were not current 
in pre-European days. 
1 Several informants said that in making these pots the women often mixed with their clay ashes from cedar 
and maple trees and the powder of burned limestone (probably not limestone, but granite). They baked the pot 
beside the fire, not directly on top of it. 
