She next
directed the boys to supply her with pine or cedar boughs, which she stuck
in close together, so as to enclose the fire within the area of the stakes.
This was done to concentrate the heat and cause it to bear upwards with
more power; the rice being frequently stirred with a sort of long-handled,
flat shovel. After the rice was sufficiently dried, the next thing to be
done was separating it from the husk, and this was effected by putting it
by small quantities into the iron pot, and with a sort of wooden pestle
or beetle, rubbing it round and round against the sides. [Footnote: The
Indians often make use of a very rude, primitive sort of mortar, by
hollowing out a bass-wood stump, and rubbing the rice with a wooden
pounder.] If they had not had the iron pot, a wooden trough must have been
substituted in its stead.
When the rice was husked, the loose chaff was winnowed from it in a flat
basket like a sieve, and it was then put by in coarse birch baskets,
roughly sewed with leather-wood bark, or bags made of matting, woven by the
little squaw from the cedar-bark.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220