COOKING AND EATING. 161

left for the space of a few weeks, sometimes a full month, until they reach
the proper stage of semi-putrefaction. They are then exposed to the rays of
the sun to provide for the evaporation of the water they have absorbed,
after which their oil is extracted by means of heated stones laid over them
in long bark vessels. This they finally collect in salmon skin bags, thus
securing what is to them a luxury, but to us an unspeakable abomination.

In the east some sort of lamp oil is also made with the heads and
entrails of the white-fish.

Once salmon has been deprived of its head, it is cured by being first
opened and left hanging by the tail end to dry. Then both sides are inter-
nally cut lengthwise from the spine almost to the initial point of opening,
so as to double the width of the fish. After it has been further scarified or
furrowed with a sharp knife, which was originally of peculiar form, the
resulting thin and very broad slice is spread out and so kept by means of
wooden pins thrust therein sidewise. Being finally hung up as before, it is
left to dry in the smoke of a small fire.

Smaller fish, like some carpoids which are scooped out by the thousand
in a few localities, are similarly treated, save that their drying is left solely
to the action of air and sun heat. As to the white-fish, it is more esteemed
when kept frozen. If needed for immediate consumption, its surface is thawed
out, when its scaly skin peels off almost in a single piece.

Drinking.

Eating implies drinking. As is well known, excesses in the latter are
certainly as common and as prejudicial to health and morals as the former.
Drinking to excess, however, is a disorder which must be charged to our
civilization, inasmuch as the northlanders had originally no knowledge of the
power of fermentation over liquids'.

Before the advent of the whites, the Dénés hardly ever used any other
beverage than cold water, except in cases of illness, real or imaginary. They
found a plentiful supply of it almost anywhere and at any time, though in
the winter they had often to melt snow balls by the fireside. If their camp
was situated near a stream or lake, it was (and has remained) the business
of the women to go early in the morning and break with a cariboo horn
shoot the new coat of ice formed during the preceding night over the family
ice-hole. A bat-like implement is then used to scoop out the pieces of ice.

The Indians did not drink much, unless fish was their daily food. Harmon
says of the Carriers that “they will sometimes swallow at one draught three

* But in the south the Apaches made out of corn crushed and soaked in water an
intoxicant which was called “tiswin” and highly pleased the native palate. Cf. ‘“Geronimo’s
Story of his Life”, by S. M. Barrett, p. 22. New York, 1906.