The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
It was rather windy, and therefore Joe concluded to hunt after
midnight, if the wind went down, which the other Indians thought it
would not do, because it was from the south. The two mixed bloods,
however, went off up the river for moose at dark, before we arrived at
their camp. This Indian camp was a slight, patched-up affair, which
had stood there several weeks, built shed-fashion, open to the fire on
the west. If the wind changed, they could turn it round. It was
formed by two forked stakes and a cross-bar, with rafters slanted from
this to the ground. The covering was partly an old sail, partly
birch-bark, quite imperfect, but securely tied on, and coming down to
the ground on the sides. A large log was rolled up at the back side
for a headboard, and two or three moose-hides were spread on the
ground with the hair up. Various articles of their wardrobe were
tucked around the sides and corners, or under the roof. They were
smoking moose-meat on just such a crate as is represented by With in
De Bry's "Collectio Peregrinationum," published in 1588, and which the
natives of Brazil called _boucan_, (whence buccaneer,) on which
were frequently shown pieces of human flesh drying along with the
rest. It was erected in front of the camp over the usual large fire,
in the form of an oblong square. Two stout forked stakes, four or five
feet apart and five feet high, were driven into the ground at each
end, and then two poles ten feet long were stretched across over the
fire, and smaller ones laid transversely on these a foot apart. On the
last hung large, thin slices of moose-meat smoking and drying, a space
being left open over the centre of the fire. There was the whole
heart, black as a thirty-two pound ball, hanging at one corner. They
said, that it took three or four days to cure this meat, and it would
keep a year or more. Refuse pieces lay about on the ground in
different stages of decay, and some pieces also in the fire, half
buried and sizzling in the ashes, as black and dirty as an old
shoe. These last I at first thought were thrown away, but afterwards
found that they were being cooked. Also a tremendous rib-piece was
roasting before the fire, being impaled on an upright stake forced in
and out between the ribs. There was a moose-hide stretched and curing
on poles like ours, and quite a pile of cured skins close by. They had
killed twenty-two moose within two months, but, as they could use but
very little of the meat, they left the carcasses on the
ground. Altogether it was about as savage a sight as was ever
witnessed, and I was carried back at once three hundred years. There
were many torches of birch-bark, shaped like straight tin horns, lying
ready for use on a stump outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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