The fruit of the opuntia, or prickly-pear cactus, which the Apache call _hush_, is much used for food both in its fresh state and dried. It is picked from the plant with pincers of split sticks. When the _tú̆tza_, or burden basket, is filled its contents are poured on the ground and the fruit is brushed about with a small grass besom until the spines are worn off. In preparing _hush_ the women grind seeds and pulp into a mass, thus retaining the full food value of the fruit. Manzanita, piñon nuts, juniper berries, acorns of the scrub oak, fruit of the yucca, wild potatoes, wild onions, mesquite pods, and many varieties of fungi also furnish food. As a drink the Apache make a tea from the green or dried inner bark of the piñon. The intoxicant and curse of their lives is _túlapai_, or _tizwin_ as it is sometimes called. _Túlapai_ means "muddy or gray water." It is, in fact, a yeast beer. In preparing it corn is first soaked in water. If it be winter time the wet corn is placed under a sleeping blanket until the warmth of the body causes it to sprout; if summer, it is deposited in a shallow hole, covered with a wet blanket, and left until the sprouts appear, when it is ground to pulp on a metate. Water and roots are added, and the mixture is boiled and strained to remove the coarser roots and sprouts. At this stage the liquid has the consistency of thin cream soup. It is now set aside for twenty-four hours to cool and ferment, when it is fit for drinking. As the _túlapai_ will spoil in twelve hours it must be drunk quickly. Used in moderation it is not a bad beverage, but by no means a pleasant one to the civilized palate. The Apache, however, knows no moderation in his _túlapai_ drinking. He sometimes fasts for a day and then drinks great quantities of it,—often a gallon or two—when for a time he becomes a savage indeed. [Illustration: Filling the Pit - Apache] Filling the Pit - Apache _From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_ Another intoxicant, more effective than _túlapai_, is made from the mescal—not from the sap, according to the Mexican method, but from the cooked plant, which is placed in a heated pit and left until fermentation begins. It is then ground, mixed with water, roots added, and the whole boiled and set aside to complete fermentation. The Indians say its taste is sharp, like whiskey. A small quantity readily produces intoxication. Of game foods the Apache has deer, antelope, and wild turkey, with quail, some water fowl, smaller birds, rabbits, and wood-rats. Fish and bear meat are strictly tabooed.