Klamath Names Connected with the Wokas Industry

     1. The Wokas Plant, its Parts, and its Products

A'-wal, roasted pods.
Bal'-bal-wam, leaf.
Chin-i'-a-kûm, immature seeds, constituting the fifth grade.
Di-ä"'chäs', a process of extracting seeds from roasted pods.
Ga'-i-dan', rootstock.
Gam'-bol-wos, flower hold.
Ka-kal'-ga'-li, pod.
Kakt-chi'-as, screenings from the diachas process.
Kai'-a-kams, said to be an old name for chiniakum.
Lo-lensh, shelled seeds, not roasted.
Lo-wak', seeds from dried pods, constituting the third grade.
No'-kapk, the better seeds from roasted pods, constituting the fourth grade. Shi'-wu-linz, dry seeds cracked and winnowed, cooked by boiling.
Shloks, pods strung on strings to dry.
Shlol'-bals, seeds, dried.
Shlo-tish', finely ground parched seeds.
Shnaps, shelled seeds, parched.
Spok'-was, full- matured seeds, constituting the first grade.
Stĭl-insh, dry cracked seeds cooked without winnowing.
Stont'-a'-blaks, seeds from pods fermented in the drying piles, constituting the second grade.
Swe-o-gûl'-tĭs, bunches of pods on short steins.
Tal'-was, soup of shiwulinz boiled in a basket with hot stones.
Tsi'-hlak, broken seed shells.
Wo'-kas, general name for the whole plant or for the food derived from it.

     2. Implements of the Wokas Industry

Cha'-ka-la, openwork willow pack basket.
Cha'-was, pack basket of tule strengthened with vertical sticks.
Ka-chik', paddle.
La-gak', pole for dugout.
Lkom, coals.
Lmach, lower mealing stone.
Mu-lo', dry rotten wood.
Näp, wicker spoon for gathering spokwas.
P'a'-hla, wokas shaker or winnowing tray.
Se'-ot a-ko'olks, wicker spoon for gathering wokas.
Sh'o-kobh', swan's breast spoon.
 

Shtap's', tule mat.
Si-lak'-al-ish, upper mealing stone.
Skä, stone for pounding wokas pods.
T'a'-yas. sack.
Ti-a', screening basket.
Tläks, coarse tale basket flat- or round-bottomed.
Wĭl'-ĭ-sĭk sack.
Wums, dugout.
Ya'-ki, openwork willow pack basket.

Explanation of Plants

Plate 1. The wokas plant 1 Nymphaea polysepala. The plant is shown natural size, but the leaves are not fully developed. The drawing was made at Kadik, Alaska.
Plate 2. Wokas pods. The pods, which were collected near Fort Klamath,
Oregon, are shown in their natural size.
Plate 3. A wokas gatherer's camp on the shore of Klamath Marsh, Oregon.
Plate 4. The wokas gatherer's boat and pole.
Plate 5.  Ten thousand acres of wokas, Klamath Marsh, Oregon. An Indian woman is poling a dugout.
Plate 6. One day's wokas harvest of two women.
Plate 7. Wokas in process of grinding on a mealing stone. Beneath the end of the lower stone (lmach) is a shaker (p'ahla), into which the meal is shoved when ground. The broken shells are afterwards winnowed out.
Plate 8. Wokas drying pile and implements. The close-woven basket on the extreme left, in the rear, as well as the one on the right, is a tlaks; the inverted conical basket is a chawas; the nearly flat close-woven one in front at the left is a p'ahla; each of the two screens is a tia; and the wicker spoon is a nap or seot akoolks.
Plate 9. An opened drying pile of wokas. The outer ring of dried pods is lowak; the inner mass of fermented pods, pounded and now lying exposed for further drying, is stontablaks. In the left corners are tule mats, on which wokas seeds are drying in the sun.
Plate 10. Wokas pods ready for firing. The roasting of the pods transforms them into away from which the seeds are extracted by the diachas process.
Plate 11. Extracting wokas seeds by the diachas process. The old woman is
pounding rotten wood into the roasted pods. At the right in a shaker is a quantity of seeds already cleaned. In front of the shaker is a pounder (ska), of pumice stone, larger than the one in the woman's hand.
Plate 12. Seeds of wokas. Fig. 1, dry seeds in the shell (lowak); fig. 2, parched seed (shnaps); fig, 3, cracked seeds (shiwulinz), the shells winnowed out; fig. 4, seed kernels (lolensh), the shells removed. The unusually dark appearance of the lowak in the specimen photographed was due to roasting.
Plate 13.  The end of a wokas camp. At the right is an awal pile still smoldering.  On the teats is wokas in various stages of extraction, and in front of the dugout are two sacks of dry seeds.

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Wokas, Primitive Food of the Klamath Indians

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