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Stonablaks and Shiwulinz
Stontablaks
In the preparation of lowak, the
pods in the interior of the drying piles do not dry, but turn into a soft,
moist, rotten mass (Plate 9), the seeds themselves,
however, retaining their freshness. When the piles are opened the dry pods
are thrown in a pile by themselves to be made into lowak, but these moist,
decomposing pods are differently treated and produce a superior grade of seed having a
different name, stontablaks (stont"-a-blaks). The rotten pods, denuded of
their covering of dry ones, are pounded to a pulpy mass with a site.
According to information from the Indians, the pounded pulp is further
exposed until dry, and is then screened and winnowed, being thus left in the
same form as lowak, suitable for cooking as shiwulinz, but not as lolensh
and shnaps.
Shiwulinz
When required for cooking, the
dried seeds, either lowak or stontablaks, are first roasted, shell and all,
then cracked, and the shells winnowed out from the broken seeds on a shaker.
The seeds, called in this condition lint (Plate 12,
fig. 3), are then boiled, forming a sort of mush to which the Indians apply
the same name.
The word is derived from sbi'-wi,
meaning to shake or winnow, and refers to
the winnowing of the shells from the cracked
seeds. Among the younger women the cracking
is often done in a hand coffee mill, but the
usual instrument is the primitive meeting
stone.
The roasting of lowak, preparatory to the making of
shiwulinz, is now usually done in a frying pan, but the primitive method of
roasting with live coals in a wokas shaker is still occasionally used by
some of the old people. This operation, as witnessed at one of the wokas
camps on Klamath Marsh, is conducted as follows: About 3 quarts of lowed
were placed in a shaker and several pieces of live coal from a lodge pole
pine fire were laid on top of the seeds. Most of the coals were 1 inch or
less in diameter; a few were 3 or 4 inches long and 2 or 3 inches thick. The
seeds and coals were then tossed so as to roll over and over each other in
the shaker, the contents going into the air from the farther margin of the
shaker and falling in the middle. After a few minutes the coals began to
cool. They were then brought to the top of the mass of seeds by a rotary
motion, the shaker was set on the ground, and a little vigorous fanning with
another empty shaker soon brought the coals to a lively heat. Then the
tossing went on again as before until the roasting was completed. The whole
process requires dexterity, both to keep the coals in motion so that the
shaker will not burn and to roast the seeds evenly without scorching them.
Another form of food prepared from lowak is named
stilinsh (stil'-insh). This differs from sbiwulinz in that the shells are
not winnowed out on a shaker, but are skimmed from the boiling pot while the
seeds are cooking. The name is derived from sterling, to skim, a word now
applied to various operations, from the removal of cream from milk to the
washing of gold in a miner's pan. In earlier times a food named talwas (tal'-was)
was prepared from lowak. This was essentially the same as shiwulinz and
stilish, but the boiling was done in a water-tight basket into which hot
stones were dropped, a method of cooking not practiced among the Klamaths at
the present day.
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Wokas, Primitive Food of
the Klamath Indians
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