from burning, and then thrown on the flesh side of a dry hide, that lay on the ground near by.  After a time, the roasting of this dried meat caused a smoke to rise from the fire in use, which gave the meat a bitter taste, if cooked in it.  They then turned to the other fire, and used that until the first one had burned clear again.  After enough of the roasted meat had been thrown on the hide, it was flailed out with sticks, and being very brittle was easily broken up, and made small.  It was constantly stirred and pounded until it was all fine.  Meantime, the tallow of the buffalo had been melted in a large kettle, and the pemmican bags prepared.  These were made of bull’s hide, and were in two pieces, cut oblong, and with the corners rounded off.  Two such pieces sewed together made a bag which would hold one hundred pounds.  The pounded meat and tallow—­the latter just beginning to cool—­were put in a trough made of bull’s hide, a wooden spade being used to stir the mixture.  After it was thoroughly mixed, it was shovelled into one of the sacks, held open, and rammed down and packed tight with a big stick, every effort being made to expel all the air.  When the bag was full and packed as tight as possible, it was sewn up.  It was then put on the ground, and the women jumped on it to make it still more tight and solid.  It was then laid away in the sun to cool and dry.  It usually took the meat of two cows to make a bag of one hundred pounds; a very large bull might make a sack of from eighty to one hundred pounds.

A much finer grade of pemmican was made from the choicest parts of the buffalo with marrow fat.  To this dried berries and pounded choke-cherries were added, making a delicious food, which was extremely nutritious.  Pemmican was eaten either dry as it came from the sack, or stewed with water.

In the spring, the people had great feasts of the eggs of ducks and other water-fowl.  A large quantity having been gathered, a hole was dug in the ground, and a little water put in it.  At short intervals above the water, platforms of sticks were built, on which the eggs were laid.  A smaller hole was dug at one side of the large hole, slanting into the bottom of it.  When all was ready, the top of the larger hole was covered with mud, laid upon cross sticks, and red-hot stones were dropped into the slant, when they rolled down into the water, heating it, and so cooking the eggs by steam.

Fish were seldom eaten by these people in early days, but now they seem very fond of them.  Turtles, frogs, and lizards are considered creatures of evil, and are never eaten.  Dogs, considered a great delicacy by the Crees, Gros Ventres, Sioux, Assinaboines, and other surrounding tribes, were never eaten by the Blackfeet.  No religious motive is assigned for this abstinence.  I once heard a Piegan say that it was wrong to eat dogs.  “They are our true friends,” he said.  “Men say they are our friends and then turn against us, but our dogs are always true.  They mourn when we are absent, and are always glad when we return.  They keep watch for us in the night when we sleep.  So pity the poor dogs.”