Nancy White Horse (Brule Sioux) making cakes from pounded choke berries. Rosebud Reservation, SD, August 20, 1962. Cleaned, stemmed fruit had been placed in a rawhide container, pounded with a hammerstone or an anvil, formed into cakes and dried 3-4 days. Per Door Book/Accession Record: Mixing choke berries with meat. Blackfoot.
Donor:
William R. Heick
Collection place:
South Dakota
Verbatim coll. place:
South Dakota
Culture or time period:
Brule
Collector:
William R. Heick
Collection date:
1962
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Accession date:
March 22, 2000
Department:
Still and motion photography
Dimensions:
length 35.56 centimeters and width 25.4 centimeters
Comment:
Per labels provided by Ira Jacknis: Nancy White Horse (Brule Sioux) making cakes from pounded chokecherries. Rosebud Reservation, SD, August 20, 1962. Demonstrating a traditional form of Plains food preservation, Nancy White Horse is shown forming small, round, flat cakes from chokecherries she has pounded. First she cleans and stems the fruit. Placing the cherries in a rawhide container, she pounds them, a few at a time, with an anvil and hammerstone. In former times the bladder of a buffalo was used like a glove over the hand while pounding the cherries. She forms the cakes in the bark from the cherry "pulp" and places them on a skin to dry, which takes three of four days. The cakes are then stored in a parfleche or rawhide container. They are pounded along with dry meat or they may be eaten as is. The juice from the cherries was also used to stain bone or stone knives.