The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-02-10
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.
METHODS THEY PURSUED IN COOK
ING THEIR FOODS.

a SyhoPSAS oI d Lecture Oy Professor
Morse-The Antiquity of Cooking-Orig-
inal Manner of Applying Heat to Meats
and observation-disclosures Huts.
Professor Morse gave his second lect-
ure on Primitive People at Academy
hall. and spoke particularly of fireplaces
and stoves. In opening he briefly re-
viewed his first lecture, making special
reference to the fact that men and ami
mails adapt themselves to their surround
1ngs. Thus dogs and cats in civilized
homes eat corn and oatmeal, while cows
IN Iceland will eat salt fish as a steady
diet, though neither of these animals
would eat such food in the ordinary
natural state.
Proceeding to the subject in hand,
Professor Morse cited the finding of
baked cakes with the Egyptian mum
mics as evidence of the antiquity of
cooked food. and of the universal prim-
tive fashion among savage or primitive
peoples of cooking food in vessels resting
on three rounded stones, which man
very early found out were better than
four. This method was employed by
the North American Indians, the Esqui-
maux, the modern Firms, and even by
the Irish in the Seventeenth century.
Another method employed was the
cooking of meats in baskets of water
with hot stones. Some tribes of the
North American Indians cooked corn,
grasshoppers, and perhaps other delica-
cies by placing them in clay lined bask-
cts, with red hot Goals, and shaking the
baskets back and forth and blowing off
the ashes and cinders till the contents
were done to what the Indians probably
considered a turn.
ESQUDIAU HUTS.
The kitchens of New Zealand and Cey-
Ion are but rough primitive forms of
many that are seen in Germany and Eng
land, except that in the former cases
the fires are out of doors. English and
German freplaces are far behind the
American stove and cooking range, and
are really survivals of prehistoric times
though the hearths for the fires are raised
and arrangements made for the escape of
the smoke.
Succeeding the period of placing pots
on three stones over the fire comes their
suspension by some support, familiar
method being by means of three sticks
fastened together at the top The Esqui-
mau suspends his kettle from the ceiling
of his ice hut by means of cord or hide
And here the lecturer departed from his
subject to describe how the hut is built
spirally, with blocks of ice and of dome
shape. The hut is lined with skins, SO
that what little of the ice melts will not
drop down on the occupants in the form
of water.
These huts are warmed by open crude
oil lamps, in which is moss saturated
with oil, and over them are suspended
the kettles The oil comes from the
blubber of the whale, seal and similar
animals. and is obtained by the women
and children, whose principal business it
is in the winter time to chew blubber to
get the oil Under the hut there is usu-
ally a large supply of blubber stored for
winter use.
Professor Morse describes the stoves
of China and Japan, and showed two
patterns of what appeared to be earthen-
ware portable stoves, about the size of
bean pots Other stoves are rough clay
or brick affairs, with openings for wood
and varying numbers of holes on top for
the accommodation Of cooking utensils,
and none have arrangements for the di-
rect escape of the smoke out of doors.
EARLY METHODS OF GETTING FIRE.
Some of these eastern stoves have
61I VI lnUOlS over Gu0 uI6DldCGS TO
keep out evil spirits, and in some of them
light is kept burning, or little food
or some other trifle placed by way of in
voking the care of some good spirit over
the food that is to be cooked.
In closing, the lecturer had something
to say about primitive modes of creating
and preserving fire, followed by some in
teresting experiments with crude appli-
Tho -icriv, OfG 10
nor its first discoverer, but the discovery
must have been followed by tremendous
stride of advancement by the human race.
Probably fire was first used as religious
rite, and by many savage nations it has
been worshiped as god; after that it
was probably used for cooking, and then
for other purposes. >
Some people never learned the art of
making fire, but took good care never to
be without it. Emin Pasha, whose rescue
from the heart of Africa Stanley sought,
vouches for -wondrous tales in that region
to the effect that in some sections of Cen
trail Africa bands of chimpanzees occa-
sionally raid the native villages with
lighted torches.
Professor Morse illustrated three meth
DDS of starting fires-one by rubbing a
piece of bamboo with a sharp edged
stick; another by rubbing stick in
groove On a piece of wood. and third
by means of fire drill. None of these
methods brings direct blaze, but will
produce a spark from which fire may
be brought by coaxing with tinder. The
fire drill was the most successful of the
experiments on this occasion, and was ac-
companied by considerable smoke, but
no fire. The drill is simple arrange
ment of wood and cord, by which stick
is kept rapidly revolving on piece of