The Coconino sun., 1924-04-11

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meal obtained by grinding is put away
/ in flat basket trays awaiting the sec
ond process or the cooking of the corn,
which generally follows Immediately.
The cliff dwellers were familiar with
several ways of cooking Indian corn,
evidences of all of which have been
found in the great cliff houses of the
Mesa Verde. The most popular food
among them is what the Pueblos call
paper bread, a griddle-cake product
! like a Mexican tortilla, only thinner.
Generally the cook house is on the
roof of the building and in it we find
a flat stone set on four smaller stones
and smooth on the upper side. Under
this stone a hot fire is built. The
Batter, which consists practically Of
corn meal and water, is fried on this
stone. First the cook smearS it with
grease, generally small woodrat, and
then lays on the batter with her hand,
spreading it out thin and allowing it
to cook for short time.
After it has sufficiently cooked she
takes it off in sheets and lays it on a
flat square basket A good cook of
paper bread is as marked a parsonage
in pueblo community as chef in a
hotel. These flat, generally square
sheets of paper bread are next taken
and folded or rolled up into a roll,
ind are then fit for consumption. In
eating it is customary to dip this coil
into soup or stew, using it as spoon;
knives, forks and spoons being un-
known to the cliff dwellers.
The color of this bread varies con-
siderably. The most common is about
the color of hornets nest. For GER
emonial occasions we have among the
Hopi bread stained with certain vege-
table dyes, red, striped, black and
ether colors. In the authors excava-
tion at Oak Tree House, paper bread
was discovered by him on the floor of
room eight feet before the surface
of accumulated debris. Near it were
found the stone upon which it had
been fried, remnants of charcoal that
indicated the fire, and brush made
of grass tied in a bundle, which the
ancients used for two purposes, one
end for stirring stews or sweeping the
metate or grinding stone, and the
other end for combing the hair. This
particular deposit of objects was con-
nected with not only the frying of
paper bread, but the mill on which
the meal was prepared was not far
away.
A second kind Of food made out of
corn is what might be called a hasty
pudding. This pudding is made on
ceremonial occasions and is particular
" enjoyed by the Hopi at the close
of important festivals. One often
finds where the solid rock comes to
the surface of the ground within a
cliff dwelling round depression, care
fully smoothed, about foot and a
half deep. This depression occurs in
plazas of modern pueblos and is the
oven in which the so-called party pud-
ding is baked.
This pudding is made of thin bat
ter of corn meal and water like the
paper bread, to which is added home
made yeast which is not found in the
latter.
Throughout the day of the festival
ceremony one will notice number of
young girls in the Hopi pueblo, espec-
tally those belonging to the family of
the priest, whose cheeks are distend-
ed and who cannot talk with anybody
or answer any salutation.
These girls are preparing the yeast,
which is chewed by them and when
sufficiently impregnated with saliva
is realistically spurted into the jar of
corn meal batter. Of course, girls
with good teeth are chosen for that
purpose, and the fermentation of the
saliva and corn mush causes the light
ness Of the food.
On the eve of the day this hasty
pudding is used fires are kindled in
the ovens or depressions in the ground
already referred to and allowed to
burn until the sides of the oven are
thoroughly heated. The ashes are
then cleaned out and the oven lined
with corn husks to receive the corn
meal pudding. The whole is covered
with corn husks and circular stone
slab laid upon it. A hot fire Of grease
wood is made on the disk This fire
is replenished from time to time dur
ing the night. All night this fire
burns above the pudding, and if one
approaches the pueblo after dark the
fires illumine all the houses, making
most striking picture from the
plains below. In the morning the fires
are extinguished, the stone cover of
the oven removed, and the pudding
lifted out of the oven by the corn
husks in which it is enveloped.
1t is then ready to eat and is always
one of the main viands in the great
feast which closes the dance or other
ceremonial dramatizations which are
performed during the last day of a
festival. The cliff dwellers' hasty
pudding, after cooling, forms a COM
pact mass and is often recooked and
eaten with great relish, especially
with lamb and rabbit stews.
There are many other varieties of
food preparations made of corn meal
which were eaten by the cliff dwellers,
but there is probably no other people
among the aborigines of America who
had so many names for corn and corn
meal. They have about twenty diff
ferent words for maize, to designate
corn in its different stages Of growth,
corn in mass, sweet corn, green corn,
popcorn, and the like; this variety of
nomenclature being the result of the
MANY wears during which it has hnen