Powhatan Agriculture
A review of some agricultural practices of the Powhatan shows but a few traces of aboriginal Indian survival by the 1920’s.
Farming
Map of the Production of Tobacco, per square mile, 1910
Map of the Production of Tobacco, per square mile, 1910
Map of the Value of Farm Products, Improved land, 1910
Map of the Value of Farm Products, Improved land, 1910
Map of the Value of Farm Products, by State, 1910
Map of the Value of Farm Products, by State, 1910
Map of the Average Size of Farms, by State, 1910
Map of the Average Size of Farms, by State, 1910
Wokas as an Article of Commerce
In the preparation of lolensh and of shiwulinz the broken seed shells (tsi’-hlak) are winnowed, as already described, from the seed kernels. These seed shells or hulls are not always thrown away, but they are often saved for a later curious use. In the manufacture of their finer baskets and trays the Klamaths use for …
Extracting Wokas Seeds by the Diachas Process
In wokas pods properly roasted as well the interior tissues are in the condition of a mucilaginous paste. The seeds do not separate from this paste as readily as they do from the mucilage in pods of the spokwas grade, and therefore the Indian has invented another method of extracting them. This method is known …
Stonablaks and Shiwulinz
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, 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, …
Awal
When seeds are required to be extracted from freshly gathered pods, either to furnish an immediate food supply, or to secure material for the preparation of shnaps or because the wokas gatherer is nearing the end of his harvest and can not wait for the pods to dry, a process of cooking or steaming the …
Shnaps and Lowak
In the preparation of shnaps from shelled wokas, kernels, or lolensh, the primitive method of roasting with live coals in a wokas shaker, as described under shiwulinz, seems to have been entirely discarded. The frying pan is now used instead by all the Indians. A handful or two of lolensh, either the fresh or the …
Lolensh
Fresh wokas seeds, in which the kernels are still moist, are in the condition necessary for manufacture into what is called lolensh (lo-lensh’). This condition exists in spokwas and in the two grades of seeds, nokapk and chiniakuni, derived from cooked pods, or away described below. The dried seeds, lowed and stontablaks, can not be …
Spokwas
The basketful of spokwas as it is brought from the boat is emptied into a pit dug in the ground for the purpose, to which each successive day’s harvest of spokwas is added. The disintegrating pods undergo some process of fermentation, which changes them into a mucilaginous liquid mass having the texture of a thin …
Harvesting Wokas
Wokas is harvested exclusively in boats of the kind known as a “dugout.” The dugout (wuns) is hollowed from a single log, commonly of the yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa), and ordinarily is about 18 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 16 inches deep (Plate 4). Sometimes logs if Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga mucronata) are used. This …
Klamath Names Connected with the Wokas Industry
The Wokas Plant, its Parts, and its Products A’-wal, roasted pods. Bal’-bal-wam, leaf. Chin-i’-a-kûm, immature seeds, constituting the fifth grade. Di-䔑chäs’, a process of extracting seeds from roasted pods. Ga’-i-dan’, rootstock. Gam’-bol-wos, flower hold. Ka-kal’-ga’-li, pod. Kakt-chi’-as, screenings from the diachas process. Kai’-a-kams, said to be an old name for chiniakum. Lo-lensh, shelled seeds, not …
Farming in Washington
The total amount of land surveyed in Washington down to June was 15,959,17 out of the 44,796,160 acres constituting the area of the state. For many years the fortunate combination of soil and climate in eastern Washington, whereby all the cereals can be produced in the greatest abundance and of the highest excellence, was not …
Cattle, Sheep and Horses in Washington
To what an extent the people of the Puget Sound country and the Cowlitz and Chehalis valleys depended upon their cattle for support was illustrated in 1863, when the government prohibited for a time the exportation of livestock. The order was in consequence of Canada being made a field of operations for the leaders of …
Montana Prospectors and Farmers
The two primary elements of Montana’s grand development were gold and grasses. In a rough country of apparently few resources, the discovery of Alder gulch, resulting in $60,000,000 of precious metal, which that ten miles of auriferous ground produced in twenty years, was like the rubbing of an Aladdin lamp. It drew eager prospectors from …
Montana Cattle Ranching
I will give here an account of the methods of cattle-growers in Montana and the adjoining country. The land belonging to the government, which made no charge for pasturage, and the cattle requiring little if any care during the winter, the cost of keeping them was trifling, and consisted mainly in the wages paid to …