The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

They occasionally cooked in baskets of spruce roots, if these were tight enough.
[3:18] Arthur Howeattle – Subsistence [Note: this section edited and expanded by Hal George during an
interview with Powell, 1978; these additions are included below).
The following roots were eaten. The preferred root-food was camas (kwala). Also, ferns, esp. bracken,
sword ferns, ladyferns, and rarely woodfern were eaten. Ferns in general were called pilapila; fernroots
in general were called t’sikwi’. Bracken were called (k’aqwa’apat) and licorice fern was called
tsaqqwa’at, a term later used fore chewing tobacco, because it was chewed. The Quiliute also dug and
ate clover roots (La’it’ay), camas (kwala), buttercup (k’ikiLiqaxpat), tiger lily (LiLipiwada’yu), silverweed
(t’Lit’Le’eshit), horsetail (t’sexaq), wild parsnip (saqwsuda’), and thistle roots (bo’olob or Liloq’wa’atapat)
and LeLxwac’so’ot, meaning unknown.
The following berries were eaten (most available in the prairies of Quileute territory): salmonberry
(cha’aLowa), red huckleberry (tiLo’ot), blue huckleberry (towadaq or yayaxad), salalberry (kwo’od),
thimbleberry (taqachiL), strawberry (t’obiya), elderberries (t’siba’), lowbush cranberry (p’ap’a’is), trailing
blackberries (bada’bixw), blackberries (introduced species, evergreen and himalaya, all called
shishipq’it’sa), gooseberry (t’ik’wapat), crabapples (soyoyoswa’), stink currants (t’Liloc’hiyiL), rose hips
(t’Lik’way) ), Oregon grape, and serviceberry (questionable use, no Quiliute name recalled).
[3:19] Roots were dug by means of a digger (t’iyoq’wot’soqwoL meaning “used for digging the ground”).
Made of spruce, yew, and vine maple limbs, crooked and pointed at the end. The point was barbed.
These had handles occasionally. They were from 4-5 feet long and about a 2-3 inches thick. Elk and deer
horn hand-diggers were also used.
Preservation of food. Elk and deer meat was dried. The fat was first cut away and left to dry separately.
Occasionally the fat was first partly smoked and dried…Smoke-drying meat was done only during the
cloudy months. The upriver prairies were much sunnier than downstream areas and the river mouth,
and meat was wind dried up there. In the summer when the sun was bright, the slices were smoked for a
short time only to keep the flies away and then they were placed outside on a platform above the ground,
whose poles were about 6 inches apart and left to dry in the sun. At night the meat was taken off and put
on again in the morning. Meat dried this way could keep about a year. Bear, cougar, and wildcat meat
was cut in long, one-inch thick strips and dried or smoked by being flapped over horizontal poles above
the ground. Of course, these meats were also eaten fresh, as was the meat of smaller animals and birds,
which were usually not preserved by drying.
[3:25] Fern roots were (taken home, then) rolled up and dried in the house by placing them across two or
133