“I'd put anything on the rack,” he said. “Rattlesnake, roadkill, mouse.”
“He'd actually tell people that,” Mali Matt said with a laugh. “He'd say, ‘You want to try some skunk meat?' It'd scare people off.”
The celebration wraps up Friday with a golf tournament at the college's Silver Fox Golf Course, a Jack Gladstone concert at 1 p.m., dedication of SKC's new $5.5 million health and special events center at 3:30, and a 6 p.m. powwow at the Two Eagle River gymnasium.
Quequesah - one of the college's original four dozen students in 1977, in its carpentry classes - may have been taken off the meat-drying detail, but the current Salish language teacher and popular powwow master of ceremonies was still hanging around the tent where the demonstration was taking place, keeping an eye on the younger people running things.
Brown, director of SKC's Native American Language Teacher Training Institute, was doing his best to cut the meat in long, thin strips, using a traditional method that's like rolling out a carpet, before salting it and putting it over the fire to dry.
“There are old ladies around here who would chew me out if they saw this,” he said with a smile. “Mine are a little too thick. You want a slice, not a steak. There are old ladies who are really quick at it, and can get some extremely long, thin pieces going.”
The traditional carving method dates back centuries, when meat-cutting tools were obsidian, not steel. As she watched the demonstration, April Charlo noted that different people use different methods. Jay Labor, she said, put one hand on a chunk of meat and sliced thin layers off the bottom, while Mali Matt held a chunk up and sheared off her slices.
“It's fascinating,” Charlo said. “You have the old school, the new school, and her own school.”
“I figured I'd play it safe, or I'd cut myself,” Matt explained.
Brown has been around meat-drying since he was a child, and remembers once, at about the age of 11, “I ate so much and my jaw got so sore I couldn't talk. It's very addictive.”
The meat is essentially jerky, Brown said, although “most people make the distinction that you dry meat at home, and jerky is what you buy at the store. Jerky is made in huge commercial ovens, but this is made outside on a rack over an open fire.”
The keys, he said, are to use the right wood, keep the fire smoldering more than burning, and get those nice thin slices of smoke-flavored meat.
“The idea is to dry it, not cook it,” Brown said. “If you can hear the meat sizzle, the fire is too hot. To get a piece of dry meat that's warm off the rack, with a little fat on it - oh, that's the best.”
Brown and his cohorts used cottonwood, but he says lots of people like to use cherry or apple wood to add to the flavor.
“You want green wood, without any pitch in it,” he said.
Other flavorings are often added. Part of the meat drying on the rack at SKC on Thursday had been seasoned with Tabasco sauce.
The whole process began with hunting, of course. The wife and father-in-law of Juan Perez, SKC's director of student life and women's basketball coach, both shot a deer for the demonstration, and Willy Stevens, husband of SKC board chairman Patty Stevens, donated two more.
On Wednesday, students from a Salish language class at Two Eagle River High School helped butcher the four deer while they went through a language review.
The meat slices were laid out on the large rack that sat about three feet above the smoldering fire, and as the pieces dried and shrank, more meat was added. It takes three to four hours to dry the meat.
“This comes from a time when people didn't have refrigeration,” Brown said, “and it was common around the world and with lots of tribes. I've seen people keep dried meat for up to three months. It's best kept in a paper bag, where it can breathe better. Wetness or humidity can ruin it.”
Some people simply dry meat in the wind, he said. “But most Salish people I know like to put smoke under it.”
Plenty of people stopped by to watch the process and sample the warm and tender meat, and Brown said the rest would be offered to folks at Friday's powwow.
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com
‘Legacy Day'
The three-day celebration of Salish Kootenai College's 30th anniversary concludes Friday with “Legacy Day.” On tap:
10:30 a.m.: Shotgun start for the Joe McDonald Golf Scholarship Tournament, Silver Fox Golf Course.
1 p.m.: Jack Gladstone concert.
3:30 p.m.: Reception and dedication of the college's new health and special events center.
4 p.m.: Prayer ceremony with Johnny Arlee, honor song by Yamn'Cut, ribbon cutting.
6 p.m.: Powwow, Two Eagle River School gymnasium.
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