Dry Meat Cutting Class Held at Northern Cheyenne

 

LAME DEER, Mont. – On Thursday evening, November 9, a group of young Northern Cheyenne, both male and female, gathered at the Chief Dull Knife College (CDKC) Activities Center in Lame Deer, MT to learn the traditional art or skill of cutting dry meat. 

The event sponsored by the CDKC Extension service was one of an ongoing series to promote food preservation, related cultural knowledge and other traditional crafts. Previously, classes have been held on gardening, food gathering, canning, jewelry making and collecting sage and cedar. A doll making class will begin in January 2024 and ideas for related classes on traditional arts are under discussion, Henri Thompson, Extension Director explained.

“We are extremely pleased with the interest from our target group, which is young adults, although many older adults are wanting to participate.  The Extension Service procured grant funding to conduct the classes and provide the materials which are free to the participants”.

“Though there are a handful of skillful dry meat cutters on the reservation, on the whole this art or skill is rapidly being lost,” she emphasized. For many years of our history, dry meat was the number one staple in the diet of the Plains Indian people including the Northern Cheyenne”.

The goal of the classes is also to provide the students with the cultural and historical insights related to each traditional skill being taught during the series. For example, it was explained to the students that after the harvest of a deer, traditionally a prayer of thanks and offering was made to the spirit of the animal by the hunters. “We treat this meat with respect, for once, just like human beings it had a spirit” Caufield explained.

Angelita Bearquiver, from Busby, a younger adult and a well-known dry meat cutter on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation was the primary instructor. Tribal elder Clara Caufield was the assistant. The teaching style required one-on-one instruction and there was much interaction between the students and instructors during the session, discussing matters related to the all-important dry meat.

The deer meat was donated by Sodizim Medicine Bull, Birney who had skinned, cleaned and deboned the meat, preparing it into muscle groups appropriate for dry meat strips. After the class, participants took home the meat they had prepared to dry to dry it and then make a pot of dry meat soup. “This was too good of an opportunity to pass up, “Thompson noted.

Participants included: Kitty Belle Fisher; Sky Harding, Carrie Bigback; Keenan Jefferson, Corrina Horn, Stephen Killsontop, and Lanita Haugen.

Extension service staff who also literally “tried their hands” at this traditional art included Henri Thompson, Bitty Wick, Tenaya Bigback and Carrie Littlebird.

 

(Contact Clara Caufield at acheyennevoice@gmailcom.)

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