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Some
foods were roasted directly over a fire or placed in a pit and covered
with rocks and firewood. The rocks held heat to cook the food. Slow
cooking was done by putting the food in water in a watertight basket or
clay pot, and adding rocks that had been heated in the fire.
Rocks
used to grind cornmeal have been found among the artifacts collected near
Lyndon and Prophetstown. Cornmeal was a common part of the Indian’s
diet. They used it to make corn cakes or corn cookies, and added
it to soup or stew. For flavoring, the Indians used animal grease
and maple syrup which they tapped from the abundant maple trees in the
valley. |
The Indians knew
how to make many medicines from plants. They used sassafras leaf
oil to heal infections in cuts. Cough syrup was made from wild cherry
tree bark. Powdered witch hazel leaves helped stop bloody noses and
took the itch out of insect bites. Dandelion and peppermint leaves
were brewed for an upset stomach, and willow bark was brewed for fever
and chills because it has salicin, which is in aspirin.
Because life was
so valued by the Indians, the whole tribe was affected when a member died.
People outside of the family would prepare the body for burial by dressing
it in the best clothes and laying it with the feet pointed west where the
spirits of the deceased lived. The dead person's relatives placed
objects like clothing, utensils, food, and water in the grave for the deceased
to use on his or her journey to the afterworld. All night mourning
followed the burial. For 15 more days, the widow would sit in front
of her house and mourn while people brought her presents to ease her grief.
For up to a year after the death, the family mourned, wearing unwashed
clothes and messy hair. The mourners did wear moccasins, though, because
it was thought that if they didn't, and a mourner’s bare feet touched the
ground, there might be a drought. The mourning ended when the members
of the grieving family adopted a symbolic replacement for the deceased
person, often someone who looked like the loved one.
