Subject Guide
Mountain West
Malachite’s Big Hole
Dog - A Culinary Delight:
Lewis Garrard (Reference) describes preparation of dog. "First, a pup of four months'
sojourn in this world of sorrow, so fat he could scarcely
waddle, was caught by the
affectionate squaw and turned, and felt, and pinched, to see whether it would do.
Then it's neck was invested with one end of a buckskin strap, and the other tied
short up to the projecting coupling pole of our wagon, while the poor victim to savage
appetite, dangling between earth and sky, ki-ed until his little canine spirit departed
for the Elysium where neither squaws molest nor dog meat is eaten, to the very apparent
satisfaction of the laughing women, and delighted children... After hanging for
half an hour, the pup was taken down and laid on the fire. What! thought I, they
are not so heathenish as to offer sacrifices? He was kept on the blaze, with constant
turning, until the hair was well singed off, and then cleaned, beheaded, and divided
into all imaginable shapes and sizes, and cooked in water for six hours. It was
then fished out, and a portion set before us - slimey, glutinous mass, uninviting
to the eye, but, nevertheless, most delicate and sweet." See also Tricked into Eating
Dog, another series of passages by Garrard describing how one of the old hands tricked
him into eating dogmeat and proclaiming it to be the best.
◊◊
Garrard, who assisted a trader amongst the Cheyenne Indians, notes that during a hungry time: "Snow was deep; "fat cow" a luxury not to be thought of; horses too poor to "run" meat; and a scant supply of "poor bull" was all the provision with which to satisfy hunger. In this emergency, the inroads upon the dog population were most alarming and destructive."