Edward S. Curtis Collection — The wokas season--Klamath

The wókas season--Klamath. The staple article of food was the seed of the yellow water-lily, Nymphæa polysepala. It is used as a delicacy. The extensive marshes of the region are in many places covered solidly to the extent of hundreds and thousands of acres with the spreading leaves of this plants. Wókas, as the plant and the seed are called, is gathered in the latter part of August and through the whole of September. Poling a canoe through the masses of leaves and trailing stems, the harvester, always a woman, pulls the nearly ripe pods from their stems and drops them in the canoe. The mature pods, having burst open, are too sticky to be taken in the hand, and are scooped up in a tule ladle and deposited in a canoe-shaped basket. At the end of the day the contents of the basket are poured into a pit about two feet in diameter and of equal depth, and from day to day the harvest of ripe pods is added. The whole is covered with a mat. At the end of the season the contents of the pits, now by fermentation a viscous mass, is transferred to a canoe, and after the admixture of water it is thoroughly stirred so as to separate the seeds, which drop to the bottom. The gluey liquid and refu

Date

2011-12-13

Archive

Library of Congress (via Wikimedia Commons)

Type

image

Original size

1,024 × 829 pixels

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