Drying Meat, Fish, and Other Food For drying their provisions, a grating of stakes is built and placed upon four posts. The game is laid on this, and a fire is lighted underneath to cure it in the smoke. The Indians dry the meat very carefully, to make sure it will not spoil. This stock is presumably laid in for their own use during the winter months (when they take to the woods), since they would never give us anything from these provisions. The reason their granaries are always built near a cliff on the bank of a stream not far from the forest is that they should be accessible by water. This, if they are in need of food in their winter quarters, they are able to get supplies by canoe.