pemican

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Related to pemican: pemmican, bannock, hardtack

pem·mi·can

also pem·i·can (pĕm′ĭ-kən)

1. A food prepared by Native Americans from lean dried strips of meat pounded into paste, mixed with fat and berries, and pressed into small cakes.

2. A food made chiefly from beef, dried fruit, and suet, used as emergency rations.

[Cree pimihkān, from pimihkēw, he makes grease, makes pemmican, from Proto-Algonquian *pemihkēwa : *pemyi, grease + *-ehkē-, to make, gather.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

pemican - lean dried meat pounded fine and mixed with melted fat; used especially by North American Indians

pemmican

meat - the flesh of animals (including fishes and birds and snails) used as food

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The first of these only go to the plains for one summer hunt to make pemican and dried meat for the winter's supply; they have generally a house and small farm in one of the various settlements on North Saskatchewan and put in a crop of potatoes, wheat and barley before going to the plains to be gathered on their return.

THE STATE OF THE WEST PREDICTIONS OF 1874

Paul Press by the Manitoban of October 23 which observed sarcastically that crimes had been committed: "Good for the Press, but what of the corduroys, and the capots, and the pemican at Pembina Post?"(19) The Canadian reporter referred to the theft of goods from the HBC post at Fort Pembina, and was undoubtedly annoyed that these Irish-Americans were not held responsible for any criminal activity whatsoever.

Unequal justice: the Metis in (W.R.) O'Donoghue's raid of 1871

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