Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1880 — Grasshoppers as Food. [ARTICLE]

Grasshoppers as Food.

Ia the Sierra and Martis valleys Indian huts can be seen, and in ana around them are congregated the warriors and squaws of the tnbe, their sisters, cousins and their aunts, all intent upon the accomplishment of the grand result. As usual, the aqoaws do the work while their noble lords 101 l upon the green sward, smoke their pipes, and dreamily and laxily gase upon the counties myriads of bussing hoppers that fill tbe air and devour the vegetation. The squaws, carrying cone-shaped baskets of great capacity, scoop the grasshoppers with a fan-shaped implement into their lame baskets, and when loaded cany the wiggling mass of insects to camp and then prepare them for food. The grasshoppers, killed and subsequently dried, are mixed with mashed pine nuts or cracked wheat, and made into bread, moat delicious to -the palate of the Washoe. White visitors at the camp are always invited, in accordance'with Indian hospitality, to paatake of the compound, and great is the astonishment of poor Lo at the diaguji expressed by the white man for food of this kind. To the limited mind of the Indian, it is ineompreheasibls that any one should reject food which in his vedacnlar is definsdMbe* tag “muchee good.”