Hand-tinted stereograph, T. W. Ingersoll [?], c. 1899, 8.9 x 17.8 cm. 

Wagon, tipi, and rack made of wooden poles with several animal skins hanging on it.  Several Native American Indians are sitting on the ground (two working with backs to camera). 

On front: “495.  Drying Fish Meat in a Sioux Camp.” 

On back: “After midsummer it is the custom of the Northern Sioux to begin their preparations for winter by securing and drying the meat which will sustain life during the cold weather when hunting is impossible.  To this end each family picks out some favorite spot, either for hunting or fishing, and as shown in this picture, fix their teepee and in the immediate neighborhood, upon a triangle of posts, build a drying-rack, such as has been started in this picture.  This structure will be covered with small poles about two inches apart, and after the fish are cleaned and split, they will be rubbed liberally with salt, placed upon the poles and a slow fire built beneath, just sufficient to keep the flies away and to assist by gentle heat in the drying process.  The two Indians with their backs to the picture are evidently engaged in cleaning the fish for this purpose.  All Indians are indifferent fishermen, after the methods of white men, and it is their custom to catch their finny prey by the use of nets, which are woven by the squaws and which are set in likely places and examined once a day until a sufficient supply of fish has been obtained.  During the hunting season, which immediately follows the fishing, the same procedure is gone through with, except that the meat is cut in long, thin strips and hung over the poles in much the same manner the fish are hung.  A feature of every Indian encampment are the dogs.  Two will be seen in this picture, each engaged in an endeavor to sneak away with some of the fish which the Indians are preparing for the drying rack.  A8835”