When stringing slices of squash myself, I always sat on the floor of the drying stage with a pile of loaded spits at my left side. As I unloaded a spit, I dropped it at my right side. The grass string hung over the edge of the stage floor, on the side nearest the lodge. On the ground below I had spread some scraped hides, so that the squash slices, falling down the string, would not touch the ground and become soiled.
When a string became full, I tossed the end over the edge of the floor, letting it fall down upon the heap on the scraped hides.
The needle used to skewer the slices was bound to the end of the grass string two inches or more from its extremity, as shown in figure 21. When the string was filled, one had but to turn the needle athwart, and it became a button or anchor, preventing the slices from slipping off.
The strings filled with dried squash slices, were now taken into the lodge. Between the right front main post of the lodge and the circle of outer posts and near the puncheon fire screen at the place it bent in toward the wall, a stage had been built. Two forked posts, about as high as my head, supported a pole ten or twelve feet long; and over this pole the strings of squash were looped, care being taken that they hung at a height to let the dogs run under without touching and contaminating the squash. I speak of the right front main post; I use right and left in the Indian sense, which assumes that an earth lodge faces the doorway; the door indeed is the lodge’s mouth.
On sunny days these strings were taken outside. Several of the long poles, or drying rods, already described, were brought down from the top of the stage and lashed to the outside of the stage posts on either side. If the harvest was a good one, a row of these rods might extend the whole length of either side of the stage, and even around the ends. On the railing thus made the squash strings were taken out and hung on a fair day; in the morning, on the east side; in the afternoon, on the west side of the stage.
On wet days, the squash strings were left inside the lodge; and if the rain was falling heavily, a tent skin, or scraped rawhides, dried and ready to tan, were thrown over them to protect from dampness. The air in the lodge was damp on a rainy day; and sometimes the roof leaked.