Making Pemmican the Indian Way

Cree Indian in the old days

Pemmican was derived from its use as an emergency food by the Cree Indians in Canada.  It is made by preparing strips of game meat such as bison, moose or venison by drying them either in the sun or before a campfire until they were hard.  The meat was then pounded into a powder using stones, and mixed 50/50% with fat from the animal.  A mixture of berries was pounded into the pemmican for additional flavor and added nutrition.  Ordinary pemmican was made from dried buffalo meat and fat.  By adding berries to the pemmican it was more apt to spoil.  Ordinary pemmican however was still edible after as much as 30 years.

The Métis central Canada native people who made their living trapping eventually became the biggest suppliers of pemmican.  They supplied it to the Canadian government the Hudson Bay Company, the US government and anyone else that bought the stuff.  Making pemmican was actually a work for the women of the group.  They used to cut the lean buffalo meat into strips about a quarter of an inch thick and hang on a rack made out of willow twig bows that were interlocked in such a way as to form a framework.  The buffalo meat was hung in this rack and was either dried by the hot sun or place close to an open flame.  The finished product of this step we’re all familiar with as jerked beef.  It was dry and hard.  The womenfolk pounded it into a powder between two stones.  When the meat is thoroughly powdered it was placed in a kettle and an equal volume of hot water was added.  This was thoroughly stirred together with the powdered meat forming ordinary pemmican.  They then poured it into rawhide sacks for storage.  While the mixture was in the sack and still hot they trod on it with their feet in order to flatten the pemmican into a slab for later use.  If they were going to make what was called festive pemmican they added fruits and berries, but this kind of pemmican did not have been keeping qualities of ordinary pemmican.

Mayday, the International Distress Call

This is the kind of helicopter I was flying when I had to declare a Mayday over Hackensack, NJ
Photo by Raimond Spekking

When I was flying I was forced to use the international distress call “Mayday” three times; in two of these incidents I actually declared a mayday, the third event happened so fast that I was on the ground before I was able to make the Mayday declaration.

Two of these events were in helicopters and the third was a conventional airplane. Two of them were related to fuel problems in the helicopter that caused by an infestation of bacteria in the fuel supply. The third was in a brand new airplane that had a leak in the engine that caused all the oil to run out causing the engine seize, and partially come apart.

The word Mayday is derived from the French phrase ‘venez m’aider’ meaning come help me. In a real emergency the word is repeated three times, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” with the call sign of the aircraft following along with information about the nature of the emergency and the people aboard the plane. A mayday is always used to signal a life-threatening emergency usually involving aircraft, boats or ships.

The use of mayday as an emergency code word is used all over the world as a distress signal in any voice procedure radio communication. It's only is use to signal a life-threatening emergency used by many groups including police forces, pilots, firefighters and other transportation organizations. Mayday is always repeated three times in a row “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” so that it is not mistaken for some other similar sounding word when given under poor radio transmission conditions. It is also used to distinguish an actual Mayday call from any other messages that may relate to a Mayday call.

A typical mayday calls sounds like this, “Mayday Mayday Mayday Teterboro Tower this is Helicopter 44 Charlie Bravo, this is helicopter 44 Charlie Bravo, this is helicopter 44 Charlie Brave with one person aboard; we’re going down, we’re going down, we’re going down! Over Hackensack New Jersey at 1500 feet hitting 200°, have picked a site to attempt an autorotation landing” The message ends; “Mayday 44 Charlie Bravo, over.”  This is an actual Mayday call I declared during the summer of 1978.

In an aircraft this is usually broadcast on 121.5 MHz or 243.0 MHz. In a boat or ship it is usually broadcast on a marine channel at 2182 kHz or on High Frequency radio channel 16 (156.8 MHz). This call is roughly the voice equivalent of an SOS, or a telephone call to 911.

Making a hoax Mayday call is a crime in most countries and in the United States it is a federal offense punishable by up to six years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine. Anyone may legally make a Mayday call to summon help in any real emergency without having to hold a license as a radio operator.

The use of mayday is a distress signal goes back to the early days of aviation where it was developed in England in the early 1920s at the then London airport at Croydon. It was originally used between Croydon and the airport at Paris, France, Le Bourget. The use of mayday is an international distress call spread from there to encompass the entire world.

References:

Personal experience as a pilot

Mayday (distress signal), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_(distress_signal)