The women's work began once the hunt was over. They moved in to cut up the carcasses and prepare the meat for production of pemmican. After being thinly sliced, the meat was dried on racks in the sun or over a slow fire. Such is the process shown in this water-colour by William Armstrong. When dry, the meat was pounded by the women into a flaky mass. About fifty pounds of pounded meat would be mixed with forty pounds of melted buffalo fat to make up a regulation ninety-pound bag (taureau) of pemmican. The advantage of pemmican was that it was a concentrated, nutritious food which kept well. While a voyageur required a daily ration of eight pounds of fresh meat, he could be satisfied with two to three pounds of pemmican! A higher grade of pemmican for the officers was made by adding dried berries, but too often one also found "hair, sticks, bark, spruce leaves, stones, sand, etc."
