Andrew Hall pulls a yaha out of the hot coals at the Return of the Boise Valley People event.
By ROSELYNN YAZZIE
Sho-Ban News
BOISE — Every year traditionally prepared foods are served during the feasts at the annual Return of the Boise Valley People (ROBVP) event on Saturday at Gowen Field.
Roasted ground hog (gedu/yaha)
The prepping for lunch starts early in the morning with a fire pit used to slow roast ground hog.
Andrew Hall has been cooking and preparing them for 16 years. This was the first year he and his brother Brad were in charge of cooking the ground hogs by themselves.
He started hunting them when he was little. They hunt them in the early spring. A good spot to find them is in rocky areas because the animals like to sunbathe. Where he hunts them in the Boise area is near Prairie. He said it was good target practice and was told by his dad to shoot them in the head or neck to preserve the meat.
He learned to prepare them by his grandfather, who also told him stories about how to attract young ladies because of the smell of the ground hog would be left in their hair and how the men would use it as pomade to be attractive.
They cooked 27 of them; six of them were quite large and probably older. He said an older one has gray fur on its face and shoulders and the more gray they have the longer they’ve been around.
The process of cooking ground hog starts with having enough sagebrush for coal, which is the most important part because you want it to be hot. One must break down the wood and lay them out so the bigger wood burns first.
The ground hog is prepped for cooking by laying them in the fire to burn the hair off. Sagebrush can be used to brush the hair off. A willow is used to stich up their stomachs to keep the insides intact. After that the feet can be clipped off, if one so chooses.
Next, the ground hog is wrapped in tin foil. The coals are spread apart and the ground hogs are layed down and covered up. The small ground hogs can take anywhere from one to two hours to cook and the bigger ones can take two to three hours. The sizzling of the grease can be heard when they’re done cooking.
Once the ground hog is cooked it should have a nice crispy skin and tender meat, some say the meat can taste greasy but it is good. The entire ground hog can be consumed. Hall said many elders like to eat the head, especially the brain.
Isabella Callahan gets ready to enjoy her yaha.
Hall encouraged people to learn, watch, and enjoy the traditions because one day you’ll be passing them on to the youth.
Traditionally prepared salmon
Women from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and Shoshone-Bannock cooked six salmon for dinner.
The women preparing the salmon were dressed in wing dresses, work moccasins and bandanas. The salmon cooks were Lori Ann Edmo, Kaycee Dixey, Myke Moore and Lucy Suppah. They had the help of Hoss Suppah and Delson Suppah, who tended to the fire.
Traditional salmon cookers around the fire.
It was Myke Moore’s first time learning how to prepare and cook the salmon. She’s 15 years old and the current Miss Northwest Indian Youth Conference.
Moore was first taught how to fillet the salmon and gut it. She then carefully placed the salmon on a stick that would be stood up over a hot fire to cook it.
Moore said she wanted to learn because her uncles are fisherman.
“I wanted to learn myself how to cut them and gut them and all that so that I can be able to do that for my family,” she said.
Her mother made the dress she wore and she explained wearing a bandana kept the hair out of her face. She was doing her part to keep the traditions alive.
Traditional games were played throughout the day and an auction with proceeds going towards future ROBVP events followed in the evening.