They cut the leanest parts thin and draped them over ropes between saddles, hoping that the night breeze and moonlight might make them jerky- from Quechua, ch’arki, dried and deboned camelid (alpaca or llama)- by dawn. We had no salt and it did not work so the meat turned putrid in a day. Wehr has the noun Sharmouta to mean Rag, Shred, Tatter, Whore, and Slut. The drovers called it Sharmout and laughed when I added a final A to the word.
©David Melody