xylaria, the meat used has to be dried (to reduce water content, smoked to add flavour) like what you call biltong/jerky, cooked still leaves water/oil content in the meat that is unacceptable in the true use and storage of pemican. It was a trail food (along with others) made to feed the aboriginals on the trade/war trails, later the HBC voyageurs, even the factors who were on their routes so no time would be wasted to hunt or gather. It was used as warm weather food as this is when the canoes could travel easily around the interior water routes, in snow /winter that when all would be in the true trapping season (better density of fur) .
I am not sure what suet is as a whole ( I carve of chunks of fat from some of my game and put it up for the birds to eat in the fall is this suet?) but we used rendered fat (from good tasting animals), melted/heated, skimmed/filtered, recongealed and thoroughly mixed with the pounded dried meat, berries were only added not for their vtamin or binding but for taste if none were available you went without. Our Vit we got from many other sources.
One thing to note, wild animals store their fat mostly on the outside of their body while domecticated animals have a higher "marbling of interior fat"; that is were "rabbit starvation" of too lean meats can come from with wild game unless you eat all the animal and you add some other fats into your diet. Our taste today are quite different then in the past we have more variety but in all are we really better fed?
