Hey forty,
In my younger days, I hung around a big time buckskinning family. (I was secretely fond of the only girl in the family, but good friends with her brothers. She ignored me). Anyway, we made pemmican. Here is the recipe.
4 cups dried meat(usually deer, but beef was used on occasion. the leaner the better.) The main cook in the bunch would soak the meat in a very gelatinous stock (when dried, it was known as hard soup or pocket soup. the dried beef soup looked like a piece of hard candy) After soaking, he would dry it over a smokey fire. After dry, grind/pound meat in to a meally consistency. Nearly a powder.
3 cups dried fruit - (we used raisins, dried cranberries, or dried blue berries. Some times hazelnuts or black walnuts were added as well. grind crush these as well.
2 cups rendered fat - for health reasons, I would use only beef fat. I also recall that we rendered the fat twice. Someone told us this extended the shelf life.
When fat is melted but only luke warm, combine everything in a big bowl and mix thoroughly. pour out in a pan and make bars/patties about 1 inch thick.
I remembered reading that some tribes then sealed the pemmican with more fat/tallow. I really don't think this is necessary, but it probably gave them more calories in the diet. This stuff takes some getting use to. It is tasty, but much higher in fat than modern man is typically use to.