85 
Peach-Trees were ever found growing In the Woods; neither have 
the foreign Indians that live remote from the English any other sort. 
And those living amongst us have a hundred of this sort for one of the 
other; they are a hardy Fruit, and are seldom damaged by the North- 
East Blasts, as others are. Of this sort we make Vinegar; wherefore 
we call them Vinegar-Peaches, and sometimes Indian Peaches." 
The peach was introduced into North America both by way of 
Mexico and the Atlantic seaboard. Its introduction into Mexico 
occurred at a very early period, for in Molina*s Mexican Dictionary, 
published in 157 1, fifty years after the conquest, we find three names 
for it, all hybrid, Hispano-Aztec 'compounds: xuchipaldurazno, 
orange-colored peach,' ctizticdurazno^ 'yellow-peach,' and xocothuelo' 
coion^ * peach fruit.' From Mexico, the peach appears to have grad- 
ually worked its way northward through Texas to Louisiana, where, 
according to LePage DuPratz, it was found in cultivation among the 
Indians when the French settled that province (about 1698), and 
where it was seen by P. Montigny in cultivation among the Taensas 
m 1699. In an alleged Taensa vocabulary which was published at 
Paris two or three years ago, and which contains a curious assort- 
ment of names of tropical, sub-tropical, temperate and arctic plants 
and animals known to these Louisiana Indians, the name of the 
peach is given "x^ybsblu-itwS^ 'marriage-fruit.' From the gulf region 
the peach appears to have reached Carolina at a date, according to 
Lawson's Indians, previous to the settlement of Europeans in that 
province, where it was known to the Tuscaroras as ru-zie^ and to the 
Waccons 2.% yann^. 
This antiquity of culture of some variety of the peach among the 
Southern Indians probably accounts for a curious fact to which it is 
niore particularly the object of this note to call attention, and that is 
that among several of the prominent tribes which formerly inhabited 
what are now the Southern States there is a distinct name for this 
foreign fruit, whence are derived not only the names of other intro- 
duced fruits, but also those of our 7iative ones. For example: 
Choctaw (Choctaw-Muscogee): 
Prunus Persica, takon (a radical word.) 
P. Americana, takon lush, or takon ushi, * little peach/ 
P, Chicasa, isi P takonlush, the peer's Httle peach/ 
Pyrus coronaria, isi V takon, the ' deer's peach/ 
P. Malus, takon tchito, * big peach/ 
P. communis, takon tchito holba, * similar to the apple literally, 
'peach big like/) 
Muscogee. (Choctaw-Muscogee): 
Prunus Persica, /fiMww (a radical word.) 
P. Americana, puMnd'ho ' barren peach. '* 
P. Chicasa, ifc/io im pakdnd, the 'deer's peach.' 
P. pumila, /t2M« ichi, 'little peach.' 
* So called, says Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, who kindly gave me these Musco- 
gee names, because the tree does not bear so regularly as do two other species of 
plums common in the Indian Territory, where these Indians are now settled. 
