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Food Plants of the North American Indians. 
By Dr. V. HAVARD, U. S. ARMY. 
The maxim that “Necessity knows no law” is well exemplified 
in the diet of the North American Indians who, when driven by 
stress of hunger, eat whatever the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
bring within reach, so that it may be truly said of some tribes that 
they reject nothing which their teeth can chew or their stomachs 
digest, however tasteless, unclean and repulsive. 
A review, therefore, of all the Indian food plants would include 
hundreds of species and be as tedious as unprofitable. I shall 
confine myself, in this paper, to the most important; those formerly, 
or yet, habitually used. 
The subject naturally divides itself into two heads: Ist, plants 
- cultivated; 2d, plants growing wild; and of the cultivated plants 
we may consider separately those introduced and those which are 
indigenous. 
At the time of the discovery of America many tribes had 
already emerged from a wild nomadic life and, although still 
largely depending upon game and fish, were entering upon a par- 
tial sedentary agricultural state. So far as a chronic state of war- 
fare would permit, land was set apart for farming purposes and 
upon it was almost invariably planted the triad of vegetables: 
maize, pumpkin or squash, and beans. This primitive agriculture 
was mostly pursued on and east of the Mississippi; in the arid in- 
terior comparatively small areas were occupied by agricultural 
tribes, and these dwelt chiefly in New Mexico. and Arizona, and 
along the Missouri, Platte and Arkansas rivers. 
The vegetables just mentioned were introduced from the south, 
being indigenous to Mexico or South America where a compara- 
tive state of civilization had fostered their evolution, and soon 
_ found their way to the St. Lawrence river and from the Atlantic 
to the Rio Colorado of the West. Cartier found them at Mon- 
treal in 1535, Champlain among the Five Nations in 1603, 
Hudson along the river bearing his name in 1609, the English at 
Jamestown in 1607, De Soto in the Gulf States in 1539, Mar- 
_ quette, Hennepin and La Salle in the Mississippi States, Cabe¢a 
