A Botanical and Economic Study. 141 



until the grain burst. It was then taken out and ground to a line 

 powder, which kept fresh for a number of years. Heckewelder 1 

 called this preparation psindamocan. Captain John Smith, 

 in his narrative states that "they rost their come in the eare 

 greene, and bruising it in a mortar of wood with a polt, lap it 

 in rowles in the leaves of their corne, and so boyle it for a 

 dainty." "They also preserve their corne late planted that 

 will not ripe, by roasting it in hot ashes, the heat thereof 

 drying it. In winter they esteem it, being boiled in leaves, 

 for a rare dish they call pausarowmena." Heckewelder - says: 

 "That the bread is of two kinds, one made of milk corn, the 

 other of the dry and fully ripe. The last is finely pounded 

 and sifted and kneaded into dough. This dough is made into 

 round cakes about six inches in diameter and about an inch 

 thick. These cakes are baked in the cleanest of wood ashes. 

 Frequently they mixed with the dough pieces of pumpkin, 

 beans, chestnuts, whortleberries and other palatable ingre- 

 dients. They make an excellent pottage of their corn by 

 boiling it with fresh or dried meat (the latter pounded), dried 

 pumpkins, beans or chestnuts. The pottage is sometimes 

 sweetened with the sugar or molasses from the maple tree. 

 A very good dish is made by boiling well-pounded hickory 

 nut kernels with the maize. The nut liquor gives a rich and 

 agreeable flavor to the food." Loskiel 3 mentions that the 

 Indians frequently mixed smoked eels and shell fish, "chopped 

 fine, with their corn-meal in the making of bread. Their 

 common food, says Captain Bernard Romans/ is Zca, or 

 Indian corn. "They make meal; they boil it; they parch 

 and then pound it, taking this pounded material on long 

 journeys." "They also have a way of drying and pounding 

 their corn before it comes to maturity ; this they call boota- 

 copassa, i. c, cold flour. This, in small quantities, thrown 

 into cold water, boils and swells up, as much as common 

 meal boiled over a fire. It is a hearty food, and, being sweet, 



1 Heckewelder, Indian Nations, 195. 



- Heckewelder, Indian Nations, Mem. Hist. Soc. Penna., XII, 195- 



3 Loskiel, Mission North American Indians, Lond., 1794; Abbott, C. C , Primitive 



Industry, 1881, 149- ,. , B 



« Romans, Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, New A ork, 1775, t>8. 



