TREE BARK AS HUMAN FOOD 



279 



later in the journals of the expedition. The reg-ion was 

 the western part of the present State of Washington. 



Government agents nearly a hundred years later re- 

 ported that the bark-eating Indians in the State of Oregon 

 were injuring the pine forests. The report was by John 

 B. Liebig and may be found in the United States 

 Geological Survey's twenty-first annual report, part V, 

 page 290, as follows : 



"The custom of the Indians of peeling the yellow pine 

 at certain seasons of the year to obtain the camliium 

 layer which they use for food, 

 is in some localities a fruitful 

 contributory cause toward the 

 destruction of the yellow pine 

 by fire. They do not carry the 

 peeling process far enough to 

 girdle the trees, but they re- 

 move a large enough piece of 

 bark to make a gaping wound 

 which never heals over and 

 which furnishes an excellent 

 entrance to fire. Throughout 

 the forests on the Klamath 

 Reservation trees barked in 

 that manner are very common. 

 Along the eastern region of 

 Klamath marsh they are found 

 by the thousand." 



The bark of another far 

 western tree has long served 

 the Indians as food, but it docs 

 not appear that white men 

 liave ever been forced to use 

 that resource to preserve life. 

 It is the gigantic western cedar 

 (Thuja plicata), often known 

 as the shingle cedar, because 

 most of the shingles used in 

 the United States and Canada 

 are made of this wood. Indians 

 inhabiting this tree's range, 

 from Oregon to Alaska, make 

 use of the wood and bark for 

 various purposes. Most of the huge totem poles which 

 stand like sentinels at the doors of wigwams, or on hills 

 overlooking villages, are carved from the trunk of this 

 tree. The largest canoes in the world have been hewed 

 from the enormous boles of this cedar; and the Indians' 

 dishes, platters, troughs, and their grinning clawed, and 

 fanged graven images of idolatry are carved from the 

 soft wood of this gigantic coniferous tree. The bark is 

 as useful as the wood. Its long, tough fibers are spun into 

 threads and woven into mats for beds, blankets, and por- 

 tieres for wigwam doors ; ropes for manufacturing dog- 

 harness, and lines with which to haul canoes up rapids of 

 rivers on the native's long journeys. But the uses of the 

 bark does not stop there. It is pounded in wooden mortars 

 until reduced to pulp, is then mixed with as much whale 

 oil, fish oil, or bear grease as it will absorb, and is then 

 kneaded into loaves, cakes, and cookies, which are baked 



SWKKT lilRClI IS T.ASTY 



The inner bark or cambium layer of this birch is pleasant 

 to the taste in early summer, and peeled trees in many 

 parts of the range of the tree betray the extent of its 

 use as food. Children are the greatest eaters. The 

 tender bark of twigs is also gnawed and eaten. 



in ashes of the camp fire and become bread. It is said to 

 be palatable and nourishing, but it is probable that the 

 nourishing property is due more to the grease and oil 

 than to the bark. At any rate, the Indians of Vancouver, 

 Oueen Charlotte, and other islands, and on the mainland 

 of British Columbia, like it and seem to flourish on the 

 diet. In color the cedar bark bread resembles a choco- 

 late cake; but it is tough and it requires the strong jaws 

 of an Indian to negotiate it, and it may be supposed that 

 as a regular diet it would not suit the stomach of a dys- 

 peptic person. 



The slippery elm tree (Ulmus 

 l^ubcscens) grows throughout 

 the eastern half of the United 

 States. Its inner bark consists 

 of a thick, soft, brittle muci- 

 laginous layer. It is quite dis- 

 tinct from the cambium layer, 

 which is the spring growth of 

 new wood and bark. In that 

 respect it differs from most 

 of the other barks used for 

 human food. The elm's edible 

 hark may be taken o'ti either 

 winter or summer. Its charac- 

 ter is little influenced by the 

 season of the year. Physicians 

 have always used it for medi- 

 cine and poultices. And old-time 

 medical book declared that elm 

 bark was worth its weight in 

 gold, because it is a life saver 

 when employed as medicine. It 

 may not be esteemed as highly 

 now as formerly, yet all drug 

 stores keep it for sale. Per- 

 haps more slippery elm bark is 

 sold for medicinal purposes 

 than any other bark native to 

 the United States ; certainly 

 more of it is eaten than of any- 

 other. 



It does not rate high as a. 

 food. In fact, analysis shows that the bark contains 

 very little that can be classed as human food. Records 

 of lives saved from starvation by elm bark are few 

 and doubtful. Yet it is habitually eaten in all regions 

 where it grows. It is difficult to find slippery elm 

 trees in the vicinity of towns, for the reason that 

 children single them out and peel them of their 

 Ijark which they chew for the same reason that they 

 chew gum — not for food but as a habit. It has no more 

 taste than remains with gum after the flavoring has dis- 

 appeared ; yet it satisfies the desire of the jaws to be 

 chewing something. The bark is usually swallowed, and 

 seemingly it does little good or harm, although it is in- 

 digestible. 



Horses may be kept alive and in fairly fit condition on 

 an elm bark ration, as was demonstrated in the war of 

 1813 during the Lake Erie campaign ; but when men try 



