506 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



his herbs thinking of the effect that their appearance might contrib- 

 ute to the disease, and guaranteed their efficiency with incantations 

 and feats of magic. Moreover, the average settler had brought from 

 the old world a knowledge of herbs that in kind was not unlike that 

 of the Indian, but as newcomers they were unfamiliar with New 

 World plants ; and although the level of their own popular medicine 

 did not set them above adopting Indian remedies, the Indian herbalist 

 whose knowledge was power was not always a ready teacher. Two 

 centuries of missionary, military, and scientific travel were to enlarge 

 medical botany until many new world plants in use by the Indians 

 were to become part of our pharmacopoeia. To this fund of knowl- 

 edge the Iroquois contributed a share. 



The Canada band of Laurentian Iroquois, at that time living in 

 the environs of Quebec, made a sensational beginning as teachers 

 when in 1536, after 25 of his able seamen had died of scurvy, they 

 showed Cartier how they obtained relief from a simple decoction of 

 the bark and needles of hemlock {Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.), or 

 white pine {Pinics strohus Lt.) . 



One day our captain, seeing the disease so general and his men so stricken 

 down by it, * * * caught sight of a band of Indians approaching from 

 Stadadona [Quebec], and among them was Dom Agaya whom he had seen 10 

 or 12 days previous to this, extremely ill with the very disease his own men 

 were suffering from; for one of his legs above the knee had swollen to the 

 size of a 2-year-old baby, and the sinews had become contracted. His teeth 

 had gone bad and decayed, and the gums had rotted and become tainted. The 

 captain, seeing Dom Agaya well * * * was delighted, hoping to learn what 

 had healed him, in order to cure his own men. And when the Indians had 

 come near the fort, the captain inquired of him, what had cured him of his 

 sickness. Dom Agaya replied that he had been healed by the juice of the 

 leaves of a tree and the dregs of these, and that this was the only way to cure 

 sickness. Upon this the captain asked him If there was not some of it there- 

 abouts, and to show it to him that he might heal his servant who [in his 

 opinion] had caught the disease when staying in Chief Donnacona's wigwam 

 at Canada, being unwilling that he should know how many sailors were Ul. 

 Thex'eupon Dom Agaya sent two squaws with our captain to gather some of it; 

 and they brought back 9 or 10 branches. They showed us how to grind the 

 bark and the leaves and to boil the whole in water. Of this one should drink 

 every 2 days, and place the dregs on the legs where they were swollen and 

 affected. According to them this tree cured every kind of disease. They call 

 it in their language Annedda.* 



Until recent times hemlock tea has been a favorite winter beverage 

 with the Iroquoian tribes whose names for hemlock, or evergreen, are 

 clearly cognate with the term given Cartier. Curiously enough he 

 says that this decoction brought miraculous relief in longstanding 

 cases of venereal disease among the sailors, and modern Iroquois 



• Biggar, H. P., ed., The voyages ol Jacques Cartier, Publ. Public Arch. Canada, No. 11, 

 pp. 212-213, et supra, Ottawa, 1924. 



