IROQUOIS HERBALISM — ^FENTON 521 



daga (1743),*^ but basically he was disinclined to publish. His 

 botanical garden in Philadelphia, however, is a mute monument to 

 his unrecorded knowledge of Indian plant uses, which were in part 

 set down by Peter Kalm, Linne's student, who found Bartram charm- 

 ing but complained that he wrote too little. Through Collinson, 

 Bartram and later Kalm met Cadwallader Golden (1688-1776), 

 physician, surveyor, historian of the Five Nations, and politician, 

 who, during a busy life in America since 1710, had nevertheless found 

 time to employ Linne's classification for the plants of the New York 

 colony. In correspondence Golden discussed the virtues of Indian 

 remedies with Mitchell and Gollinson in England, maintaining that 

 common lard is a more trustworthy deterrent for rattlesnakes than 

 the widely touted Seneca snakeroot {Polygala Senega L.).*^ 



From as early as 1650 various writers had reported that Indians 

 knew demonstrably powerful antidotes against rattlesnake bites. 

 When traversing snake-infested country they constantly carried dried 

 roots to chew and spit on their hands to repel the reptiles or to 

 counteract the venom. Possibly several species were employed in 

 different localities. The "true rattlesnake root" has been variously 

 identified by Loskiel and the Moravians as Polygala Senega L., or as 

 Virginia snakeroot {Aristolochia serpentaria L.), or as wild ginger 

 {Asarum canadense L.), which the Senecas call snakeroot 

 (oskwai'da') ; however, Kalm reports that Bartram learned of the use 

 of stoneroot or horse balm {Collinsonia canadensis L.) from Gonrad 

 Weiser, Mohawk-speaking interpreter for the Six Nations; while 

 Gharlevoix and that professional elk hunter of Pennsylvania, Phillip 

 Tome, mention a yellow-flowered member of the aster family (com- 

 positae), which the latter calls oxwood, and describes as having a 

 slender stem and limbs and yellow flower like the sunflower ; but the 

 modern Senecas of Allegany maintain that the "rattlesnake killer" 

 (oslgweg't odinyos) is either Prenanthes alba L. or P. altissima L., 

 designating the latter the male and the former the female of the 

 species.*^ 



Golden was not alone in questioning the value of Indian remedies 

 which had gained wide currency among colonists on the frontier. That 

 the Dutch, Swedish, English, and French settlers had borrowed many 

 wrinkles in herb therapy from the Indians in addition to the very rich 



*^ Bartram, John, Observations • • • In travels • • * to Onondaga, etc., 

 London, 1751. 



** Earnest, Ernest, John and William Bartram, botanists and explorers, pp. 16, 34 ff., 

 and 71, Philadelphia, 1940; Cadwallader Colden Papers, Coll. New York Hist. Soc, vols. 

 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. 



*» Van der Donck, Adriaen, op. cit., p. 178 ; The representation of New Netherland, 1650, 

 p. 298; Jesuit Relations, vol. 59, p. 101; Loskiel, George Henry, op. cit., p. 114; Kalm, 

 Peter, op. cit., pp. 105-106 ; Charlevoix, P. F. X., Journal of a voyage * * *, vol. 1, p. 

 244, 1761 ; Tome, Phillip, Pioneer life ; or thirty years a hunter, 1854, Harrisburg reprint, 

 p. 117, 1928. 



