264 Journal New York Entomological Society. |Voi. xviii. 



THE USE OF INSECTS AND OTHER INVERTE-. . 

 BRATES AS FOOD BY THE NORTH 

 AMERICAN INDIANS. 



By Alanson Skinner, 

 New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y. 



It is perhaps not very generally known that insects and other in- 

 vertebrates w^ere used for economic purposes by the aborigines of 

 North America. So far as our records show, the Indians east of 

 the Mississippi never made any use of insects as food. Several 

 reasons may be assigned for this, but the most important of these 

 is the universal practice of agriculture south of the Great Lakes. 

 In other regions where the economic conditions were regulated by 

 the abundance of the game supply, periods of famine occurred, 

 when recourse to insect food was not uncommon. The presence of 

 permanent vegetable staples through agriculture, of course obviated 

 this necessity, so that the absence of such customs occasioned an 

 entirely different psychological attitude towards insect food in the 

 East. 



Concerning the Menomini, a well-known Central Algonkin tribe, 

 for instance, we read:* "The Menomini Indians are not addicted to 

 eating all kinds of reptiles, insects and other loathsome food, as was 

 common to many of the tribes of the great basin and of California. 

 This form of diet may result from having always lived in a country 

 where game, fish, and small fruits were found in greater or lesser 

 abundance, and the evident relish with which we find the so-called 

 Diggers, the Walapai, and others, devour grasshoppers, dried lizards, 

 beef entrails, and bread made of grass seed mixed with crushed 

 larvae of flies, would appear as disgusting to the Menomini as the 

 Caucasian." 



West of the Mississippi we find insects used as food by tribes of 

 the Algonkian, Siouan, Shoshonean, Athabascan, Pujunan, Pinan, and 

 Shastan stocks, at least. The Assiniboine, the most northerly located 

 of the Siouan tribes, are said to have used pulverized insects dried in 

 * Hoffman, The Menomini, 14th Annual Report, Bureau of American Eth- 

 nology, p. 287. 



