HISTORY OF THE PECAN TRUE. 437 



In the early stages of his exploration (x. 18:3) De Soto reports 

 finding at an Indian town called Chmha, supposed to be near the 

 present site of Coliunbus, Georgia, on the Chattahooche River,^ a 

 great store of oil of Avalnuts clear as butter and of a good taste. 

 This place is outside of the recognized range of the pecan in its "wild 

 state, and the term toalnuf used by the translator must here refer to 

 some other plant. IMr. James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, 

 informs me that this was the hickory-nut oil, still used by the Cher- 

 okees of the same region as formerly by the Creeks. As De Soto 

 progresses northward and farther to the west, in the country of the 

 chief called Casqui, he finds walnuts in gi'eat number of a new type 

 bearing soft-shelled nuts in form like bullets, which the Indians had 

 laid up in great store in their houses. The trees differed from those 

 of Spain and from those seen before in America only by the smaller 

 leaf. The location of the country of Casqui is perhaps somewhat 

 doubtful. Thomas Nuttall, in the appendix to his Journal of Travels,^ 

 identified this region with that known to the French as Kaskaskia, 

 a point on the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Kaskaskia 

 River in Illinois, and he sought to identify the stores of nuts referred 

 to with the pecans abundant in the lowlands along the watercourses, 

 especially to the southward. A more recent interpretation of De 

 Soto's localities (Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 1911:191) would place 

 the most northerly point reached by him in about the latitude of 

 Memphis, and would thus seem to locate this abundant occurrence 

 of jDCcans considerably farther to the south. Nuttall indicates his 

 opinion that De Soto's description of the nuts and of the tree must 

 refer to the pecan, a conclusion that will hardly be questioned. 



De Soto again mentions walnuts in great store, probably pecans, 

 at Autiamque, where he spent a winter (18 : 34) , this locality probably 

 lying in southern Arkansas on the Washita River. They were also 

 reported at a place named Nilco, probably in northern Louisiana, 

 roughly west of the mouth of the Yazoo River. These points are 

 all well within the range of the pecan.' 



Fortunately the accounts left by several later Spanish travelers 

 with whom we are concerned in this connection have been edited in 

 English by Prof. Herbert E. Bolton, professor of American history 

 at the University of California.^ Among those who entered the 

 region of the pecan in Texas were Mendoza and De Leon. In 1683- 



^ Mooney, James, Myths of the Cherokee. Nineteenth Annual Report, Bureau American 

 Ethnology. Pt. 1 : 199. 1900. 



2 Nuttall, Thomas, A Journal of Travels in the Arkansas Territory During the Year 

 1819, with Occasional Observations on the Manners of the Aborigines. Philadelphia. 

 1821 : 252. 



* Reed, C. A., Pecan culture ; with special reference to propagation and varieties. 

 Farmers' Bulletin 700, U. S. Dept. Agr. 1916 : 3. 



* Bolton, Herbert E., Original Narratives of Early American History. Spanish Ex- 

 ploration in the Southwest. 1542-1706. Charles Scribncr'g Sons, New York. 1916. 



65183°— SM 1017 29 



