106 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. [Dec. 8, 
The following paper was read : 
ROOT FOODS OF THE SENECA INDIANS. 
By Geo. H. Harris. 
A complete history of the foods of the aborigines of North America 
would fill volumes.. The list comprises nearly all indigenous vegetation 
including grass, seeds, leaves, barks and roots; all game animals, and 
many not usually eaten, as reptiles, insects and mollusks. We take 
into special consideration the root foods of the Seneca Indians who, 
but a century ago, possessed the magnificent domain their pale-faced 
successors denominate Western New York. 
The Seneca was one of five separate nations that, about the middle 
of the fifteenth century, united in a confederacy termed by later white 
men the League of the Iroquois; the territory of the confederated 
nations covering the present State of New York from the Hudson River 
to the Genesee, and by later conquest extending west and south of 
Lake Erie. 
The mythology of the Iroquois assigns their creation to Ha-wen- 
né-yu, a Good Spirit who, with his brother Ha-ne-go-até-geh, an Evil 
minded spirit, once ruled the world. The Good Spirit created all 
useful animals and products of the earth; while the Evil Spirit created 
all monsters, poisonous reptiles, and noxious plants. To assist them in 
their labors Hi-wen-né-yu and Ha-ne-go-até-geh created classes of 
subordinate spirits and committed to each the care of some particular 
thing. Every object in nature had its protecting spirit. Those spirits - 
created by Ha-wen-né-yu were termed Ho-no-che-no-keh, or the 
Invisible Aids. They were the guardians of fire, water, medicine, and 
all species of trees, shrubs, and plants, that bore good fruit or were 
beneficial to man. The spirits subordinate to Ha-ne-go-até-geh were, 
like their creator, antagonistic to all good things. They were the 
spirits of all plants and roots of a poisonous nature, the progenitors of 
witches and enchanters, and destroyed men with disease and pestilence. 
Possessing a perfect knowledge of the topography of their vast 
territory, the Iroquois selected for their summer homes the open glades 
of the forest or the alluvial bottoms of the numerous valleys, where 
their crude efforts in cultivating the rich soils were repaid by abundant 
crops. When, in 1687 De Nonville, the French governor of Canada, 
came to Irondequoit bay and destroyed the Seneca towns, he was 
astounded at the immense supplies of food the Indians possessed. In 
his official account of the expedition De Nonville stated that the 
