1890. | HARRIS—ROOT FOODS OF SENECA INDIANS. 109 
are found in moist and marsh grounds, growing many together one by 
another in ropes, as though they were fastened with a string. Being 
boiled or sodden they are very good meat.’”’ The openawk was carried 
to England on the return voyage in 1586, and in 1597 Gerard figured 
the tuber in his Herbal under the name Potato of Virginia. From the 
date of their first settlement in America the colonists propagated the 
potato as a staple food, and at the middle of the 18th century it was 
considered a product of agriculture by the whites, who regarded the 
ground nut as a native or wild root. Contemporary tribes of red men 
also recognized the distinction between the potato and ground nut 
and gave a specific title to each plant. At the period of the revolu- 
tionary war the potato was cultivated by the Senecas who termed the 
tuber o-nun-un-da and planted it with their corn, beans and squashes. 
‘The modern Seneca term is o-no-nok’-dah ; and many of the present 
generation of Indians regard the potato and ground nut as one species 
and apply the same name to both. 
In his Traveis in North America, in 1749, Professor Kalm writes : 
“at the first arrival of the Swedes in this country, and long after, it 
was filled with Indians. *, * The food of these Indians was very 
different from that of the inhabitants of other parts of the world. 
Wheat, rye, barley, oats, and rice groats, were quite unknown in 
America. * * The maize, some kinds of beans and melons, made 
almost the whole of the Indian agriculture. * * Hop-nis was the 
Indian name of a wild plant which they ate at that time. The Swedes 
now call it by that name and it still grows in the meadows. The roots 
resemble potatoes. They were -boiled by the Indians, who ate them 
instead of bread. Some of the Swedes likewise ate them for want of 
bread. Some of the English still eat them instead of potatoes. * * 
Dr. Linneas calls the plant Glyczne apious.” 
The narrative of the Gilbert Family captured in Pennsylvania and 
brought through the Genesee region in 1780, describes the arrival of 
the party in the vicinity of Canandaigua where “ necessity induced two 
of the Indians to set off on horseback, into the Seneca country, in 
search of provisions. The prisoners, in the meantime, were ordered to 
dig up a root, something resembling potatoes, which the Indians called 
whop-pan-ies. They tarried at this place until towards evening of the 
succeeding day and made a soup of wild onions and turnip tops ; this 
they eat without bread or salt. * * ‘They left this place and crossed 
the Genesee river * * They fixed their station near the Genesee 
banks and procured more of the wild potato roots before mentioned 
for their supper.”’ 
