FOOD PRODUCTS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 427 
stances produce a horrible stench when exposed to the air. The Chip- 
pewas are said to indulge in this diet. 
The Sioux prepare a favorite dish, used at great feasts, called wash- 
en-ena, consisting of dried meat pulverized and mixed with marrow, and 
a preparation of cherries, pounded and sun-dried. This mixture, when 
eaten raw or cooked, has an agreeable vinous taste. To this compound 
is frequently added, when to be cooked, a kind of flour made from the 
root of pomme blanc, (white apple,) thus designated by the French 
Canadians, and derived from the Psoralea esculenta. 
Among the Pimos Indians, as among the savages of Africa, tobacco 
worms, which are the caterpillars of Macrosila Carolina, are gathered 
and made into soup, or fried until crisp and brown. Vegetables, meal, 
or seeds are usually added to the composition when made into pottage. 
The writer has seen this tribe gather bushels of the worms for immediate 
consumption, or to be dried and pounded up for winter stores. 
The review of the articles of food consumed by the Indians will show 
that many of the substances are not only distasteful but disgusting to 
civilized persons, and many, also, are not of a nutritious character. It 
is barely possible that there is a tlavor in some of these undetected by 
the whites because untried; nor is it logical to believe that all articles 
which are favorites with the latter class should be necessarily so with 
Indians, or vice versa. Their senses are keener, it may be, to appreciate 
an obscure flavor to others undiscoverable, The ivory hunter on the 
bank of an African river, having killed a hippopotamus for the supper of 
his negro attendants, leisurely watches their proceedings in preparing 
the feast, and observes that the entrails, without being cleansed, are 
earefally preserved as the choicest morsel, and subsequently cut up and 
distributed in shares to the party according to rank. When slightly 
roasted they are devoured with unmistakable signs of enjoyment. Being 
disposed, philosophically, to inquire into the nature of things, the hun- 
ter tries the taste of the extraordinary food, and leaves on record that 
the savages are certainly not without reason for their preference. It is 
easy to understand how the wild creatures, impelled by gnawing hunger, 
out on the mountain side or on the unsheltered prairie, fearing the ven- 
geance of the whites, and not daring to apply for fuod at the settle- 
ments, will have recourse to any description of organic matter, vegeta- 
ble or animal, to appease hunger. Unusual substances are thus experi- 
mented with, and some rude process for making them more palatable 
isinvented. A g¥ance at the methods of cookery may raise a sinile, 
but the ingenuity exhibited in many cases cannot be denied. These 
people carry their domestic arrangements with them in their wander- 
ings, generally on the backs of the women, and cooking, provisions, 
and everything pertaining to their al fresco house-keeping must be 
extemporized on the spot. If the chase or fishing should fail, they 
must find substitutes in berries, herbs, roots, seeds, &c.; and fortunate 
is it for them if the season be propitious. In winter, if from improvi- 
dent recklessness no store has been accumulated, starvation necessarily 
follows. The chances, at any time, of attaining a regular supply of 
food, are so precarious that it is not uncommon to find recorded 
observations of travelers concerning the gormandizing habits of the 
aborigines. This is not, however, universally the case, since the tribes 
which are settled on reservations and raise annual crops, and those 
receiving annuities, and many others, are to be excepted. ‘The reports 
of the desperate expedients resorted to for sustaining life, by such 
tribes as the Diggers of California, who are of a low grade of mental 
organization, and of the enormous quantities of reptiles, insects, roots, 
; 
