288 Singing Valleys 



Indian tribes had made various intoxicating drinks from maize 

 which they used in their religious ceremonies and dances. In 

 ancient Peru the natives made "sora" which was so potent that 

 the Inca forbade it to the common people. Today, "chica," a 

 kind of maize beer, is the common drink in that country. Its 

 manufacture is primitive, to say the least. Old women, squat- 

 ting in the sun, chew maize kernels to pulp and spit them into 

 jars of brackish water. By the natural process of fermentation, 

 this becomes beer. Probably the liquor which Columbus re- 

 ported the Indians of Veragua made from maize was brewed 

 in much the same fashion. 



The English who came to the early settlements in Virginia 

 and Massachusetts imported malt and used this with the 

 native corn in the making of beer. Jamestown had a brewery. 

 There were a brewery and a malt house on every large planta- 

 tion in the Tidewater, although the planters' own ships 

 brought rum from the sugar islands, and French and Spanish 

 wines from Europe. 



American beer was plentiful and cheap in Massachusetts. 

 A quart for a penny was the legal price; and a fine of ten 

 shillings hung over the taverner who charged more than this, 

 or whose beer fell below the standard of quality. Cotton 

 Mather complained that every other house in Boston was an 

 ordinary. The Puritans may have been ferocious moralists, but 

 they were no teetotalers. They knew that the inner man had 

 to be fortified against the rigors of a New England winter. 

 And they had no great faith in spring water. The best that 

 the author of New England Prospects would say of it was that 

 "any man would choose it before bad beere, or before butter- 

 milk or whey." Frequently the village baker was the brewer as 

 well. One industry supported the other. President Dunster, 

 the first head of Harvard College, petitioned the County 

 Court that "Sister Bradish be encouraged in her calling of 

 baking and the brewing of penny beer, without which she can- 

 not continue to bake." 



One is inclined to speculate on the effect on the Puritan 



