THE ABORIGINES. 8 I 



in hunting ; cutting this flesh in small pieces, and boiling it as 

 aforesaid. Also they mix with the said pottage several sorts of 

 roots ; as Jerusalem artichokes, and ground nuts, and other roots, 

 and pompians, and squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or 

 masts, as oak-acrons, chestnuts, walnuts : these husked and dried, 

 and powdered, they thicken their pottage therewith. Also some- 

 times they beat their maize into meal, and sift it through a basket, 

 made for that purpose. With this meal they make bread, baking 

 it in the ashes, covering the dough with leaves. Sometimes they 

 make of their meal a small sort of cakes, and boil them. They 

 make also a certain sort of meal of parched maize. This meal 

 they call nokake. It is so sweet, toothsome, and hearty, that an 

 Indian will travel many days with no other food but this meal, 

 which he eateth as he needs, and after it drinketh water. And for 

 this end, when they travel a journey, or go a hunting, they carry 

 this nokake in a. basket, or bag, for their use. 



Their household -stuff is but little and mean. The pots they 

 seeth their food in, which were heretofore, and yet are, in use 

 among some of them, are made of clay or earth, almost in the 

 form of an egg, the top taken off, but now they generally get 

 kettles of brass, copper, or iron. . . . Their dishes and spoons, 

 and ladles, are made of wood, very smooth and artificial [artis- 

 tic], and of a sort of wood not subject to split. These they 

 make of several sizes. Their pails to fetch their water in, are 

 made of birch barks, artificially [skillfully] doubled up, that it 

 hath four corners and a handle in the midst. Some of these will 

 hold two or three gallons : and they will make one of them in an 

 hour's time. From the tree where the bark grows, they make 

 several sorts of baskets, great and small. Some will hold four 

 bushels, or more : and so downward, to a pint. In their baskets 

 they put their provisions. Some of their baskets are made of 

 rushes : some of bents : others, of maize husks : others, of a 

 kind of silk grass : others, of a kind of wild hemp : and some, of 

 barks of trees : many of them, very neat and artificial, with the 

 portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers, upon them in 

 colours. Also they make mats of several sorts, for covering their 

 houses and doors, and to sleep and sit upon. The baskets and 

 mats are made always by their women : their dishes, pots, and 

 spoons, are the manufacture of the men. They have no other 



