IROOUOIS USES OF MAIZE 65 



The large appetites of white men who visited them was often a 

 matter of surprise to the Indians who entertained them. Morgan 1 

 commenting on this says that a white man consumed and wasted 

 five times as much as an Indian required. In a footnote 2 he quotes 

 Robertson as writing that the appetite of the Spaniards appeared 

 insatiably voracious; and that they affirmed that one Spaniard de- 

 voured more food in a day than was sufficient for 10 Americans 

 (Indians). 



The food and eating customs of the eastern Indians are described 

 by various early writers with some conflict of opinion, but in gen- 

 eral their system of free hospitality has the commendation of the 

 majority of writers. 3 



There were and still are among the Iroquois, innumerable ways 

 of combining foods and several ways of cooking each variety. 

 Nearly all the early travelers expressed themselves as impressed 

 with the number of ways of preparing corn and enumerate from 

 20 to 40 methods, though some are not so explicit. 4 



TERMINOLOGY 



Food giik'wa' 

 Breakfast (early morning meal) sede'tciane'gwa 



Midday meal ha'de'wenisha 



Sunset meal hega' / gwaane / gwa < 



Appetite yeo n kwan'owas 



A glutton ha'kowane' 



.(Come thou) eat (imper.) sedeko'ni 



I eat aga'dekoni 



You eat . e n sa'dekoni 



Cook (she cooks) yeko n 'nis 



" (he cooks) ha'ko n 'nis 



Hanging crane e n sa"enondat 



Kettle hook adus'ha 



Oven yonta'gonda'gwa'ge 



1 Morgan. House Life of the American Aborigines, p. 60. 



* Ibid, p. 61. 



3 See Laho'ntan, 2:11; Van der Donck. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Cols. v. i, ser. 

 2, 192; Jesuit Relations, 67:141; Adair, p. 412; Bartram. Observations, p. 

 16, 59, 63; Smith. Virginia. Richmond ed. 1:83, 84; Heckewelder, p. 193; 

 Morgan. House Life, 45 et seq. ; Robertson. History of America, p. 178. 

 N. Y. 1856. 



4 " Forty-two ways." Dumont. Memoirs sur La Louisiane. Paris 1753. 

 1 '33-34- Cf. Loskiel. p. 67 ; Adair, p. 409 ; " 40 methods," Boyle, Report 

 for 1898; cf. Jesuit Relations, 10:103, "twenty ways." 



3 



