62 w '***&& YORK STATE MUSEUM 



verized in a mortar. This powder was thrown in a quantity of 

 boiling water and used as a baby food. 



The nursing bottle was a dried and greased bear-gut. The nipple 

 was a bird's quill around which was tied the gut to give proper size. 

 To clean these bottles they were untied at both ends, turned wrong 

 side out, rinsed in warm water, thrown into cold water, shaken and 

 hung in the smoke to dry. 



Sunflower oil was used in quantities by the Iroquois, with whom 

 it was a favorite food oil. It was prepared by bruising the ripe 

 seed in a mortar, heating the mass for a half hour and then throw- 

 ing it into boiling water until most of the oil had been separated 

 from the pulp. The water was cooled and strained and then the oil 

 skimmed off. 



The use of this oil is mentioned elsewhere in this work. 



XVII SAP AND BARK FOODS 



The maple tree was one of the trees venerated by the Iroquois. 

 It was in fact the goddess of trees and the only one to which a stated 

 ceremony was dedicated and to which offerings were made. Pine, 

 hemlock, elm and basswood of the forest trees were esteemed, but 

 the maple was a special gift of the Creator and every spring at the 

 foot of the largest maple tree in each village a ceremonial fire was 

 built and a prayer chanted by the Keeper of the Maple Thanksgiving 

 ceremony as he threw upon the embers pinches of sacred incense 

 tobacco. The maple tree started the year. Its returning and rising 

 sap to the Indian was the sign of the Creator's renewed covenant. 



The Iroquois will ever remember the maple tree, but few now even 

 remember the tradition of how it was, during the maple sap season, 

 that the Laurentian Iroquois 1 struck their blow for freedom from 

 Adirondack domination and fled into northern and central New 

 York. 2 



Trees were probably tapped in early times by sawing a slanting 

 gash into the trunk with a chert knife or saw. A flat stick was driven 



1 The Mohawk, the Oneida and Onondaga. 



2 One Mohawk tradition relates that the women flung hot maple sap into 

 the faces of the Algonquin chiefs and thus helped their people in the fight 

 for independence. 



