62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



GATHERING 



Although agriculture was important in the ecoiioiny of the Huron, 

 it was not the only source of subsistence. Berries, particularly straw- 

 berries, raspberries, and blackberries, were plentiful (JR 10: 103; 

 C 50; S 72, 74, 238). Fruits were dried for winter use, to be used 

 as preserves for the sick, to give taste to sagmnite, and to put into 

 the small cakes that were baked in the ashes (S 237). 



Cranberries {toco) were put into little cakes or eaten raw (S 238). 

 Mulberries were also picked (JR 13: 13). Plums {tonestes) were 

 rough and sharp to the taste until touched by frost. So, after being 

 gathered by the women, they were buried in the ground to sweeten be- 

 fore being eaten (S 238) .^^ 



Grapes were also plentiful (JR 10: 103; S 83, 239). [But the 

 Jesuits found the native grapes not as good as they were beautiful 

 (JR13:85).] 



Acorns were eaten after having been boiled several times to take 

 away the bitter taste. Sometimes, a kind of tree bark, like willow 

 bark, was eaten raw. But the Indians did not eat herbs, except some 

 roots they called sondhratatte [perhaps gromid nuts or cow parsnip] 

 (S 108). Orasqueinta [Jerusalem-artichoke] was rare in Huronia; 

 it was eaten raw or cooked as sondhratates. When ripe and full 

 grown, onions [chives] {anonque) were baked in the ashes (S 239). 

 Other wild foods are mentioned, including small cherries and black 

 cherries (C 51), small wild apples, mayapples, walnuts (C 50), wild 

 beans (S 70) , wild pumpkins (S 72) , and wild peas (S 90) .'^^ 



FISHING 



Fishing was also a significant part of the Huron economy .^^ The 

 Indians knew in what season, as autumn or summer, particular kinds 

 of fish were plentiful in what places. For example, some weeks after 



'' Various berries, including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, and 

 mulberries, were also eaten by the Iroquois (Parker 1910 b : 95-96 ; Waugli 1916 : 127- 

 128). The importance of this type of food to the Iroquois is indicated by their Important 

 "first-fruits" ceremony, the Strawberry Ceremony and, in some longhouses, a Raspberry 

 Ceremony. The strawberry is among the earliest berries to ripen and is followed shortly 

 after by the raspberry and others (Waugh 1916: 125; see also note 37, p. 79: see also 

 Shiniony 1961 a : 158 ff. for descriptions of these Iroquois ceremonials and the use of 

 berry juice in them). The earliest of the wild strawberries are thought to have great 

 medicinal value (Parker 1913 : 25 and 25 n. ; see below under "Curing Ceremonies" for 

 an example of dried strawberries being used as part of a cure). 



^ The Iroquoians gathered more varieties of wild foods than the 17th-century observers 

 noted (an indication of the number of different plants utilized is to be found in Waugh 

 1916: 117-129; Parker 1910 b: 93-109). The reasons for this neglect are obvious: 

 gathering was probably not as important as hunting and fishing and, as it was done by 

 the women, the French writers, being men, probably overlooked much of this activity. 



*' Fishing was also a significant part of the Iroquois economy and many kinds of fish 

 were eaten (Waugh 1916: 136). Spears, nets, and weirs were used to take them (Beau- 

 champ 1905: 130-131, 147-148). Among the Iroquois, spring was the fishing season 

 (Morgan 1901 (1) : 337), but great fish drives were also held in the summer before the 

 new crop was ripe (Fenton 1942 a : 48). 



