BOURKE. ] HODDENTIN A PREHISTORIC FOOD. 519 
tance the propitiation of the deities will be effected by foods whose use 
has long since faded away from the memory of the laity. 
The sacred feast of stewed puppy and wild turnips forms a promi- 
nent part of the sun dance of the Sioux, and had its parallel in a colla- 
tion of boiled puppy (catullus), of which the highest civic and ecclesias- 
tical dignitaries of pagan Rome partook at stated intervals. 
The reversion of the Apache to the food of his ancestors—the hod- 
dentin—as a religious offering has its analogue in the unleavened bread 
and other obsolete farinaceous products which the ceremonial of more 
enlightened races has preserved from oblivion. Careful consideration 
of the narrative of Cabeza de Vaca sustains this conclusion. In the 
western portion of his wanderings we learn that for from thirty to forty 
days he and his comrades passed through tribes which for one-third 
of the year had to live on “the powder of straw” (on the powder of 
bledos), and that afterwards the Spaniards came among people who 
raised corn. At that time, Vaca, whether we believe that he ascended 
the Rio Concho or kept on up the Rio Grande, was in a region where 
he would certainly have encountered the ancestors of our Apache tribe 
and their brothers the Navajo. The following is Herrera’s account of 
that part of Vaca’s wanderings: ‘Padeciendo mucha hambre en 
treinta i quatro Jornadas, pasando por una Gente que la tercera parte 
del Ano comen polvos de paja, i los huvieron de comer, por haver llegado 
en tal ocasion.”! 
This powder (polvo) of paja or grass might at first sight seem to be 
grass seeds; but why not say “flour,” as on other occasions? The phrase 
is an obscure one, but not more obscure than the description of the 
whole journey. In the earlier writings of the Spaniards there is am- 
biguity because the new arrivals endeavored to apply the names of their 
own plants and animals to all that they saw in the western continent. 
Neither Castaneda nor Cabeza de Vaca makes mention of hod- 
dentin, but Vaca does say that when he had almost ended his journey: 
“La cote ne possede pas de mais; on n’y mange que de la poudre de 
paille de blette.” ‘‘ Blette” is the same as the Spanish ‘+ bledos.”? “Nous 
parvinmes chez une peuplade qui, pendant le tiers de année, ne vit que 
de poudre de paille.” ‘*We met with a people, who the third part of 
the yeere eate no other thing save the powder of straw.” ® 
Davis, who seems to have followed Herrera, says: ‘‘ These Indians 
lived one-third of the year on the powder of a certain straw 
. . . After leaving this people they again arrived in a country of per- 
manent habitations, where they found an abundance of maize. 
The inhabitants gave them maize both in grain and flour. * 
The een Indians were formerly in the habit of adding a trifle of 
1Dee. 6, lib. 1, p. 9. 
2? Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 7, pp. 242, 250. 
3 Relation of Cabeza de Vaca in Purchas, vol. 4, lib. 8, cap. 1, sec. 4, p. 1524. 
4+Conquest of New Mexico, p. 100. 
