BOURKE] EARTH-EATING. 539 
The Jaguaces of Florida ate earth (tierra). ! 
At the trial of Vasco Poecallo de Figueroa, in Santiago de Cuba, in 
1522, * for cruelty to the natives,” he sought to make it appear that the 
Indians ate clay as a means of suicide: “el abuso de los Indios en 
comer tierra’ . . . seguian matandose de intento comiendo tierra.” 
The Muiseas had in their language the word “jipetera,” a “disease 
from eating dirt.”* Whether the word “ dirt? as here employed means 
filth, or earth and clay, is not plain; it probably means clay and earth. 
Venegas asserts that the Indians of California ate earth. The tra- 
ditions of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, California, and vicinity 
show that “they had fed upon a kind of clay,” which they “often used 
upon their heads by way of ornament.?+ 
The Tatu Indians of California mix “red earth into their acorn bread 
- +. . tomake the bread sweet and make it go further.”’* 
Long® relates that when the young warrior of the Oto or Omaha 
tribes goes out on his first fast he “rubs his person over with a whitish 
clay,” but he does not state that he ate it. 
Sir John Franklin’ relates that the banks of the Mackenzie River in 
British North America contain layers of a kind of unctuous mud, prob- 
ably similar to that found near the Orinoco, which the Tinneh Indians 
“use occasionally as food during seasons of famine, and even at other 
times chew as an amusement. . . . It has a milky taste and the 
flavour is not disagreeable.” 
Father de Smet ® says of the Athapascan: ‘“ Many wandering families 
of the Carrier tribe . . . have their teeth worn to the gums by the 
earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment.” This does not 
seem to have been intentionally eaten. 
“Some of the Siberian tribes, when they travel, carry a small bag of 
their native earth, the taste of which they suppose will preserve them 
from all the evils of a foreign sky.” 9 
We are informed that the Tunguses of Siberia eat a cla y called “ rock 
marrow,” which they mix with marrow, ‘Near the Ural Mountains, 
powdered gypsum, commonly called ‘rock meal,’ is sometimes mixed 
with bread, but its effects are pernicious.” !" 
“The Jukabiri of northeastern Siberia have an earth of sweetish and 
rather astringent taste,” to which they “ ascribe a variety of Sanatory 
properties.” !! 
'Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 182. iv 
? Buckingham Smith, Coleecion de Varios Documentos para la Historia de Florida, London, 1857, 
a bars Researches in South America, London, 1860, p. 63. 
#Boseana, Chinigchinich, pp. 245, 253. 
s, Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol.. vol. 3, p. 140. 
® Long's Expedition, vol. 1, p. 240. 
7 Second Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 19. 
SOregon Missions, p. 192. 
*Gmelin, quoted by Southey, in Common place Book, 1st ser., London, 1849, p. 239. . 
10Malte-Brun. Univ. Geog., Philadelphia, 1827, vol. 1, lib. 37, p. 483. 
"Von Wrangel, Polar Expedition, New York, 1842, p. 188. 
