1923] SMITH, THE RED EARTH INDIANS 33 



passed about from mouth to mouth, as formerly the council pipe went 

 around. The novice will only be able to chew three or four, but the 

 addict will chew as many as ninety-three at a single sitting. The 

 narcotic effect is something like high powered white mule, tho it does 

 not make the user pugnacious, but rather drowsy. It acts differently 

 on different individuals. A Meskwaki, under its influence, recently 

 came to the center of Main Street in Tama and dramatically shot him- 

 self with a revolver as a sacrifice to deity. Usually some of the crowd 

 at a peyote lodge staj^ sober to keep the untried members within 

 bounds. 



One of the Indians told me that the white men have no right to de- 

 prive the Indian of peyote. He said that when under the influence of 

 peyote, the Indian was given a moral code. Others told me how they 

 had given up quarreling and drinking, smoking and chewing and were 

 living the right life now, thru the visions they had seen, and the ad- 

 monitions they had received. Certain it is, that the peyote Indian has 

 no more use for their old religion, and for him the medicine lodge and 

 all of its practices are taboo. 



Because of the breaking down of the medicine lodge, and the chang- 

 ing over to the peyote cult, the writer found the Meskwaki ready to 

 talk about medicinal practices and had none of the difficulties en- 

 countered with other Wisconsin Indians. Some of them even vol- 

 unteered information to the writer. In the two short visits, enough 

 data was gathered for a forthcoming bulletin on the "Ethnobotany of 

 the Meskwaki." 



The writer was often invited to stay for a meal with the Indians 

 and accepted manj^ invitations in order to learn more of their food 

 plants. Strange to say, they did not use the abundant fungi of the 

 region, designating all of them by the Indian name ' Vapitoke." Some 

 of them entered as an ingredient in certain medicinal formulae but 

 none were used as food. Doubtless past experience had proved that 

 unknown fungi were fatal, and consequently all fungi were eschewed. 

 Usually the Indian will try anything in the woods, and at least two 

 plants that are described as poisonous, in literature, are everyday food 

 to the Meskwaki. Cow parsnip root is a favored potato with them, 

 being cooked and considered the same as rutabagas and Smilax ecchi- 

 rata, which they called "coon berries" were eaten with a relish. When 

 the writer took pains to point out a few different edible fungi, and 

 showed the squaws how to prepare them for the table, they were 

 much pleased and ate them with a relish. The writer taught them 

 only the scientific names of these mushrooms, so that some future 



