CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
ABORIGINAL BOTANY. 
As employed in this chapter, the word “ botany” is somewhat loosely 
comprehensive, and is used for lack of a better. Under it are included all 
the forms of the vegetable world which the aborigines use for medicine, 
food, clothing, ete. Of course, savages have no systematic classification 
of botanical knowledge; there are no genera, no species. Every oak, 
pine, or grass has its separate name. 'The Indians never group individuals 
together, except occasionally by adding one of the words cha, du, po'-po, 
kom, wai, bak (tree, bush, grass, seed, root, leaf), or something of that sort. 
But it is not to be supposed that the Indian is a superficial observer; he 
takes careful note of the forms and qualities of everything that grows on 
the face of the earth. True, he ascribes marvellous and impossible qualities 
to some plants, generally those which do not grow in his neighborhood, 
but this does not blind him to their real properties. 
And as his perception of individual differences is nice and minute, so his 
nomenclature is remarkably full. I assert without hesitation that an average 
intelligent Indian, even if not a shaman, (or medicine-man, ) has at command a 
much greater catalogue of names than uine-tenths of Americans. Nothing 
escapes him; he has aname for everything, though he never cultivates any 
plants. And, indeed, his extensive knowledge is not especially to be won- 
dered at, being taught him with severity. In times of great scarcity they 
are driven by the sore pangs of hunger to test everything that the soil pro- 
duces, if perchance they may find something that will appease the gnaw- 
ings of appetite. They therefore know the qualities of all herbs, shrubs, 
roots, leaves; whether they are poisonous or nutritive, whether purgative, 
astringent, sedative, or what not, or without any active principle. And 
they have often found out these things by bitter experience in their own 
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