424 ABORIGINAL BOTANY. 
Indians ever used poisons to any considerable extent to rid themselves of 
enemies ; if they did, it was the old shamans, and they keep the matter 
a secret. The Indians profess to stand in great and perpetual dread of 
being poisoned by one another; and no one will taste anything handed to 
him by one who is not a member of his family, unless the other tastes it 
first; but they imagine a hundred cases of poisoning where one actually 
occurs. 
Of grasses, they eat the seed of the wild oat, (tu’-tu-tem kom), but very 
sparingly. Wild clover, chi’-wi; alfilerilla, bat’-tis ; and a kind of grass 
growing in wet places (Melica—holl) are all eaten raw when young and 
tender, or boiled for greens. 
There are two kinds of mushrooms which they consider edible. The 
one of which they are fondest is called pil'-kut, and is a little round ball, 
from the size of a marble to that of a black walnut, found underground in 
chaparral and pine thickets. They eat it raw with great relish, or roast it 
in the ashes. Another kind is the wa’-chuh, which grows in the ordinary 
form, brown on the upper side, chocolate-colored and deeply ribbed under- 
neath, and easily peeled. It is eaten boiled. 
Higher up in the mountains they find a root looking somewhat like 
cork, a piece of which they sometimes wear suspended to their clothing as 
acharm. It is called chik' or cham'-pu. Indians of other tribes in the State 
invest different species of Angelica with talismanic attributes. 
Under the popular name of ‘grass-nut there is included a large number 
of plants with a small, round, bulbous root, all of which, with one excep- 
tion, the Indians eat with much satisfaction. They are generally pried out 
of the ground with a sharp stick and eaten raw on the spot; but sometimes 
the women collect a quantity in a basket and make a roast in the ashes, or 
boil them. Most of them are by no means disagreeable to the civilized taste. 
There is the beaver-tail grass-nut (Cyclobothra—wal'-lik), the turkey-pea 
(Sanicula tuberosa—tu'-en), the purple-flowered grass-nut (Brodica congesta— 
o'-kaw); the tule grass-nut (ko'-ah), a small bulb, with a single, wiry, cylin- 
drical stalk, erowing in wet places, which I could not identify; the climbing 
erass-nut (Brodica volubilis—oam'-piim wai), sometimes planted by Americans 
for ornaments; the little soap-root (Chlorogalum divaricatum—poy'-um); the 
