IROQUOIS USES OF MAIZE 



105 



varieties. Even wild onions and artichokes are now seldom used. 

 There is a dim recollection of food roots, however, and the writer 

 succeeded in getting the list which follows : 



Artichokes 

 Ground nuts 

 Wild onions 

 Wild leek 

 Yellow pond lily 

 Cat-tail 

 Arrowhead 

 Indian turnip 

 Milkweed 



Solomon's seal 



Potato 

 Skunk cabbage 



Helianthws tiiberosws 

 Apios tuberosa 

 Allium canadense 

 A. tricoccum 

 Nymphaea adzena 

 Scirpus validiis 

 S a git t aria lati folia 

 Arisaema triphyUiim 

 Asclepias syriaea 



C Polygonatum hiHoriim 



\P. commetatum 

 Solanum tuberosum 

 Symplocarpws 



foeditus 



otwe"'a' 

 yoandjago"' 

 gahadago'^ka' 

 o'no'sao" 

 owa"'osha' 

 ono""gwe"da 

 oo"wa'ho'no'^' 

 ga'osha' 

 ono'ska' 

 ga'ga'wiyas 

 (^^ crow eats it) 

 onon'o"'da' 

 niagwai'^igas 

 (=^bear eats it) 



ENGLISH 



Root 



T pull roots 

 Root gatherer 

 Root eater 



Terminology 



SENECA 



okde'a' 



o'gik'teodagok 

 hakde'ogwas 

 %akde'as 



Articholces were valued for their tasteful tubers which were edible 

 raw as well as cooked. The boiled artichokes formed a dish which 

 if properly seasoned with oil had some degree of palatability. Arti- 

 chokes as food was early noted by explorers- and later writers men- 

 tion their use. Champlain is the first writer to note their cultiva- 

 tion.^ The Iroquois so far as it has been possible for the writer to 



'i Hak-de'-as, from h^ masculine affix ; okde'a', root ; initial changes 

 to broad a, terminal a' is elided; ias or ias, in compounds meaning eater of, 

 loses initial i after e thus h-akde-as, he root eats. 



■ 2 On September 21, 1605, Champlain wrote of his explorations along the 

 New England coast, ". . . We saw . . . very good roots which the 

 savage cultivate, having a taste similar to that of chards." Elsewhere it 

 was stated that these roots were Jerusalem artichokes. The Rev. Edmund F. 

 Shafter commenting on this subject says that the Italians had procured 

 these tubers for cultivation before Champlain's time, calling them girasole, 

 corrupted and anglicized to Jerusalem. 



3 Champlain. Voyages. 11:112 footnote. Prince Soc. Bost. Pub. 1878, 



