108 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The roots of the yellow pond lily are porous and somewhat sweet 

 and glutinous. They were either boiled with meat or roasted. Early 

 explorers frequently mentioned the use of these roots and left in- 

 teresting descriptions. Few, however, agree as to their taste. Some 

 say that they tasted like the liver of a sheep,^ others that they tasted 

 like licorice and still others possibly in the throes of starvation en- 

 thusiastically describe their fine flavor. Pond lily roots are one of 

 the most widely known food roots on the continent and were eaten 

 from eastern Canada to the Pacific coast. 



The roots of the cat-tail were often used. Dried- and pulverized 

 the roots made a sweet white flour useful for bread or pudding. 

 Bruised and boiled fresh a syrupy gluten was obtained in which 

 corn meal pudding was mixed. 



My Abenaki informants told me that the juice from the bruised 

 roots was eaten raw with bread within very recent years. 



Arrowhead tubers^ were esteemed as good if boiled. Sometimes 

 they were eaten raw but in this state the bitter milky juice made them 

 repugnant to any one but a starving person. 



Kalm says that the Swedes of New Sweden called the root 

 Katniss after the Indian name and that the Indians boiled the root 

 or roasted it in ashes.* 



The potato is a native American plant^ but it seemed to have 



1 " The Indians eat the roots which are long aboiling. They taste like 

 the liver of a sheep. The moose deer feed much upon them ; at which time 

 the Indians kill them when they have their heads under water." Josselyn. 

 New England Rarities Discovered. London 1672. p. 105-238. Reprint Am. 

 Antiq. Soc. Trans, v. IV. Bost. i860. Cf. Pickering. Chronological His- 

 tory of Plants. Bost. 1879; Le Jeune. Relation 1633-34, P- 273. 



^See Palmer, E. U. S. Dep't Agric. Rept. 1870. Washington 1871. p. 408. 



^Ihid. p. 408. 



4 Pinkerton. Voyages, 13 :533. 



5 The potato was certainly indigenous. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his efforts 

 to colonization, had it brought from Virginia, under the original name of 

 openawg. But none of the North American tribes are known to have cul- 

 tivated it. They dug it up, like other indigenous edible roots from the 

 forest. But it has long been introduced into their villages and spread over 

 the northern latitudes far beyond the present limit of zea maize. Its culti- 

 vation is so easy and so similar to that of the favorite corn, and its yield 

 so great that it is remarkable it should not have received more general 

 attention from all the tribes. Schoolcraft. Census of the Iroquois. 1845. 

 p. 12-13. Senate Document 24, Albany 1846. 



Hariot who came to Virginia with Raleigh in 1584 described potatoes as 

 Openawk, " a kind of root of round form, some of the bigness of walnuts." 

 In 1586 the openawk were carried back to England and later in 1597 were 

 figured by Gerard under the name of Potato of Virginia. Cf. Harris, 

 p. 109. 



