286 BUBElAtJ 0^ AMEHICAK ETaNOLOGf [Bull. 137 



labor was all done by the women. The planting, and at least part of 

 the cultivation, of the town fields were carried on by men and women 

 conjointly. The domestication of animals, of course, represents in its 

 entirety the effects of white contact. To Europeans are also attrib- 

 utable the use of rice, rum, milk, eggs (except for some utilization of 

 the eggs of wild birds and turtles) , honey, melons, and probably salted 

 meats. Mention of a vegetable salt confirms the much earlier state- 

 ment of Garcilaso de la Vega's informants. From very early times 

 persimmons were dried into cakes for later consumption here and in 

 most other parts of the Southeast, but dried peaches represent a later 

 innovation. When Romans visited the nation, peach trees had been 

 introduced and planted in considerable numbers about most Indian 

 towns. "The passi flora, vulgarly called may apple" is, of course, 

 Passiflora irwamata, and the edible fruit of this is known as maypop 

 and not mayapple. The variety of Convolvulus "found in the low 

 woods" is evidently the wild sweetpotato (Ipomoea pandurata), 

 though early writers sometimes seem to confuse this with Apios 

 tuherosa. The "different kinds of Panicvm''* may include sorghum 

 (Sorghum dru/mmondii, probably^, wild rice, already mentioned in 

 use farther toward the northeast, and perhaps cockspur grass 

 (Echinochloa crusgalli). These will be mentioned again when we 

 come to speak of the Mississippi River tribes. 



Bartram's information was supplied in answer to a series of queries 

 regarding the Creek and Cherokee Indians submitted to him by Dr. 

 B. S. Barton, at one time vice president of the American Philosophical 

 Society. To the questions on "Food, and Means of Subsistence," he 

 answered : 



Their animal food consists chiefly of venison, bears' flesh, turkeys, hares, wild 

 fowl, and domestic poultry; and also of domestic kine, as beeves, goats, and 

 swine — never horses' flesh, though they have horses in great plenty; neither do 

 they eat the flesh of dogs, cats, or any such creatures as are usually rejected by 

 white i)eople. 



Their vegetable food consists chiefly of corn [zea], rice, convolvulus hatatas, 

 or those nourishing roots usually called sweet or Spanish potatoes (but in the 

 Creek Confederacy they never plant or eat the Irish potato). All the species of 

 the phaseolus [beans] and doUcJios [hyacinth beans] in use among the whites, 

 are cultivated by the Creeks, Cherokees, etc., and make up a great part of their 

 food. All the species of cucurhita, as squashes, pumpkins, water-melons, etc. ; 

 but of the cucumeres, they cultivate none of the species as yet, neither do they 

 cultivate our farinaceous grains, as wheat, barley, spelts, rye, buckwheat, etc. 

 (not having got the use of the plough amongst them, though it has been intro- 

 duced some years ago). The chiefs rejected it, alleging that it would starve 

 their old people who employed themselves in planting, and selling their produce 

 to the traders, for their support and maintenance ; seeing that by permitting the 

 traders to use the plough, one or two persons could easily raise more grain 

 than all the old people of the town could do by using the hoe. Turnips, parsnips, 

 salads, etc., they have no knowledge of. Rice (oryza) they plant in hills on high 



