288 BUREiAU OP AMERICAN ETHN'OLOGT [Bull. 137 



melons, rice, peaches, oranges, and figs. The grape Bartram extols 

 so highly may be the scuppernong, now known as Vitis rotundifolia. 

 It is rather remarkable that Romans fails to note pumpkins or squashes 

 among the Creeks, Choctaw, or Chickasaw. Swan tells us that in 

 his time (1791), the Creeks extracted oil from acorns, hickory nuts, 

 and chestnuts, but that the oil from acorns was the best (Swan, 1855, 

 p. 692). 



It is Romans who gives our most complete view of Choctaw economic 

 life: 



They cultivate for bread all the species and varieties of the Zea, likewise two 

 varieties of that species of Panicum vulgarly called guinea corn ; a greater num- 

 ber of different Phaseolus and Dolichos than any I have even seen elsewhere; 

 the esculent Convolvulus (vulgo) sweet potatoes, and the Helianthus gigan- 

 teus; with the seed of the last made into flour and mixed with flour of the Zea 

 they make a very palatable bread; they have carried the spirit of husbandry 

 so far as to cultivate leeks, garlic, cabbage and some other garden plants, of 

 which they make no use, in order to make profit of them to the traders ; they 

 also used to carry poultry to market at Mobile, although it lays at the distance 

 of an hundred and twenty miles from the nearest town; dunghill fowls, and 

 a very few ducks, with some hogs, are the only esculent animals raised in the 

 nation. 



They make many kinds of bread of the above grains with the help of water, 

 eggs, or hickory milk; they boil corn and beans together, and make many other 

 preparations of their vegetables, but fresh meat they have only at the hunting 

 season, and then they never fail to eat while it lasts ; of their fowls and hogs 

 they seldom eat any as they keep them for profit. 



In the failure of their crops, they make bread of the different kinds of 

 Fagus, of the Diospyros, of a species of Convolvulus with a tuberous root 

 found in the low cane grounds, of the root of a species of Smilax, of live oak 

 acorns, and of the young shoots of the Canna; in summer many wild plants 

 chiefiy of the Drupi and Bacciferous kind supply them. (Romans, 1775, pp. 84- 

 85.) 



Most of these can be identified with reasonable certitude, and this 

 has been done for me by Paul Standley and E. P. Killip. Zea or corn 

 was, of course, native. Mr. Killip suggests that the two varieties of 

 Panicwm^ or guinea corn, were probably Sorghmn drumrriondii and 

 Panicum maximum^ both of which represent importations from Africa. 

 Under Phaseohis are probably indicated the native American kid- 

 ney bean, but the Dolichos^ or hyacinth bean, would be an Asiatic 

 importation. Helianthus giganteus is the sunflower and native Amer- 

 ican. In the genus Fagus is now included only the beeches, but it em- 

 braced the chinquapin up to 1768 and the chestnut until 1800, when 

 chestnuts were placed under Castanea. Since there are many refer- 

 ences to bread made from chestnuts and no mention whatsoever of the 

 use of beechnuts, unless in this instance, it seems certain that Romans 

 had chestnuts in mind. Diospyros is the persimmon, the Convolvulus 

 the wild sweetpotato, and the Smilax the China brier, or kunti. These 



