292 BUREiAtJ Ot' AMERICAN ETHN^OLOGY [Bull. 137 



Anciently it is said that four kinds of corn were grown by the 

 Chitimacha. one of which seems to have been the favorite flour corn. 

 The three others differed mainly in the color of the kernels and one, 

 a blue variety, is supposed to have been found growing wild when 

 the Chitimacha reached their country, a bit of folklore. They were 

 all of the kind known as "flint corn." It is evident that beans and 

 pumpkins were also cultivated. They gathered the roots of the 

 China brier, or Srmlax^ ground nuts {Apios tuberosa), the seed of 

 the pond lily {Nelurribo lutea) and the palmetto, the rhizoma of 

 the common Sagittaria and the Sagittaria with the large leaf, the 

 fruit of the persimmon, strawberries, blackberries, mulberries, and 

 "a white berry growing near Plaquimine Bayou," besides the seeds 

 of a cane, evidently the one of which mention has been made already. 

 Gatschet includes "pistaches" and "wild beans" among Chitimacha 

 food plants, but by the former is perhaps intended peanuts or the 

 cactus-pear. He also mentions sweetpotatoes, which may mean either 

 wild sweetpotatoes or the varieties later imported. In Bulletin 43, 

 on the authority of Benjamin Paul, I noted raspberries among the 

 kinds of berries gathered by the Chitimacha, but they certainly did not 

 know red raspberries and it is more likely that blackberries were meant. 

 They hunted deer and bear, and ate two kinds of turtles and all sorts of 

 fish. (Swanton, 1911, pp. 345-346 ; Gatschet, 1883, pp. 4-5.) 



The Caddo cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins, and sunflowers, as 

 well as tobacco, and we are told that they utilized acorns, nuts of 

 various kinds, persimmons, plums, wild cherries, mulberries, straw- 

 berries, and blackberries, and were particularly fond of wild grapes. 

 The gathering of grapes by the Caddo was the subject of a painting 

 by Catlin. Among the animals they hunted are mentioned the deer, 

 bison, bear, rabbit, "wild boars," and "dormice and other quadrupeds." 

 These are included in a list given by Solis and he adds to it wild 

 turkeys, geese, ducks, partridges, cranes, quail, "and other birds that 

 are on the beach or on the banks and margins of the rivers," also 

 "snakes and vipers," and polecats. They used fish extensively, 

 especially the eastern Caddo. In general, their economy was in line 

 with that of the other Southeastern tribes. The one animal which 

 instituted an important change was the bison, their annual hunts of 

 this animal giving them for the time being something of the cultural 

 veneer of the Plains Indians. This tended to increase as they were 

 pushed westward. (Swanton, 1942, pp. 127-139; Solis, 1931, p. 43.) 



In 1687 Joutel found growing in the Quapaw fields corn, pumpkins 

 {citrouilles) ^ melons {melons)^ sunflowers (soleils), and beans 

 Ifevres) (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 3, p. 462). 



The usage of vegetable and animal foods in most of the main South- 

 eastern provinces, as reported to early writers, is epitomized in tables 

 2 and 3. Of course, most of these were actually used throughout. 



