SwANTON] ENDIAXS OF THE SOUTHEASTEIIN XJKITED STATES 299 



Creek in Taylor County, Ga., Patsaliga in Crenshaw County, Ala., 

 and a creek of the same name, besides another known as Pigeon Creek, 

 in the same part of the State. Very likely Pigeon Creek, Nassau 

 County, Fla., and Little Pigeon Creek, Sevier County, Tenn., were 

 pigeon resorts. Partridges were mentioned as in use in Virginia, 

 and ducks and geese in South Carolina and the Chickasaw country, but 

 they were undoubtedly eaten wherever they could be found. Birds' eggs 

 were probably eaten everywhere and are specifically mentioned as an 

 article of consumption among the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Powhatan 

 Indians. The remaining delicacies belonging to the animal kingdom 

 of which we have notice are beetles and locusts in Virginia, wasps 

 in the comb in the Piedmont Region of the Carolinas, fleas and lice 

 in north Florida (Swan ton, 1922, p. 362), and snails in south Florida. 



A word might be added regarding the use of dog flesh. Ranjel, 

 one of the De Soto chroniclers, tells us that the Indians of a town 

 somewhere in the northwestern part of the present South Carolina 

 gave the Spaniards "a few little dogs which are good eating," and 

 adds: "These are dogs of a small size that do not bark; and they 

 breed them in their homes for food" (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, p. 103). 

 It has been conjectured that these were opossums, but as Elvas speaks 

 of a presentation of dogs in about the same region, but says that the 

 Indians did not eat them, the chances are that either Ranjel or his 

 editor has made a mistake, that the animals were dogs, and that 

 they were not eaten by the natives. As to the absence of a bark, 

 we may well recall what Strachey (1849, p. 124), says of the dogs of 

 Virginia that they "cannot barke, but howle." A small variety of dog 

 was, however, used as food in some other parts of North America. 



Du Pratz includes the dog among Natchez food animals, but it is 

 probable that he has in mind the part that it played in the feasts 

 of which war parties partook just before starting out to engage the 

 enemy (Swanton, 1911, p. 129). The Quapaw had the same custom, 

 according to Romans (1775, p. 100), who speaks of it as if it did not 

 extend farther south, but while he is, of course, in error here, we 

 may take his remarks as an indication that the usage, like so many 

 others, had spread south along the river and was not originally 

 characteristic of the Gulf tribes. 



An apparent exception is indicated by an anonymous French writer, 

 who says that when the Choctaw "wish to feast their friends, they 

 kill a dog, of which they have quantities, and serve it to them" (Swan- 

 ton, 1918, p. 67). But since this statement stands entirely by itself, 

 such feasts may have had a ceremonial significance. 



Adair (1775, pp. 133-134) states that, in early times, the Indians of 

 his acquaintance did not eat the flesh of horses, dogs, or domestic 

 cats, though when he wrote the Choctaw had become addicted to the use 

 of the first-mentioned. 



