300 BUREiAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOCY [Bull. 137 



The honeybee came into our Southern States with Europeans, but 

 there are one or two very early references to honey which have puzzled 

 entomologists not a little. The notices in the De Soto narratives have 

 already been commented upon (Bourne, 1904, vol. 1, p. 74; vol. 2, p. 

 110) and an apparent mention of honey by Laudonniere which seems 

 to be a translator's error (Loudonniere, 1586, p. 9; see p. 268 above). 



Benjamin Hawkins, writing near the end of the eighteenth century, 

 says: 



I saw at Mr. Bailey's (in the Upper Creek country) 20 bee hives. He says they 

 do well, and that there are wild bees in the country in every direction. They 

 are extending themselves west, and some hunters informed him they had lately 

 discovered some to the west of the Mississippi about 30 miles, that they had but 

 recently arrived there, as the trees they fell had young comb only. (Hawkins, 

 1916, p. 40.) 



Elsewhere we read : 



The honey in this country is poisonous in the month of March, some negroes 

 and Indians have been killed at that season. At that season on the sm-all branches, 

 there is a plant in bloom called by the whites wolf's tongue, or fire leaves, by the 

 Indians Hochkau (oachfoe), it has a long stem with yellow blossoms, and 

 bears around the stem, green berries, which altho' poisonous are eaten in years 

 of scarcity by the Indians. They boil them in two or three waters, shifting them, 

 and thus extract the poison from them. They are then pleasant to the taste, 

 somewhat like the garden pea. The Indians are the authors of the discovery. 

 Milk has been the only efficacious remedy discovered here for this poison. The 

 last season a bee tree was taken in this neighborhood and all who eat of the 

 honey sickened instantaneously. They retired to the house, except a black boy, 

 and took some milk which restored them. The boy was unable to get to the 

 house, and altho' aid was sent him, in 2 hours he was dead. 



Those who eat of the honey are first taken with a giddiness, then blindness 

 accompanied with great pain and uneasiness, and thirst. (Hawkins, 1916, 

 p. 46.) 



In later times the Indians secured honey by cutting down the tree 

 in which a hive had been located. When the amount was unusually 

 large, they would kill a small deer, make a bottle out of its skin, and 

 put into it the honey, comb and all. 



Salt was of so much importance in early trading enterprises in 

 the Southeast that it requires rather extended notice. 



When La Salle reached the lower Mississippi he heard of Indians 

 going to the coast to make salt (La Salle, N., ms.), but in view of 

 the extensive salt trade carried on between the river tribes and those 

 about the Arkansas and Louisiana salt licks, and the extensive de- 

 posits of mineral salt near the shores of the Gulf, some of which are 

 known to have been worked by Indians, it is probable that these were 

 not going to boil down sea water. 



When De Soto was at Pacaha, somewhere north of the present 

 Helena, Ark., in 1541, Garcilaso says : 



