SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 361 



very good spoonemeate in maner of a gelly, and is much better in tast if it bee 

 tempered with oyle. (Hariot, 1893, pp. 25-26.) 



The account of Bartram is, however, fuller : 



They dig up these roots, and while yet fresh and full of juice, chop them in 

 pieces, and then macerate them well in wooden mortars ; this substance they put 

 in vessels nearly filled with clean water, when, being well mixed with paddles, 

 whilst the finer parts are yet floating in the liquid, they decant it off into other 

 vessels, leaving the farinaceous substance at the bottom, which, being taken out 

 and dried, is an impalpable powder or farina, of a reddish color. This, when 

 mixed in boiling water, becomes a beautiful jelly, which, sweetened with honey 

 or sugar, affords a most nourishing food for children or aged people; or when 

 mixed with fine corn flour, and fried in fresh bears grease, makes excellent 

 fritters. (Bartram, 1792, p. 49.) 



During a visit with some Creek Indians on St. Catherines Island, 

 Oglethorpe and his companions were given "for Greens . . . the tops 

 of China-Briars, which eat almost as well as asparagus." (Ga. Hist. 

 Soc. Coll., 1840-78, vol. 4, p. 14, suppl.) 



From the diary of Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Foreman quotes the fol- 

 lowing note regarding the treatment of kunti, and this is apparently 

 the Smilax^ and not the Zamia^ though it occurs in the course of a dis- 

 cussion of the Seminole War : 



They take the (kunti) root which is something like a turnip in appearance, 

 the* longer and larger; they scrape off the exterior, pound it, completely mash- 

 ing it ; put it into a bag and drain off the liquid ; the liquor settling leaves a sub- 

 stance at the bottom which is the proper flour, the water being poured off. The 

 flour is washed two or three times, settling each time, the water being poured 

 off. The powder finally is then used as flour. (Foreman, 1932, p. 342.) 



Almost the only description of the manner of reducing white kunti 

 (Zamia integrifolia) roots to flour is given by MacCauley, who 

 observed it among the Florida Seminole in 1880-81. The general 

 method was probably as borrowed from the Calusa Indians and 

 their allies: 



White men call it the "Indian bread root," and lately its worth as an article 

 of commerce has been recognized by the whites. There are now at least two 

 factories in operation in Southern Florida in which Koonti is made into a 

 flour for the white man's market. I was at one such factory at Miami and 

 saw another near Orlando. I ate of a Koonti pudding at Miami, and can say 

 that, as it was there prepared and served with milk and guava jelly, it was 

 delicious. As might be supposed, the Koonti industry, as carried on by the 

 whites, produces a far flner flour than that which the Indians manufacture. 

 The Indian process, as I watched it at Horse Creek, was this : The roots were 

 gathered, the earth was washed from them, and they were laid in heaps near 

 the "Koonti log." 



The Koonti log, so called, was the trunk of a large pine tree, in which a 

 number of holes, about nine inches square at the top, their sides sloping down- 

 ward to a point, had been cut side by side. Each of these holes was the property 

 of some one of the squaws or of the children of the camp. For each of the 



