SWANTON] rNDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 365 



them, full strength or mixed with corn meal. As it happens, Hariot 

 has more to say about the use of chestnuts as food than any subsequent 

 writer : 



Some they vse to eate rawe, some they stampe and boile to make spoone-meate, 

 and with some being sodden they make such a manner of dowe bread as they 

 vse of their beanes before mentioned. (Hariot, 1893, p. 26.) 



Smith and Strachey tell us that of chestnuts and chinquapins boiled 

 4 or 5 hours the Virginia Indians made broth and bread for their 

 chief men, or, as Strachey adds, to be used "at their greatest feasts" 

 (Strachey, 1849, p. 118; Smith, 1907 ed., p. 90). The "Sapummener" 

 of Hariot, which were boiled and parched and sometimes made into 

 bread, were probably chinquapins (Hariot, 1893, p. 28). Kanjel men- 

 tions dried nuts, evidently chinquapins, in use among the natives of 

 peninsula Florida (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 70-71), and in 1701 

 Lawson found "good store of chinkapin nuts" among the Congaree 

 Indians, 



which they gather in winter great quantities of, drying them, so keep these nuts 

 in great baskets for their use. Likewise hickerie nuts, which they beat betwixt 

 two great stones, then sift them, so thicken their venison broth therewith, the 

 small shells precipitating to the bottom of the pot, whilst the kernel, in form of 

 flower, mixes it with the liquor, both these nuts made into meal makes a curious 

 soup, either with clear water, or in any meat broth. (Lawson, 1860, p. 53.) 



Generally speaking, chestnuts and chinquapins seem to have been 

 used to make bread when used at all, and hickory nuts and acorns 

 were utilized principally for their oil. Curiously enough, the French 

 writers do not seem to mention this use of the hickory. In another 

 place Lawson describes the various preparations made of this nut : 



These nuts are gotten in great quantities, by the savages, and laid up for 

 stores, of which they make several dishes and banquets. One of these I can- 

 not forbear mentioning; it is this: they take these nuts, and break them very 

 small betwixt two stones, till the shells and kernels are indifferent small ; and 

 this powder you are presented withal in their cabins, in little wooden dishes; 

 the kernel dissolves in your mouth, and the shell is spit out. This tastes as 

 well as any almond. Another dish is the soup which they make of these nuts, 

 beaten, and put into venison broth, which dissolves the nut and thickens, 

 whilst the shell precipitates, and remains at the bottom. This broth tastes 

 very rich. (Lawson, 1860, p. 165.) 



Adair also has a rather full description : 



At the fall of the leaf, they gather a number of hiccory-nuts, which they 

 pound with a round stone, upon a stone, thick and hollowed for the pur- 

 pose. When they are beat fine enough, they mix them with cold water, in a 

 clay bason, where the shells subside. The other part is an oily, tough, thick, 

 white substance, called by the traders hiccory milk, and by the Indians the 

 flesh, or fat of hiccory-nuts, with which they eat their bread. A hearty 

 stranger would be apt to dip into the sediments as I did, the first time the 

 vegetable thick milk was set before me. (Adair, 1775, p. 408.) 



