366 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY I Hull. 137 



Hariot treats of hickory nuts and walnuts together as if both were 

 utilized in the same way, but this may be accounted for by European 

 ignorance of the hickory. He says: 



Besides their eating of them after our ordinarie maner, they breake them 

 with stones and pound them in morters with water to make a milk which they 

 vse to put into some sorts of their spoonemeate; also among their eodde 

 wheat, peaze, beanes and pompions which maketh them haue a farre more 

 pleasant taste. (Hariot, 1893, p. 27.) 



Bartram is our authority for the use of the "juglans exaltata, 

 commonly called shell-barked hiccory," among the Creeks, re- 

 marking, 



I have seen above an hundred bushels of these nuts belonging to one family. 

 Thej" pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, 

 after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid; 

 this they call by a name which signifies hiccory milk ; it is as sweet and rich 

 as fresh cream, and is an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially 

 homony and corn cakes. (Bartram, 1940, p. 57.) 



The Yuchi preserved hickory nuts (ya'), or rather hickory-nut 

 oil, by pounding the nuts and boiling them in water until a milklike 

 fluid was obtained, which was strained out and used as a beverage 

 or a cooking ingredient (Speck, 1909, pp. 44-45). 



As a source of vegetable oil, the acorn was next in importance to 

 the hickory. Hariot (1893, p. 16) mentions "three seuerall kindes of 

 Berries in the forme of Oke akornes, which also by the experience 

 and vse of the inhabitantes, wee finde to yeelde very good and sweet 

 oyle." One of these was called 



Mangummenauk, and is the acorne of their kind of oake, the which being 

 dried after the maner of the first sortes [chestnuts, walnuts, and hickories], 

 and afterward watered they boile them & their seruants or sometime the 

 chiefe themselues, either for variety or for want of bread, doe eate them 

 with their fish or flesh. (Hariot, 1893, p. 29.) 



Smith says: 



the Acornes of one kind, whose barke is more white than the other, is 

 somewhat sweetish; which being boyled halfe a day in severall waters, at 

 last afford a sweete oyle, which they keep in goards to annoint their heads 

 and joints. The fruit they eate, made in bread or otherwise. (Smith, Tyler 

 ed., 1907, p. 90.) 



Lawson uses similar language: 



The Indians beat them [acornes] into meal and thicken their venison broth 

 with them, and oftentimes make a palatable soup. They are used instead 

 of bread, boiling them till the oil swims on the top of the water, which they 

 preserve for use, eating the acorns with flesh meat. (Lawson, 1860, p. 80.) 



Further on he pays particular attention to the use of live-oak 

 acorns : 



The acorns thereof are as sweet as chestnuts, and the Indians draw an oil 

 from them, as sweet as that from the olive, though of an amber color. ... I 



