SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 377 



Here is what he says of the storage of animal food : 



At a set time every year they gather in all sorts of wild animals, fish, and 

 even crocodiles; these are then put in baskets, and loaded upon a suflScient 

 number of the curly-haired hermaphrodites above mentioned, who carry them 

 on their shoulders to the storehouse. This supply, however, they do not resort 

 to unless in case of the last necessity. (Le Moyne, 1875, p. 9 (illus.) ; Swan- 

 ton, 1922, p. 361.) 



The last were public granaries, but it seems probable that both 

 kinds of food were gathered into both public and family storehouses. 



These statements made by Smith and Strachey lead us to think that 

 the Powhatan Indians had not been in the habit of providing for the 

 future as much as the southern tribes generally, and that influences 

 from farther south came to them by way of the seacoast. 



Strachey : 



Powhatan and some others that are provident, roast their fish and flesh upon 

 hurdells, and reserve of the same untill the scarse tymes ; commonly the fish 

 and flesh they boyle, either very tenderly, or broyle yt long on hurdells over 

 the fier, or ells (after the Spanish fashion) putt yt on a spitt and turne first 

 the one side, then the other, till yt be as dry as their jerkin beef in the West 

 Indies, and so they maye keepe yt a monethe or more without putrifying. 

 (Strachey, 1849, p. 73.) 



Smith (1907 ed., p. 355) remarks that the people of the eastern 

 shore "provide Corne to serve them all the yeare, yet spare; and the 

 other not halfe the year, yet want." Powhatan Indians came to trade 

 with Newport's party, bringing "basketes full of Dryed oysters" 

 (Smith, Arber ed., 1884, p. xlii). 



Dumont de Montigny provides us with the following descriptions 

 of the method by which oysters were preserved by some of the Gulf 

 tribes and fish by those on the Mississippi, particularly the Natchez : 



The Colapissas and Paskagoulas . . . who live near the sea have a sure 

 method of preserving oysters without spoiling for a very long time, and this 

 method deserves so much the more to be recorded, since they use in it neither 

 pepper, nor salt, nor viniger. 



When the sea is low and allows these savages the liberty of laying in a 

 supply of oysters, they go to fill up their dugouts, and afterwards, having 

 withdrawn to the bank, they open them and put them into a bowl. While 

 one part of these savages is occupied in this work, others light a fire, and place 

 on opposite sides two forked sticks planted in the earth, on which there is a 

 crosspiece which holds the handle of a kettle hung above the fire. Then they 

 put all of their oysters into this kettle, and make them boil slightly until they 

 are partly cooked, after which they remove them, and throw them into a 

 basket or big sieve, in order that all of the water may drain out. During that 

 time, they construct a kind of grill of four forked sticks planted in the ground 

 and four sticks placed crosswise on which they place pieces of cane. After- 

 ward, having spread their oysters on this grill, they make a fire underneath, 

 and by this means bucan or smoke them, thus drying them and giving them a 

 yellow and golden color. After having smoked them on one side in this man- 

 ner, they turn them over in order to treat the other side similarly, and they 



