IROQUOIS USES OF MAIZE 



105 



varieties. Even wild onions and artichokes are now seldom used. 

 There is a dim recollection of food roots, however, and the writer 

 succeeded in getting the list which follows: 



Artichokes 

 Ground nuts 

 Wild onions 

 Wild leek 

 Yellow pond lily 

 Cat-tail 

 Arrowhead 

 Indian turnip 

 Milkweed 



Solomon's seal 



Potato 

 Skunk cabbage 



Helianthws tuberosws 

 Apios tuberosa 

 Allium canadense 

 A. trie oc cum 

 Nymphaea advena 

 Scirpus validus 

 Sagittaria latifolia 

 Arisaema triphyllum 

 Asclepias syriaea 



r Polygonatum hiHorum 



\ P. commetatum 

 Solanum tuberosimi 

 Symplocarpws 



foeditus 



otwe^'a' 



yoandjago^' 



gahadago"ka' 



o'no'sao" 



owa^'osha' 



ono^^"gwe^Ma 



oo'^wa'ho'no"' 



ga^osha' 



ono^ska' 



ga'ga'wiyas 



(r= crow eats it) 



onon'o^'da' 



niagwai'^igas 



(r=bear eats it) 



ENGLISH 



Root 



I pull roots 

 Root gatherer 

 Root eater 



Terminology 



SENECA 



- okde'a^ 



o'gik'teodagok 



hakde'ogwas 



^akde'as 



Artichokes were valued for their tasteful tubers which were edible 

 raw as well as cooked. The boiled artichokes formed a dish which 

 if properly seasoned with oil had some degree of palatability. Arti- 

 chokes as food was early noted by explorers^ and later writers men- 

 tion their use. Champlain is the first writer to note their cultiva- 

 tion.^ The Iroquois so far as it has been possible for the writer to 



'^ Hak-de'-as, from h, masculine affix ; okde'a', root ; initial changes 

 to broad a, terminal a' is elided; ias or ias, in compounds meaning eater of, 

 loses initial i after e thus h-akde-as, he root eats. 



2 On September 21, 1605, Champlain wrote of his explorations along the 

 New England coast, ". . . We saw . . . very good roots which the 

 savage cultivate, having a taste similar to that of chards." Elsewhere it 

 was stated that these roots were Jerusalem artichokes. The Rev. Edmund F. 

 Shafter commenting- on this subject says that the Italians had procured 

 these tubers for cultivation before Champlain's time, calling them girasole, 

 corrupted and anglicized to Jerusalem. 



3 Champlain. Voyages. 11:112 footnote. Prince Soc. Bost. Pub. 1878. 



