THE ATLANTIC SLOPE NATURALIST. 



53 



a very imperfect and misleading no- 

 tice of a short paper of mine, on the 

 same subject which appeared in a re- 

 cent number of The American Anthro- 

 pologist. 



My article refers to a widespread 

 error in botanical identification. I 

 do not deny that the Indians smoke 

 the inner bark of a shrub whose sev- 

 ered brandies look much like those 

 of the red willow ; I do not deny that 

 the ignorant Call this red willow and 

 believe it to be a willow ; neither do 

 I deny that Indians may occasionally 

 smoke the bark of true willow. But 

 I hold that the usual source of the so- 

 called red willow and the chief ingre- 

 dient of kinnekinnik, belongs to the 

 genus Cornns, or dogwood, and not 

 to the genus Salix, or true willow. 

 Not one of your three correspondents 

 claims to have more than a hearsay 

 knowledge, derived from unlettered 

 sources, as to the name of the shrub 

 they call red willow. Let one of them 

 go into the woods with an Indian, dur- 

 ing the season of flowering or fruiting, 

 or even after that, before the leaves 

 have fallen. Let him watch the In- 

 dian cutting his twigs for kinnekinnik. 

 Let him there and then analyze the 

 shrub with the aid of a standard work 

 on botany ; or if he is not a botanist, 

 let him preserve some good specimens 

 and forward them to some centre of 

 botanical knowledge, such as Harvard 

 University or the Department of Agri- 

 culture, in Washington. Let him thus 

 determine the character of his shrub 

 — not once, and in one place ; but with 

 many different tribes and in many dif- 

 ferent places as I have done, and then 

 you are welcome to balance his evi- 

 dence against mine. Until that is 

 done, I shall not admit, even upon the 

 evidence of the most "distinguished 

 and versatile naturalist" in the world, 

 that this question is "settled for all 

 time," against me. 



Yours truly, 

 Washington Matthews. 



A few remarks on this interesting 



letter from Dr. Matthews seem neces- 

 sary. The reference in No. 2, of this 

 journal, to his article in The Ame?'i- 

 can Antliropologist was not "a very 

 imperfect and misleading notice" as 

 anyone can see by comparing the two, 

 although, because of its brevity, it 

 was not as complete as could be de- 

 sired. The No. 3 of The Atlantic 

 Slope Naturalist, containing the 

 criticisms on this subject was sent to 

 Dr. Matthews at Washington, but, he 

 being away did not receive it. Other 

 copies of both Nos. 2 and 3 have since 

 been mailed to him. On the receipt 

 of this letter we again consulted our 

 good friend Dr. Shufeldt, and he re- 

 plied as follows: "I have never actu- 

 ally analyzed what the Sioux Indians 

 gave me to smoke, but I did know that 

 it was 7iot tobacco and they told me 

 it was willow bark." 



This seems to indicate that the edi- 

 tor was perhaps a little hasty in writ- 

 ing that this question was "settled for 

 all time. " 



MR. MANLY HARDY ON THE SMOKING OF 

 RED-WILLOW BARK. 



Brewer, Me., July 20, 1903. 

 W. E. Rotzell, M. D., Narberth, Pa. 



Dear Sir: By your politeness I am 

 in receipt of No. 3, of The Atlantic 

 Slope Naturalist. I see that Dr. 

 Matthews doubts that the Indians ever 

 smoked red willow. I have been very 

 intimately acquainted with the Pen- 

 obscot and Passamaquaddy Indians ever 

 since I was a very small child. I can 

 distinctly remember when every man 

 carried a stone pipe hung from his 

 belt, and used flint and steel to light 

 it, and I know that they smoked the 

 red willow over sixty years ago. They 

 scraped and prepared it exactly as your 

 correspondent, Mr. J. A. Loring de- 

 scribes — they sometimes smoked it 

 clean — but usually mixed it with from 

 1-8 to 1-2 tobacco, the proportions 

 varying with the individual taste or 

 the scarcity of tobacco. They very 

 rarely used tobacco alone as they said 



