FECULA OF THE SAW-PALMETTO. 
257 
dyer. The chips are pounded in a mortar cut out of the 
nearest log of hard wood found lying on the ground, with a 
pestle about six feet long, and then passed through a sieve 
made of strips of palmetto leaves — a fabric similar to that of 
the "palm hats" sold here; the coarser fibres remaining are 
thrown away. 
A piece of cotton cloth — generally a cotton handkerchief — 
is then tied by its corners, at about three feet from the 
ground, to stakes set in a square about eighteen inches apart; 
underneath and near the ground a deer skin is tied to the 
stakes in the same manner, its corners gathered so as to enable 
it to hold six or eight gallons of water. Into the upper cloth 
is then put a quantity of that part of the root passed through 
the sieve, and water is poured upon it by one person, while 
another stirs it around and mixes it up with the hands. The 
water passing through the cloth carries with it all the finer 
farinaceous particles, and is received in the deer skin below. 
When the latter is full the flour is allowed to settle, and a 
starch-like substance is deposited, which is then poured off. 
After throwing away from the cloth the residue left in it, 
it is washed and replaced, and the deposit left in the deer skin 
removed to it; when it is suffered to drain completely. It is 
then spread out on a dry skin on the ground, and all the 
lumps are broken and thoroughly dried; it is now packed in 
bags of dressed deer skin ready for use. 
It cannot well be made into bread, but is used in a kind 
of pap, or to thicken a soup, if they have meat. It is some- 
times, also, fried as batter cakes. 
The Indians do not consider it a wholesome diet, — it is 
productive of bowel complaints. 
The whole labpr of gathering the root and preparing the 
flour, which is considerable, from the force necessary in 
pounding it in the mortar, is performed by the females. 
There is a difference of color in the two parcels I send you. 
The roots from which the whiter flour was made were drier 
than the others. 
Your obedient servant, 
Persifor F. Smith. 
