The Opelousas courier., 1892-01-16
SEEDS FOR HUMAN DIET.
SOME CURIOUS ONES THAT ARE
EATEN By SAVAGE PEOPLES.

Acorns, Grasses and Sunflower Seeds
Bread From Mesquite-Cakes OF
Seaweed-Other Queer Foods.
Mankind subsists to d great extent
upon the seeds of plants. Of course, all
the grains are seeds. Likewise the nuts
are all seeds. There are other seeds, and
many Of them, by no means SO familiar
as a diet, which, nevertheless, contribute
largely to the support of human beings.
Aeorns form an important article of
diet among many tribes of Indians. Phey
are bruised into meal and made into
dough. for bread. The meal is usually
soaked prelimiuarily in water to take
away its bitter taste. Acorns are stored
away in trees by woodpeckers, and in
times of scarcity the natives rob these
deposits.
Many kinds of grass seed are used to
make flour for bread and mush of ex-
cellent quality. Along the rivers in Col
orado and Arizona grass seeds are col
lected in large quantities and supply a
much valued winter food for the In
dams. They are ground into flour, mixed
with water into a dough, and cakes of
the latter are baked in the hot sand.
Sunlower seeds of special species af-
ford a staple article of diet among the
Indians of Southern Utah and elsewhere.
They are ground and sometimes mixed
with greasy marrow from the bones of
animals for baking in the ashes.
In Southern California the Indians
make bread from the pods of a legumin-
Gus plant called mesquite" A squaw
pounds the pods fine in a wooden NOR
tar. Then she takes from her head her
conical hat and sprinkles a little water
inside Of it. Next she sprinkles a little
meal in the hat, then a little, more water,
again a little more meal, and SO alter
nately until the hat is full. This accom-
plished, she exposes the hat and its con.
tents to the sun until the mixture is
baked into a solid loaf.
In Southern Utah grape seeds are
ground into meal for food, and palm
seeds are similarly treated by the Indians
of Southern California. The Quapaw
Indians in Arkansas extract the meats OF
black walnuts and mix them with corn
for bread. Gourd-seeds are parched,
Drowned and made into mush by the
Indians of Arizona. Pine nuts com
tribute Importantly to the food of many
tribes of Indians. The Diggers, who
are the ~lazziest of savages, save them.
selves trouble in the collecting of these
~'spinons'' by kindling fires against the
trees, which cause the nuts to fall out oil
the cones, while a sweet gum exudes
from the bark, serving their uses fol
sugar.
savages find many sources of food
supply where civilized people would
starve. In Utah the flowers of the cat
tails, which bloom in the spring, are
regarded as a delicacy either raw OF
cooked. Boiled, they make very good
soup. California Indians make bread
from the pollen of cat-tails, which they
collect in large quantities by beating it
off from the plants and catching it on
blankets.
Indians of the northwest coast subsist
largely upon cakes of seaweed prepared
by pressing and drying in the sun. They
also cut this same sort of scaweed very
fine and mix it with the greases of the
candle fish, thus composing a repuisive
oily mass, which they relish greatly.
SeaWeed cakes of the sort described are
also made by the Chinese and shipped in
considerable quantity TO China.
Several species of wild clover are eaten
by the Indians of North America gener-
ally. When the blossoms appear whole
villages may be seen squatted in the
clover meadows plucking and eating the
flowers to safety. The latter are used
for cooking also.
Along the Columbia River a kind of
bread is made from q moss that grows
on the spruce-if tree. This moss is pre-
pared by placing it in heaps. sprinkling
it with water and permitting it to fer
ment. Then it is rolled into balls as
big as a mans head, and these are baked
in pits.
There is a species of aeaweed, a kind
of kelp, which the Indians of Alaska are
very fond of chewing. It is as tough as
leather, and one piece will last a man
who has good teeth for a whole daY.
These Indians have an interesting fashion
of collecting herring eggs. They
mattresses of cedar twigs and sink them
with stones in the water. The fish de-
post their spawn upon the twigs, and it
is subsequently, collected and dried.
The root Of a sort of turnip is used by
the Indians of Tennessee for q very curl
ous purpose-namely, to eur dogs OF the
habit of eating eggs, This root has a.
very hot and biting favor, and q small
portion OF it is put into an egg, which
is placed in the dogs way, After sWal-
lowing it hastily aud without considera-
ton the animal will never touch another
egg.
indians are fond OF the Larvae Of many
insects and they do not despise slugs as
an article of food. Roasted crickets are
d f~ayorite diet with them, particularly
in California and Utah. Grasshoppers
furnish many tribes with q large part of
their subsistence. The usual method Of
preparing them is to dig q pit smaller at
the top than below. Some heated stones
are put into the pit and a quantity of
grasshoppers thrown upon them. Then
some more hot stones are put in, another
layer Of grasshoppers, and so on until
several bushels have been roasted. When
cool the grasshoppers are taken out,
dried and ground. They are eaten alone
or mixed with pounded acorns or berries,
the mixture being made into cakes and
dried in the sun.