Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1895-06-28
CLAY EATERS.

MANY CLAY EATERS.
VARIOUS PEOPLES WHO HAVE USED
THE SOIL AS FOOD.
In Some Places the Custom Is Observed
Only as a Ceremonial, but Generally the
Purpose Is to Sustain Life-Indians and
Africans Great Clay Eaters.
Among the extraordinary passions for
eating uncommon things must be reckoned
that which ONE peoples exhibit for eating
earth or clay. OF this practice, which
would appear to have once prevailed all
over the world, numerous examples were
Cited by Captain j. G. Bourke, United
States army, in the ninth annual report
Of the bureau of %ethnology. In some
places the custom has degenerated into a
ceremonial, while in others the eating Of
this strange food still prevails as a kind Of
necessity to the lives of those who are adj
dotted to it.
The Mexican devotees picked up a piece
OF clay in the temple of Tezcatlipoca and
ate it with the greatest reverence, and also
ate a piece of earth in swearing by the sun
and earth. But the use Of clay by the
Mexicans was not merely a matter of cere-
mony, for it seems to have been an escu-
lent in common use. Edible earth was
sold openly in the markets Of Mexico and
appears in the list of foods given by Go
mara.
Cabeza de Vaca says that the Indians of
Florida ate clay, and that the natives Of
fered him many mesquite beans, which
they ate mixed with earth. Venegas as
serts that the Indians Of California alto
earth. The traditions of the Indians Of
San Juan Capistrano and vicinity show
that they had fed upon a kind of clay,
which they often used upon their heads by
way Of ornament. The Tatu Indians of
California, according to Powers, mix red
earth into their acorn bread to make the
latter sweet and cause it to go further.
Sir John Franklin relates that the banks
oil the Mackenzie river contain layers Of a
kind Of unctuous mud, which the Tinneh
Indians use as food during the seasons of
famine and even at other times chew as an
amusement. 1t has a milky taste, and the
flavor IS not disagreeable. The Apache
and Navajo branches of the A%thabascan
family Of North American Indians are not
unacquainted with the use of clay as a
comestible, although among the former it
Is now rarely used and among the latter is
employed only as a condiment to relieve
the bitterness of the taste Of the wild DO
tato. In the same manner it is known to
both the Zuni and the Tusayan.
In South America, likewise, the eating
Of clay prevails among the Indians on the
banks of the Orinoco, throughout Brazil
and on the mountains of Bolivia and Peru.
In western Africa the negroes of Guinea
have long been known to eat a yellowish
earth called by them "caouac," and the
flavor and taste of which is very agreeable
to them and said to cause them no incon-
venience. Some addict themselves so ex-
cessively to the use of it that it becomes to
them a real necessity, and no punishment
is sufficient to restrain them from the
practice of consuming it.
When the Guinea negroes were in former
times carried as slaves to the West India
islands, they were observed to continue the
custom of eating clay. But the ~"caouac''
OF the American islands, or the substance
which the poor negroes attempted to SUBJ
stitute in their new homes for the African
earth, was found to injure the health Of
the slaves who ate it, and so the practice
was long ago forbidden and has possibly
now died out in the West India colonies. In
Martinique a species Of red earth or yellow
ish tufa was formerly secretly sold in the
markets, but the use of it has probably
ceased in the French colonies also.
In eastern Asia a similar practice pre-
walls in various places. In the island of
Java, between Sourabaya and Samarang,
Labillardiere saw small, square, reddish
cakes of earth sold in the village for the
purpose of being eaten. These were found
by Ehrenberg to consist, for the most part,
of the remains Of microscopic animals and
plants which had lived and been deposited
in fresh water. Some of the Japanese, too,
are addicted to the practice of eating earth.
DR.. Love, some time AGO., published an
analysis of a clay which is eaten to a con.
siderable extent by the Amos. 1t occurs
in a bed several feet thick in the valley of
Tsietonai (Eat Earth Valley, on the north
coast Of Yesso.
1t is light gray in color and Of fine
structure. The people mix with the clay
fragments of the leaf of some plant for tho
aromatic principle it contains. They cat
the earth because they think it contains
some beneficial substance, not because it
is q necessity with them. They have meat
and abundance of vegetable food. The clay
Is ciiUCu LII Ullc 10TH u d soup. SCVGTtll
pounds are boiled with lily roots in a
small quantity Of water and afterward
strained. The Amos pronounce the soup
very palatable.
In northern Europe, especially in the re-
mote northern parts of Sweden, a kind Of
earth known by the nameo of bread meal
is yearly consumed by hundreds of cart
loads, 1t is said. A similar earth is COM
monty mixed with bread in Finland. In
both these cases the earth employed con-
sists for the most part of the empty shells
Of minute infusoria in which there cannot
exist any ordinary nourishment.
Some of the Siberian tribes when they
travel carry a small bag Of their native
earth, the taste Of which they suppose will
preserve them from all the evils Of a for
eign sky. We are told that the Tungusee
Of Siberia eat clay called ''rock marrow, !" y
which they use mixed with marrow. Near
the Ural mountains powdered gypsum,
commonly called crock meal" is some
times mixed with bread. The Jukabiri Of
northeastern Siberia have an earth of q
swedish and rather stringent taste, to
which they ascribe q variety of sanitary
properties when eaten.