Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1896-07-09
DISCOVERY OF MAPLE SUGAR.
Like Many Others, IL Was Accidental. n
the Indian Story Is True.

Like Many Others. IL was Accidental. IA
the Indian story Is True.
Is does not appear that any record
was made of aboriginal methods of tap
ping the maple and converting its sap
into sugar, nor is the oldest maple old
enough to tell us, though it had the
gift of speech or slgn-making intelli-
gible to us. We can only guess that the
primitive Algonquin laboriously in
ficted a barbarous wound with his
stone Ratchet, and with a stone gouge
cut a place for spout, so far setting
the fashion, which was long followed
by white men, with only the difference
that better tools made possible. Or
we may guess that the Indian, taking
a hint from his little red brother,
Niquasese, the squirrel, who taps the
smooth-barked branches, broke these
off and caught the sap in suspended ves-
sells of birch bark, than which no clean
er and sweeter receptacle could be
imagined. Doubtless the boiling was
done in the earthen kolxhs, or pots,
some of which had a capacity of sew
eral gallons. According to Indian
myths, it was taught by Heaven-sent
instructor.
The true story of the discovery of
maple sugar making is in the legend
of Woksis, the mighty hunter. Going
forth one morning to the chase, he
babe Moqua, the squaw of his bosom,
to have a choice cut of moose meat
boiled fer him when he should return,
and that she might be reminded of the
time stuck a stake in the snow, and
made straight mark out from it in
the place where it's shadow would then
fall. She promised strict compliance.
and, as he departed, she hewed off the
desired tidbit with her sharpest stone
knife, and, filling her best kokh with
clean snow for melting, hung it over
the fire. Then she sat down on bear
skin and began embroidering pair of
moccasins with variously dyed porcu-
pine quilts.
This was labor of love, for the moo
casins, of the finest deerskin, were for
her lord. She became so absorbed in
the work that the kokh was forotten
till the bark cord that suspended it was
burned off, and it spilled its contents
on the fire with a startling, quenching,
scattering explosion that filled the wig
wan with steam and smoke. She lifted
the overturned vessel from the embers
and ashes by stick thrust into its
four-cornered mouth. and when it was
cool enough to handle she repaired it
with new bail of bark, and the kollh
was ready for service again. But the
shadow of the stake had swung so near
toward the mark that she knew there
-, I'LL 4Ik,
dinner.
Happily, she bethought her of the
great maple behind the wigwam, tapped
merely for the provision of a pleasant
drink, but the sweet water might serve
better purpose now. So she filled the
kokh with sap and hung it over the
mended fire. In spite of impatient
watching, it presently began to boil,
whereupon she popped the ample ration
of moose meat into it and set cake OF
pounded corn to bake on the tilted slab
before the fire. Then she resumed her
embroidery, in which the sharp point
of each thread supplied it's own needle.
The work grew more and more in
teresting. The central figure, her hus-
bands totem of the bear, was becoming
tinguished from the wolves, eagles and
turtles of the other tribal clans. In
Imagination she already beheld the
moccasins on the feet of her noble Wok-
sis, now stealing in awful silence along
the war path, now on the neck of the
fallen foe, now returning jubilant with
triumph or fleeing homeward from de-
feat, to ease the shame of failure by
kicking her, in which case she felt her,
self bearing, as ever, her useful part.
So she dreamed and worked, stitch by
stitch, while the hours passed I'M
needed, the shadow crept past the mark,
the kokh boiled low. and the cake gave
forth the smell of burning. Alas! the
cake was a blackened crisp, and lol tho
once juicy piece of meat was shriv-
eled morsel in the midst of gummy,
dark brown substance.
She snatched kol<h and cake from the
fire, and then, hearing her husband
coming, she ran and hid herself in the
nearest thicket of evergreens, for she
knew that when he found not where
with to appease the rage of hunger
he would be seized with a more terrible
one against her. Listening awhile
with qua<ing heart, and catching no
alarming sound, but aware instead OF
an unaccountable silence, she ventured
forth and peeped into the wigwam.
Woksis sat by the fire eating with
his fingers from the kokh, while his
face shone with an expression OF SUI
preme content and enjoyment With
wonder she watched him devour the
last morsel, but her wonder was greater
when she saw him deliberately break
the earthen pot and lick the last vestige
of spoiled cookery from the shards.
She could not restrain surprised cry,
and, discovering her, he addressed her:
20, woman of women! Didst thou
conceive this marvel of cookery, or has
Klose-kur-Beh been thy INSTRUCTOR"
Being a woman, she had the wit to
withhold the exact truth, but permitted
him to believe whatever he would.
LET me embrace thee" he cried, and
upon his lips she tasted the first maple
sugar.
The discovery was made public, AND
kolxhs of sap were presently boiling
in every wigwam. All were so anxious s
to get every atom of the precious sweet
that they broke the kokhs and scraped
the pieces, just as Woksis, the first
sugar-eater, had done. And that is
why there are so many fragments of
broken pottery and so few whole vessels