The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-01
INDIAN MAPLE SUGAR.
The Red Man Taught the White Man t
 Make the Dainty.


 Make the Dainty.
 Very few of the people to whom maple
 sugar is an entirely familiar and com monplace thing are aware of the fact that the method of making sugar was taught to the white people by the Indi- ans, and that they made sugar long be- fore the discovery of America This is only one of the many things that the white people learned from the Indians. Others were the weaving of cotton. the cultivation of Indian corn and the use of tobacco.
 Some of the early writers tell us that the French were the first to make this sugar, and that they learned how to make 1t from the Indian women. The sap was collected in rude way, a gash being cut in the tree, and into this a stick was thrust, down which the freely flowing sap dripped into a vessel of I birch bark or gourd or into wooden troughs hollowed out by fire or the axe Then into larger wooden troughs full of the sap red hot stones were thrown just as in old times they used to be | thrown into the water in which food "do DoliCl-dIN Dy CpllS UdHIly lITOWlIR in hot stones and taking out those that had become cool the sap was boiled and evaporated, and at length syrup was made, which later became sugar
 This manufacture of the sugar was not confined to any one tribe, but was practised by all northern Indians and was known to those living as far south as Florida and Texas. Among the su- gar making tribes special festival was held which was called the maple dance, which was undoubtedly a religious fes- tival in the nature of prayer or propi- tiatory ceremony, asking for an abun- dant flow of sap and for good fortune in collecting 1t.
 Among many if not all the Indians inhabiting the northern United States maple sugar was not merely a luxury something eaten because it was tooth some-but was actually an important part of their support. Mixed with pounded parched corn 1t was put up in sfall quantities and was a concentrated form of nutriment, not much less valua- ble in respect to it's quality of support than the pemmican which was used al- most down to our own times.
 Among all the older writers who had much familiarity with the customs of the Indians accounts are given of the manufacture of sugar, and this custom was so general that among many tribes | the month in which the sap ran best was called the sugar month. By the i Iroquois the name Ratirontaks, mean | ing tree eaters, was applied to the AL gonquin tribes, and an eminent authori- ty, Dr. Brinton, has suggested that | they were probably 'so called from their love of the product of the sugar maple" On the other hand, A. F. Chamberlain has very plausibly said "that it is hardly likely that the Iro- quois distinguished other tribes by this term, if it's origin be as suggested, since they themselves were sugar makers and aaters" A more probable origin of the word is that given by Schoolcraft in substance as follows: "Ratirontaks, whence Adirondacks, was applied chief y to the Montagnais tribes, north of the St. Lawrence, and was derisive term indicating a well known habit of these rbas of eating the inner bark of trees Il winter when food was scarce, or : when on war excursions" This habit If eating the inner bark of trees was, IS is well known, common to many ribes of Indians, both those who inhab- { t the country where the sugar maple { ,rows and also those in other parts of he country where the maple is un- ,nown. l On the western prairies sugar was made also from the box elder, which { rees were tapped by the Indians and z he sap boiled down for sugar, and to- ' ay the Cheyenne Indians tell us that | ! was from this tree that they derived Il the sugar that they had until the [ rrival of the white man on the plains, V more than fifty years ago.