BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY


nated with them. So far as smoke-dried little grain is concerned it suits us as
well as them.a
 Cold meal (farinc froidc) is that which is liked best. If the natives find it
good the French relish it very well. I can say that it is a very good aliment
and at the same time the best that one can take on a long journey, because it
refreshes and is very nourishing.b

 Du Pratz describes two sorts of canes, one, much taller than the
other, growing in moist places to a height of 18 to 20 feet and as
large as the fist.
* At the end of a certain number of years [these] bear grain in abun-
dance. This grain, which rather resembles oats, except that it is three times
as thick and longer, is carefully gathered by the natives, who make of it bread
or porridge. This meal swells up as much as that of wheat."
 The same writer speaks of two other kinds of grain in the following
words:

 They also make food of two grains, of which one is called choupichoul,l
which they cultivate without difficulty, and the other is the widlogovill, which
grows naturally and without any cultivation. These are two kinds of millet
which they hull in the same way as rice.c
 The former is referred to in another place:
 I ought not to omit here that from the lowlands of Louisiana upward the
 river St. Louis [Mississippi] has many sand banks, which become entirely dry
 after the waters have gone down at the end of the flood. These sand banks
 vary in length. There are some half a league long which do not lack a good
 breadth. I have seen the Natchez and other natives sow a grain which they
 called choupichoul on these sand banks. This sand is never cultivated and the
 women and children cover the grain, with a great deal of indifference, with their
 feet, almost without looking at it. After this sowing and this kind of culti-
 vation they wait until autumn and then gather a great quantity of this grain.
 They prepare it like millet and it is very good eating. This plant is that which
 is called beautiful savage lady f and which grows in all countries, but it
 needs a good soil, and however good is the quality of any European soil it
 there reaches a height of only 11 feet, while on this river sand without culti-
 vation it reaches a height of 31 or 4 feet.9
 When these grains fail them they have recourse to potatoes which they find
 in the woods, but it is only when necessity compels them, just as when they
 eat chestnuts.'

 Although the beans and pumpkins described by Du Pratz were
 those native to the country, he does not state definitely that the
 natives cultivated them, though this was certainly the case with
 pumpkins.

 aDu Pratz, Ilst. de La Louisiane, IlI, 345n-46.
 b Ibid., 346.
 c Ibid., II, 58-59.
 a Perhaps cockspur grass (Echinochloa crusgalli).
 Du Pratz, [list. de La Louisiane, in, 9. Probably wild rice or water millet.
 f Belle dame sausage.
 P Du Pratz, Hist. de La Louisiane, I, 316-317.
 h Ibid., III, 9-10.


[BULL. 43