siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 103
According to my Alabama and Koasati informants February was called " the
month when wild peaches are ripe," March " the windy month," and July
"the month when mulberries are ripe." These seem much more natural
arrangements. Probably Byington's Choctaw informants had kept account
of the succession of moons without noticing that the names applied to them
were gradually ceasing to be appropriate owing to the difference between the
lunar and the solar year. At an earlier period the two would probably have
been corrected from time to time.
Ciishman thus epitomizes Choctaw agricultural development:
The Choctaws have long been known to excel all the North American Indians
in agriculture, subsisting to a considerable extent on the product of their
fields."
That this was not a late acquirement is indicated by Romans
(1771), who saj'S: "The Choctaws may more properly be called a
nation of farmers than any savages I have met with; they are the
most considerable people in Florida. . . . Their hunting grounds are
in proportion less considerable than any of their neighbors; but as
they are very little jealous of their territories, nay with ease part
with them, the Chickasaws and they never interrupt each other in
their hunting ; as I mentioned before." ^° Elsewhere he tells us that
the Chickasaw were obliged to apply to them yearly for corn and
beans.^^ Their method of cultivation does not seem to have differed
appreciably from that in vogue elsewhere in the Southeast. Land
was cleared by burning the underbrush and smaller growth, while
the trees were girdled and left to die and disintegrate gradually.
Before the cornfields were cleared there was a dance. Among
the Creeks planting was done in large communal fields and in small
private gardens, the former divided, however, into separate plots
for the families composing the town. The community field was
planted and cultivated by men and women working together but the
garden plots were cared for by some of the old women and were
private enterprises. Among the Choctaw all memory of the communal
plots has been lost and it is possible that they did not exist.
The aboriginal agricultural implement was a crude hoe made out of
the shoulder blade of a bison, a stone, or on the coast a large shell. A
stick was also used to make holes for planting the seed which was
put into hills. Small booths were constructed near the community
grounds and young people stationed there to drive away the crows.
Something has been said above regarding Choctaw methods of
treating corn and preparing it for food, and Romans has the follow-
ing on their foods in general
They cultivate for bread all the species and varieties of the Zea [maize], likewise
two varieties of that species of Pioiicum [probably Sorghum drummondii
«Hist. Choc, Chick, and Natchez, p. 250.
»« Romans, Nat. Hist. E. and W. Fla., pp. 71-7?
" Ibid., p. 62.