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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEEEMONIAL. LIFE 47
and Panicuin maximum] vulgarly called guinea corn ; a greater number of
different phaseolus [beans] and Dolichos [hyacinth beans] than any I have
seen elsewhere; the esculent Convolvulus (vulgo) sweet potatoes, and the
Helianthus giganteus [sunflower] ; with the seed of the last made into flour
and mixed with flour of the Zea they make a very palatable bread ; they have
carried the spirit of husbandry so far as to cultivate leeks, garlic, cabbage and
some other garden plants, of\which they make no use, in order to make profit
of them to the traders ; they also used to carry poultry to market at Mobile,
although it lays at the distance of an hundred and twenty miles from the
nearest town ; dunghill fowls, and a very few ducks, with some hogs, are the
only esculent animals raised in the nation.
They make many kinds of bread of the above grains with the help of
water, eggs, or hickory milk; they boil corn and beans together, and make
many other preparations of their vegetables, but fresh meat they have only
at the hunting season, and then they never fail to eat while it lasts; of their
fowls and hogs they seldom eat any as they keep them for profit.
In failure of their crops, they make bread of the different kinds of Fagus
[now including merely the beeches but then in addition the chestnut and chinquapin]
of the Diospyros [persimmon], of a species of Convolvulus with a
tuberous root found in the low cane grounds [wild sweet potato], of the root of
a species of Smilax [Choctaw kantak ; Creek kunti], of live oak acorns, and of
the young shoots of the Canna [imported probably from the West Indies] ;
summer many wild plants chiefly of the Drupi [plum] and Bacciferous [berry]
kind supply them.
They raise some tobacco, and even sell some to the traders, but when they
use it for smoaking they mix it with the leaves of the two species of the
Cariaria [sumac] or of the Liquidaiubar styraclntua {Liquidamhar styraciflua,
sweet gum] dried and rubbed to pieces.*"
Of Choctaw agriculture at a more recent day Simpson Tubby
spoke as follows. The old Indian flint or flour corn had white and
blue kernels intermixed. It was not good for much except roasting
ears. They also had popcorn. He remembers no town fields such
as the Creeks had, all of the corn in his time being planted in small
patches near the houses. If the patches were large, several families
would sometimes unite and cultivate them in succession, but the
fields themselves were entirely separate. The old Choctaw never
made the mistake of planting too early. Along with their corn
they set out the old cornfield beans which were very prolific. They
sometimes planted these in with the corn but more often about poles,
tour to six beans to a pole, and from these there would be from two
to four vines. The beans too high up on the poles to be reached
from the ground they left until fall, when they gathered them into
hamper baskets and set them aside for seed next spring. They
also planted the round melons now called Guinea melons, which
can be left in the field until December and keep into the next month.
Before the whites came they had pumpkins but no squashes.
^ Romans, Nat. Hist. E. and W. Fla., pp. 84-85. The botanical identifications and
corrections were made by Mr. Paul C. Standley and Mr. E. P. Killip. Tlie sorghum,
hyacinth beans, .sweet potatoes, and, of course, the kitchen garden vegetables represent
post-Columbian importations.
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