Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1891 — Learning from the Indians. [ARTICLE]

Learning from the Indians.

It is well known that the white people obtained of the Indians the maize which is one of the greatest staple agricultural productions of the United States to-day, and which still goes by the name of Indian corn. In England, and in the Bible, “corn” ordinarily means wheat, because it is generally applied to the grain from which the bread of the common people is made. In Scotland, for this reason, “corn” means oats; and in the United States it means maize. It is not generally known, however, that the whites found the Indians cultivating corn carefully, and staling it up in bags and granaries; nor that the whites learned the art of making maple sugar from the Indians before they knew much about any other kind of sugar. Gov. Bradford’s account of the Kettle* ment of the Plymouth Colony is co#" elusive as to the use the Indians made of their corn. On the occasion of the Pilgrims’ very first landing on Cape Cod, on the 15th of November, 1620, they found t ome deserted huts, and in them “faire Jndean baskets filled with corns, and some in eares, faire and good, of divorce colours, which seemed to them a very goodly sight (haveing never seen any schuch before).” The beauty of Indian corn, either when growing dr harvested, is certainly ft pleasant revelation to those who have never seen it before.

Returning to their ship, the Pilgrims “tooke with them parte of ye corne, and buried up ye rest, and so, like ye men from Escholl, carried with them of ye fruits of ye land and showed their breethren; of which, & their returne, they w’ere marvelusly glad, and their incouraged.” Going once more to the same spot, they found two deserted Indian houses, ana. “also ther was found more of their corne, & of their beanes of various collours.” This is the first mention of New England heaps. The Pilgrims helped themselves from these Indian granaries, intending to pay the natives afterwards. As to the making of maple sugar, the French settlers in Canada were learning this art about the same time that the Pilgrims were establishing themselves at Plymouth. Lescarbot, who wrote in 1606, has an account of the Indians tapping the maple trees for their sweet sap. Many other French writers, chiefly missionaries, describe the Indians’ method of gathering the sap in vessels made of birch bark; but their chief use of it seems to have been as a drink. Father Christian Le Cleroq, however, a missionary who went to Canada in 1675, has left, in French, in his work entitled “Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie,” an account of Indian maple sirup-making and sugar-makihg which indicates that they had long possessed the art. He wrote: “As to the liquor of the maple, which is the sap of the tree itself, it is equally as delicious to the French as to the savages, who in spring-time give themselves to it with glad hearts. It is true, moreover, that it is very pleasant and abundant in Gaspasia; for from a very little opening in the maple tree, made by a hatchet, enough can be distilled to make ten or a dozen vessels of it. “What appears to me very remarkable in the juice of the maple is, that if, by boiling, the quantity be reduced to one-third, it becomes a veritable sirup, which hardens little by little into sugar, taking on a reddish color. “Of this sugar are made little cakes or loaves (petits pains') which are sent to France, and which in use often serve well in default of French sugar. “I have myself.” the good father adds, “often mixed this sugar with brandy, cloves, and cinnamon, which made a highly agreeable liquor.” To this day maple sugar is brought into Quebec in petits pains and in small cornucopias of birch bark.