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for the manufacture of bread.[1] Oil was also obtained from the walnut. The aborigines gathered a great abundance of hickory nuts, and, placing them in mortars into which water had been poured, pounded shell and kernel until a milky liquor, known as pohickory, had been made. This was used either as a refreshing drink, or as a sauce for a mess of boiled beans, peas, maize, and pumpkins.[2] The kernels of the chestnut and chinquapin were considered to be great dainties when dried, beaten into flour, and converted into bread, in which form it was reserved for the most important feasts, and for the enjoyment of the werowances.[3] The only salt in use among the Indians was the ash of stick weed and hickory; and, except the juice sucked from the crushed fibre of the maizestalk, they had no knowledge of any spirits, whether natural or manufactured, unless the infusion of hickory nuts with water can be regarded as such. The liquid they preferred for drinking purposes was the water that had long been standing in

  1. ↑ See, for these details, Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 140; Works of Capt. John Smith, pp. 56, 58.
  2. ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 140; Strachey’s Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 129. This liquor seems to have been used also in preparing hominy for consumption. During Colonel Norwood’s detention among the Indians of the Eastern Shore in 1650, he was treated to this dish thus seasoned: “It was a sort of spoon meat in colour and taste, not unlike to almond milk, tempered and mixed with boiled rice. The ground was Indian Corn boiled to a pap, which they call Homini; but the ingredient which performed the milky part was nothing but dry pohickory nuts, beaten shells and all to powder, and they are like our walnuts . . . being beaten in a mortar and put into a tray, hollow’d in the middle to make place for fair water; no sooner is the water poured into the powder, but it rises again white and creamish, and after a little ferment . . . it becomes a rarity to a miracle.” A Voyage to Virginia, p. 37, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III. According to Captains Amadas and Barlow, the Indians of Roanoke Island (1584), “while the grape lasted, drank wine.” Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. III, p. 304.
  3. ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, pp. 57, 58.
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