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INDIAN ORIGIN OF MAPLE SUGAR.
BY H. W. HENSHAW.
For a long time it was a popular idea that the Indian was a savage with all the traits that pertain to savagery, and with few or none of the instincts that are supposed to inhere in civilized man. This supposition has gradually given way to a clearer apprehension of the status of the Indian, as his achievements in one direction and another have been recognized and studied. Far from being a wandering savage dependent solely upon his skill as a hunter and fisher, it has been ascertained that over nearly all the United States he was practically sedentary, and that east of the Mississippi all the tribes, and not a few west of that river, depended for a livelihood more upon the results of agriculture than upon any other one source. Moreover, the agriculture practiced by the Indian has had tremendous and far reaching consequences to civilized man. For the most important product of the Indian’s tillage was maize, and while we may be in some doubt as to the exact region in which maize originated and probably shall never know the tribe or family which first cultivated it, there is no ground to question the fact that it was discovered by the Indians in its wild state, its value as a food ascertained by him, and by him it was cultivated for so long a period that it has become so changed as possibly to defy identification in its wild state, if, indeed, it still exists in a state of nature. Taken from the Indian’s hand, it has been fostered by a more skillful culture till it has become one of the most important of food plants and helps to sustain millions of human beings in every grade of culture the world over.
Though the most important gift of the Indian to civilization, maize is not his only one. Pumpkins, beans, one of the most valuable cotton plants, and tobacco, the latter of which has enslaved man to the uttermost parts of the earth, are also gifts from the Indian to his conqueror.
It might not be very easy to point out just what benefits the Indian has received from his civilized brother in return for the above and other gifts. Perhaps, if he has received little the fault may not be
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entirely that of his civilized brother, though there are philanthropists who appear to think so. However, it is not the purpose of the present paper to discuss the Indian’s success or failure in adjusting himself to the requirements of advanced civilization, but to present some evidence tending to show that there is still another important product for which civilized man is indebted to the Indian.
Allusion is made to Maple Sugar, the origin of the manufacture of which appears to be in doubt in the minds of some.
During the last census year (1880) more than thirty-six millions of pounds of maple sugar were produced in the United States, and more than a million gallons of maple molasses, which together had a value of perhaps $4,000,000.
These figures show that the maple sugar industry is a by no means contemptible one, and, although for the practical purposes of to-day it matters not whether the art of its manufacture originated with the Indian or European, its origin is by no means unimportant to the student desirous of ascertaining Indian arts that he may have a clear idea of the position attained by the Indian race in its struggle upwards.
Considering the great familiarity of the Indians with the natural edible products of America, and the general ignorance of the European on this subject, it is fairly to be inferred that the a priori likelihood of the discovery of the properties of the maple sap is all in favor of the Indian. If maple-sugar-making in the Northern United States preceded the arrival of the European and if the latter derived the art from the Indians, it is reasonable to expect to find statements to this effect in the early French narratives. On the other hand, it is to be said that if the discovery of the saccharine juice of the maple and the simple art of boiling it down to sugar were made by Europeans, is is even more probable that this fact would have been duly recorded by the early chroniclers. I am not prepared to say whether the earliest chronicles, say 1600-1675, contain information as to the Indian or European discovery of maple-sugar-making. If the matter is not referred to, its absence cannot be taken as conclusive either as to aboriginal or European origin. Many customs of the Indians far more important than this received but the briefest mention by the early narrators or are not mentioned at all.
Most of the notes presented herewith were collected years ago in connection with the general subject of Indian food, and, although it is not pretended that they are exhaustive, they seem sufficient to
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indicate pretty clearly that maple-sugar-making is an aboriginal industry, and perhaps render reference to earlier authorities unnecessary.
The first reference which I happen to have occurs in Joutel’s Journal, which is to be found in Margry Découvertes, III, 510. A very free translation of the same appears in French Hist. Coll. La., I, 216, 1846.
A fair translation of the passage is appended, although it throws no light upon the question of the origin of sugar-making:
“We had not much meat, but Providence furnished us a kind of manna to add to our Indian corn, which manna was of a juice which the trees eject in this season, and notably the maples, of which there are many in this province and which are very large. In reference to this we made large incisions in each tree, to which we applied a vessel and a knife below the incision to conduct the liquor, which properly is the sap of the tree, which, being boiled, as it diminishes becomes sugar. We used this water to boil our Indian corn or sagamite, which gave it a rather good taste—that is, a little sweetened. It seems that Providence provides for everything, for, as there are no sugar-canes in these provinces, the trees furnish the sugar; at least I have seen some which was excellent. It was more reddish than ours—that is, what is used in France—but nearly as good.”
The next reference is to be found in Lafitau, Vol. II, 153, 1724, the period of the author’s observation dating back to 1700-5. He says:
“In the month of March, when the sun has taken a little strength and as the trees enter into sap, they, the Indians, make with their hatchets transverse incisions in the trunk of the trees, from which trickles in abundance a water which they receive in large receptacles of bark. They afterwards cause this water to boil over the fire, which consumes all the watery matter, and which thickens the rest into the consistency of syrup, or even into cakes of sugar, according to the degree of heat to which they subject it. There is no further mystery to this. This sugar is a very good pectoral, and is admirable in remedies; but, although it is more healthy than that of the canes, it is not agreeable, nor has it delicacy, and nearly always has a burnt taste. The French make it better than the Indian women, from whom they have learned how to make it; but they have not yet been able to whiten or to refine it.”
So far as Lafitau’s knowledge goes, his statement of the derivation of the art from the Indians is direct, if not conclusive. He
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says that the French learned it from the Indians. Upon just what evidence he makes the statement does not appear, but he was unusually well acquainted with aboriginal habits, and probably did not overlook the fact that in the 100 years of French contact preceding his own observation there was plenty of time for the French to have taught the art to the Indian. His statement of its aboriginal origin would seem to be entitled, therefore, to considerable weight.
A reproduction is here given of Lafitau’s curious illustration of the Indian method of tapping the maple trees, collecting the sap, and boiling it down. For the kettles employed in boiling the sap the Indians are evidently indebted to the French trader; otherwise the process indicated appears to have been purely aboriginal.
Indian sugar-making. Reproduced from Lafitau.
Bossu, writing somewhat later, in 1756, is equally explicit as to the source of the art of sugar-making. He says (Travels through Louisiana, Vol. I, 188, 1771): “After the first ceremonies were over, they brought me a calabash full of the vegetable juice of the maple tree. The Indians extract it in January, making a hole at the bottom of it, and apply a little tube to that. At the first thaw
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they get a little barrel full of this juice, which they boil to a syrup: and being boiled over again, it changes into a reddish sugar, looking like Calabrian manna. The apothecaries justly prefer it to the sugar which is made of sugar canes. The French who are settled at the Illinois have learnt from the Indians to make this syrup, which is an exceeding good remedy for colds, and rheumatisms.”
Keating (Exp. to the Source of St. Peter’s River, Lond., 1825, Vol. I, p. 114) also offers some satisfactory testimony from the Indian’s side of the question. The quotation, though evidently a paraphrase of the language used by the Indian, is given in full, as it contains the Indian’s method of sugar-making: “We are informed, that they profess to have been well acquainted with the art of making maple sugar previous to their intercourse with white men. Our interpreter states that having once expressed his doubts on the subject in the presence of José Renard, a Kickapoo chief, the latter answered him immediately, with a smile, * * * ‘Wherefore should we not have known as well as they how to manufacture sugar? He has made us all, that we should enjoy life. He has placed before us all the requisites for the support of existence—fire, trees, &c. Wherefore then should he have withheld from us the art of excavating the trees in order to make troughs of them, of placing the sap in these, of heating the stones and throwing them into the sap so as to cause it to boil, and by this means reducing it into sugar?’” Keating adds: “In this reply of the Kickapoo we have a brief sketch of the rude process practised by the Indians in the preparation of the maple sugar. Previously to this they had learned the art of making and using pottery, but had abandoned it for the purpose, as Metea told us, of using wooden troughs, and hot stones; perhaps because their pottery did not stand fire well. The evaporation resulting from the action of the hot stones produced a crystallization of sugar in the trough. Their process was a tedious and imperfect one, which probably required much time before it could be improved.” * * *
The Kickapoo themselves would thus seem to have believed that the art was wholly their own, or at least to have had no knowledge of its derivation from the European.
Moreover, the aboriginal method here indicated seems of itself to offer excellent evidence that sugar-making was an aboriginal art. Had it been known to the Indians through European instruction only, its manufacture would in all probability have been accompanied
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by the utensils of civilization. The method of boiling described above, viz., boiling in bark or wooden vessels by means of heated stones, seems to have been the usual one among the Indians, at least in the regions remote from civilization. It was, of course, at once superseded by the use of metal kettles where these could be obtained, since boiling the sap by means of heated stones must have been tedious and wasteful, and, as Keating remarks, the earthen vessels manufactured by the Indians were hardly capable of standing the necessary great and long-continued heat.
Allusions to the manufacture of sugar by the Indians are not uncommon in early colonial times, but most authors appear to have taken it for granted that it was an Indian art, and so have passed it by with a word. Col. Smith, in Drake’s Ind. Captivity, 1850, alludes to it several times, and on page 197 gives the following interesting account of its manufacture and use by the Caughnawaga on the S.E. shore of Lake Erie: “In this month [February] we began to make sugar. As some of the elm bark will strip at this season, the squaws, after finding a tree that would do, cut it down, and with a crooked stick, broad and sharp at the end, took the bark off the tree and of this bark made vessels in a curious manner that would hold about two gallons each. They made above one hundred of these kind of vessels. In the sugar tree they cut a notch, sloping down, and at the end of the notch stuck in a tomahawk; in the place where they stuck. the tomahawk they drove a long chip, in order to carry the water out from the tree, and under this they set their vessels to receive it. As sugar trees were plenty and large here, they seldom or never notched a tree that was not two or three feet or over. They also made bark vessels for carrying the water that would hold about four gallons each. They had two brass kettles that held about fifteen gallons each and other smaller kettles in which they boiled the water. But as they could not at times boil away the water as fast as it was collected they made vessels of bark that would hold about one hundred gallons each for retaining the water, and, though the sugar trees did not run every day, they had always a sufficient quantity of water to keep them boiling during the whole sugar season.
“The way we commonly used our sugar while encamped was by putting it in bear’s fat until the fat was almost as sweet as the sugar itself, and in this we dipped our roasted venison.” On p. 215 he adds one detail in respect to its manufacture which seems to me to
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be peculiarly primitive. “We had no large kettles with us this year, and they made the frost, in some measure, supply the place of fire in making sugar. Their large bark vessels for holding the stock water they made broad and shallow, and as the weather is very cold, here it frequently freezes at night in sugar time, and the ice they break and cast out of the vessels. I asked them if they were not throwing away the sugar. They said no; it was water they were casting away. Sugar did not freeze and there was scarcely any in that ice.”
The same method, however, seems to have been well known to the whites of later times, who employed it with success, and also, the method by evaporation without the use of heat. (See Rush in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., 69, 1793.)
In League of the Iroquois, p. 369, Morgan speaks of sugar-making and states: “Whether they learned the art from us or we received it from them is uncertain. One evidence, at least, of its antiquity among them is to be found in one of their ancient religious festivals, instituted to the maple and called the Maple Dance.” The evidence here adduced in favor of its antiquity seems important, since it is not to be supposed that a festival would have been originated in honor of the maple unless the art of extracting its most important product had long been known. As will be noticed, the Ojibwa also had a maple-sugar festival, as probably also other tribes who manufactured it, and it is scarcely to be doubted that such tribes had also myths accounting for the origin of the maple tree and explaining the mythic means by which they became possessed of a knowledge of the properties of its sap and of the manufacture of the latter into sugar.
Maple sugar was, in truth, more than a mere luxury to the northern tribes, and Heny, in his Travels, 1760-1776 (p. 70, 1809), states:
Though, as I have said, we hunted and fished, yet sugar was our principal food during the whole month of April. I have known Indians [Ojibwa] to live wholly upon the same and become fat.” Rush states that the Indians “mix a certain quantity of maple sugar with an equal quantity of corn dried and powdered in its milky state. This mixture is packed in little baskets, which are frequently wetted in travelling without injuring the sugar. A few spoonfuls of it mixed with half a pint of spring water afford them a pleasant and strengthening meal.” (Trans. Am. Philos. Soc., 74, 1793.)
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Maple sugar was, in fact, part of the annual supply of food, and the maple groves were regularly resorted to for its manufacture.
Though the above evidence, so far as it goes, seems to decidedly favor an aboriginal origin for maple-sugar-making, it appears to me of less consequence than certain linguistic testimony which may be cited. But first a word as to the range of the sugar-producing maples.
The sugar maple (Acer saccharinum), though flourishing best in a northern climate, yet possesses an extensive range in the United States, extending south along the Alleghanies to northern Alabama and west Florida, west to Minnesota, Nebraska, eastern Kansas, where rare, and eastern Texas. (For range of this and other species see Sargent, Vol. I, Tenth Census, 1884.) There are two other trees from which sugar is occasionally made, viz., the Silver Maple (A. dasycarpum). and the Box Elder (Negundo aceroides). I doubt not that the latter trees were tapped by the Indians for sugar, but I am unable to say positively that such was the case. If the range of the two latter species be taken into consideration, it is evident that one or more of the sugar-producing trees must have been known to all the tribes north of the Gulf States and as far west as the plains, and even in the Rocky Mountains. The manufacture of maple sugar, however, appears to have been chiefly limited to the northern tribes, especially to those of New England and the region of the Great Lakes, though the Indian languages quoted below show that the knowledge of the sap-producing properties of the tree, if not the knowledge of maple sugar, was by no means confined to these sections.
Certain it is that a knowledge of the sap-producing properties of the tree could not long have preceded the knowledge of maple sugar. The sap would naturally first be used as a beverage; but the discovery of the art of boiling it down could not have long been delayed, though the freezing process may have been first in order of time.
When European novelties were introduced among the Indians there were two methods of naming them. Frequently, as in the case of sugar below cited, they did their best to adopt the foreign name. This was particularly true in California, where Spanish names for almost every European introduction were incorporated into the native tongues. Tonty (1688) tells us that the Cadodaquis on Red River of Louisiana called the horse “cavali,” Spanish caballo.
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Many tribes, however, applied names of their own coining, deriving them from the names of objects most nearly resembling the object to be named. A familiar example is offered by the Dakota name for horse. As the only animal domesticated among the Indians was the dog, the Santee and Yankton name for which is Shunka, the horse was called by the Santee, Shunk-tanka, big dog; Yankton, Shunka wakan, mysterious dog.
Again, the Cheroki, as Mr. Mooney informs me, before they met the European, extracted their only saccharine from the pod of the honey locust, using the powdered pods to sweeten parched corn and to make a sweet drink. Their name for Honey Locust was Kulsetsi, which name they applied also to the sugar of civilization.
Bearing the above facts in mind, it is a fair inference that if investigation shows that the Indian name for European sugar is the same as, or a derivative from, the name for maple sugar, and especially if the name of the latter be derived from the name of maple tree, we can hardly expect to find better evidence of the fact that maple sugar was a truly aboriginal production.
Frequent allusion is made in Tanner’s Captivity to the manufacture of sugar by the Ojibwa, and on p. 294 (James Ed., N.Y., 1830) the Ojibwa term for Sugar Maple is given as Nin-au-tik, which is rendered “our own tree.” The compound may possibly be from mitig, tree, and nin, our. (See Baraga Otchipwe Grammar.) It is, however, probable that Tanner’s etymology is faulty and that the true derivation is given below. The River Maple is called She-she-gum-maw-wis, which is interpreted “sap flows fast.” This etymology is also significant, since it clearly implies the ancient derivation of the tree’s name from its sap. It is probable that the Indian’s knowledge of the flow of the sap was had by the practice of tapping the trees for the purpose of sugar-making.
The Menomini name for the sugar moon, probably March, is given (p. 321) as Sho-bo-maw-kun ka-zho. It is very unlikely that the Indians would give a name to the sugar month unless sugar-making was of respectable antiquity among them, and was, moreover, aboriginal.
A letter from Mr. Beaulieu at White Earth, Minnesota, in response to a letter of inquiry, contains interesting and valuable information in regard to sugar-making among the Ojibwa, and I therefore take the liberty of quoting parts of it. He gives the Ojibwa word for maple sugar as Zeence-zee-bah-quod, pronounced sen-se-pah-qwot.
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(Compare this with the Cree term below.) Derivation Zeence-zee, squeezed or drawn from; bah-quod, stick or wood. Hence the meaning, drawn from wood, or squeezed from wood or stick, which applies to the sap and the manner in which it is drawn from the tree by tapping in the spring.
Weesh-ko-bun is another term often used by the Indians, and more properly applies to the saccharine quality of sugar than the former word, as it refers to something palatable and grateful to the sense of taste.
Enin-ah-tig weesh-ko-bun is also employed. Enin, man; ah-tig, wood or stick; weesh-ko-tun, sugar. Hence, man stick sugar. This etymology contains a metaphorical reference to the manner the sap flows from the tree, as curious as it is suggestive. Doctor Hoffman informs me that this name particularly applies to sugar derived from the Acer nigrum, now considered as a variety of A. saccharinum, as the Indians say that the flow of sap from this tree is more plentiful than from any other.
Mr. Beaulieu states that the Ojibwa have a myth or deity connected with sugar. He also gives Zeence-zee-bah-quod-o-kay-ge-zis as the name for the sugar moon March and April adding that these are sometimes called Pay-bok-quay-dah-ge-mid, breaking snow shoe month.
He presents the following interesting facts with reference to the Ojibwa maple-sugar festival: “It has been and is yet with many the custom to join in a feast or sugar festival in the spring—that is, when the first sugar is made. The sugar-makers are invited to a lodge prepared for the occasion by the medicine man, who, when all have assembled, takes a small portion of the old sugar of the season before and the new sugar, mingles it together, at the same time muttering a prayer of thanks, and then hands a little to all who are present. Then he proceeds to thank, in a loud voice, the Great Spirit or Giver-of-Life for his good-will and invokes his aid and kindness to grant the a-nish-in-ah-bag (inferior braves or beings) a good and bountiful sugar harvest, etc. After this all are invited to partake of the feast prepared for the occasion, consisting, generally, of wild rice and game, etc., etc.”
Lacombe, in Dictionnaire de la Langues des Cris (p. 254), gives the Cree name for sugar as Sisibâskwat, which is clearly a derivation from Sisibâskwatâttik, maple tree (p. 135). It is important to notice that the Cree distinguished their own sugar from the white
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sugar of the European, calling the latter Sokaw (p. 254), which is evidently an attempt to pronounce the French or English word.
Mr. Hewitt informs me that the Tuscarora word for sugar is U-rĕn’-nā´-krĭ’ which signifies tree sap. It would thus seem that even in this tribe, which lived comparatively far south, the knowledge of the product of the maple tree must have antedated the knowledge of European sugar, though the North Carolina home of the tribe could scarcely have furnished the means for extracting the sap, at least, in any quantity.
Making due allowance for consonantal changes, the Oneida seem to have the same word for sugar O-loñ-da´-ke-lĭ’.
Mr. Dorsey gives the Omaha and Ponka word for sugar as Jan-ni, Jan being wood or tree; ni, water or sap; thus, tree sap. The word for sugar maple is Jan-nihi, hi being tree or stock. The Kansa word also is Jan-ni; the Osage, Can-ni; the Iowa, Nanni, all apparently having the same etymology.
The Winnebago word differs somewhat, being Ta´niju´-ră, niju being water or rain. Hence the etymology would seem to be wood water or rain, the word apparently suggesting the idea of the rapid flow of the sap.
It would not be difficult, I believe, to bring forward much more linguistic evidence tending to show that the Indian names for sugar and maple sugar were usually the same, and that the terms for the latter were aboriginal, date from a remote antiquity, and were connected with the trees which produce their only saccharine. The evidence here advanced, however, seems to be sufficient. At all events, it appears to offer at least presumptive proof that the Indians were in nowise indebted to the European for their knowledge of maple sugar. Like the cultivation of the maize, the tobacco, the pumpkin, bean, and cotton alluded to above, the art of maple-sugar-making, simple as it was, was aboriginal, resulting from their own observation and inventive powers.