Page:The American Indian.djvu/273

Rh pumila), the method of preparation suggesting West Indian influence. The eating of human flesh is also set down as a trait of several Gulf Coast tribes. Our typical culture then may be found at its best among the Muskhogean, Yuchi, and Cherokee.

The following are the most distinctive traits: great use of vegetable food and intensive agriculture; raised maize, cane (a kind of millet), pumpkins, melons, tobacco, and after contact with Europeans, quickly took up peaches, figs, etc.; large use of wild vegetables also; dogs eaten, the only domestic animal, but chickens, hogs, horses, and even cattle were adopted quickly; deer, bear, and bison in the west were the large game, for deer the stalking and surround methods were used; turkeys and small game were hunted and fish taken when convenient (fish poisons were in use, suggesting South America); of manufactured foods—bears' oil, hickory-nut oil, persimmon bread, and hominy are noteworthy; houses were generally rectangular with curved roofs, covered with thatch or bark, also often provided with plaster walls reinforced with wickerwork; towns were well fortified with palisades; dug-out canoes; costume was moderate, chiefly of deerskins, robes of bison, etc., shirt-like garments for men, skirts and toga-like upper garments for women, boot-like moccasins for winter; some woven fabrics of bark fiber, and fine netted feather cloaks; some buffalo-hair weaving in the west, weaving downward with the fingers; fine mats of cane and some cornhusk work; baskets of cane and splints, the double or nested basket and the basket meal sieve are special forms; knives of cane, darts of cane and bone; blowguns in general use; good potters, coil process, paddle decorations; skin dressing by slightly different method from elsewhere (macerated in mortars) and straight scrapers of hafted stone; work in stone of a high order, but no true sculpture; little metal work; ceremonial houses, or temples, for sun worship in which were perpetual fires; these, and other important buildings set upon mounds; elaborate planting and harvest rituals, especially an important ceremony known as the "busk"; the kindling of new fire and the use of the "black drink"; a clan