(Adair seems to have written this book for the sole purpose of proving that the Creeks were one of the lost tribes of Israel. He imagines that in one of their religious festivals they invoke the name of Jehovah under the appellation of Y-O-He-Wah.)
When this beloved liquid, or supposed drink offering, is fully prepared and fit to be drank, one of the magi brings two old, consecrated, large conch shells out of a place appropriate for containing the holy things, and delivers them into the hands of two religious attendants, who, after a wild ceremony, fill them with the supposed sanctifying bitter liquid; then they approach near to the two central red and white seats (which the leaders call the war and beloved cabins), stooping with their heads and bodies pretty low. Advancing a few steps in this posture, they carry their shells with both hands, at an instant, to one of the most principal men on those red and white seats, saying in a bass key, Yah, quite short; then in like manner they retreat backwards, facing each other with their heads bowing forward, their arms across rather below their breasts and their eyes half shut. Thus in a very grave, solemn manner they sing on a strong bass key the awful monosyllable O for the space of a minute; then they strike up a majestic He on the treble, with a very intent voice, as long as their breath allows them, and on a bass key, with a bold voice and short accent, they at last utter the strong, mysterious accent Wah, and thus finish the great song, or most solemn invocation of the divine essence. The notes together compose the sacred, mysterious name, Y-O-He-Wah. The favored persons, whom the religious attendants are invoking the divine essence to bless, hold up their shells with both hands to their mouths during the awful sacred invocation, and retain a mouthful of the drink to spurt out upon the ground as a supposed drink offering to the great self-existing giver, which they offer at the end of their draft. If any of the traders who at those times are invited to drink with them were to neglect this religious observance they would reckon us as godless and wild as the wolves of the desert. After the same manner the supposed holy waiters proceed, from the highest to the lowest, in their Synedrion, and when they have ended that awful solemnity they go round the whole square, or quadrangular place, and collect tobacco from the sanctified sinners, according to ancient customs: “For they who serve at the altar must live by the altar.”
In another place (page 106), in describing at great length one of the religious festivals of the Creeks, Adair says: “He” [the Arch Magus, or fire-maker,] “consecrates the button-snake root and casseena by pouring a little of those two strong decoctions into the pretended holy fire. He then purifies the red and white seats with those bitter liquids and sits down.”
This leads me to observe that the sacred “black drink” was not made of the cassine alone, but sometimes of several bitter and aromatic roots and leaves. Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, in a letter from Okmulgee, Ind. T., writes: “The black drink as now prepared is, I think, made from three plants, the “Passa,” (Pasa) or Button Snakeroot (Eryngium aquaticum), and the Mekko Hoyonee v. (Micco-Hoyonvicha), a small willow, and the third I do not now recall.” It may be that cassine is not now used at all by the Creeks in Indian Territory, for it does not grow there, and if used would have to be imported from the Atlantic or Gulf coast.
Bossu, who traveled through the country now known as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, in 1751, makes no mention of the use of cassine by the Indians of the two first-named States (Natchez), nor by the Indians along the Mississippi as far as he traveled, namely, to the country of the Illinois. But in his travels eastward, when he was in the neighborhood of Mobile, he writes:
All the Allibamas drink the cassine.[6] This is the leaf of a little tree which is very shady; the leaf is about the size of a farthing, but dentated on its margins. They toast these leaves as we do coffee, and drink the infusion of them with great ceremony. When this diuretic potion is prepared, the young people go to present it, in calabashes formed into cups, to the chiefs and warriors, that is, the honorables, and afterwards to the other warriors, according to their rank and degree. The same order is preserved when they present the calumet to smoke out of. Whilst you drink, they howl as loud as they can and diminish the sound gradually. When you have ceased drinking they take their breath, and when you drink again they set up their howls again. These sorts of orgies sometimes last from 6 in the morning to 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The Indians find no inconvenience from this potion, to which they attribute many virtues, and return it without any effort. The women never drink of this beverage, which is only made for the warriors.
What Bossu says relating to the size of the leaves shows conclusively that it was the leaf of the tree Ilex cassine, for one of the leaves is just the diameter of the English farthing, a coin the size of the old half cent of American currency. His phrase “return it without any effort” is rather ambiguous, but it probably refers to the expulsion of the decoction after having drenched their stomachs with it. I do not think this was a true emesis, for there is no proof that it was an emetic. The Indians doubtless swallowed such large quantities that it was regurgitated without effort.
Bossu’s only other reference to the cassine is when, in describing a council between the French and the Allibamas, he writes:
The Chevalier de Emville held a speech to the assembly in his turn, and made the nation a present which the governor had sent him. The Indians gave him the great calumet of peace to smoke; all the soldiers and French inhabitants likewise smoked it, in sign of a general amnesty. Afterwards they drank the cassine, which is the potion of the white word, i. e., the potion of oblivion and peace.
Bernard Romans, “Natural History of Florida” (1775), page 94, writes as follows: