Ilex cassine, the aboriginal North American tea /

by Edwin M. Hale

The cassine is used by them (the Creeks) as a drink; they barbecue or toast the leaves and make a strong decoction of them; then men only are permitted to drink this liquor, to which they attribute many virtues. It is made so strong as to be black and raise a froth. When they drink it at their assemblies in the square they call it black drink.

Romans states (p. 96) that it was the business of the women to “prepare the cassine drink.” These are his only allusions to cassine.

William Bartram, in his “Travels in Florida” (1792), one of the most fascinating books ever written, narrates that he attended a “feast” given by the “White king of Talahafochta,” near the River “Appalochuchla” (Apalachicola), and says:

When the feast was over, * * * our chief, with the rest of the white people in town, took their seats according to order; tobacco and pipes were brought; the calumet was lighted and smoked, circulating according to the usual forms and ceremony; and afterwards black drink concluded the feast. The king conversed, drank cassine, and associated familiarly with his people and with us. (P. 234.)

Again, when in what is now Georgia, or extreme north Florida, meeting the Creek Indians at a town he calls “Attasse,” he attended a great council of the chiefs of that nation:

I was introduced to the ancient chiefs at the public square or areopagus; and in the evening in company with the traders, who are numerous in this town, repaired to the great rotunda, where were assembled the greatest number of ancient, venerable chiefs and warriors that I had ever beheld; we spent the evening and greater part of the night together in drinking cassine and smoking tobacco. The great council house, or rotunda, is appropriated to much the same purpose as the public square, but more private, and seems particularly dedicated to political affairs; women and youth are never admitted, and I suppose it is death for a female to presume to enter the door or approach within its pale. It is a vast conical building of circular dome, capable of accommodating many hundred people: constructed and furnished within exactly in the same manner as those of the Cherokees already described, but much larger than any I had seen of them; there are people appointed to take care of it, to have it daily swept clean, and to provide canes for fuel or to give light. As their vigils and manner of conducting their vespers and mystical fire in this rotunda are extremely singular, and altogether different from the customs and usages of any other people, I shall proceed to describe them. In the first place, the governor or officer who has the management of this business, with his servants attending, orders the black drink to be brewed, which is a decoction or infusion of the leaves and tender shoots of the cassine; this is done under an open shed or pavilion, at 20 or 30 yards distance, directly opposite the door of the council house. Next he orders bundles of dry canes to be brought in; these are previously split and broken in pieces to about the length of 2 feet, and then placed obliquely crossways upon one another on the floor, forming a spiral circle round about the great center pillar, rising to a foot or 18 inches in height from the ground; and this circle, spreading as it proceeds round and round, often repeated from right to left, every revolution increases its diameter, and it at length extends to the distance of 10 or 12 feet from the center, more or less, according to the length of time the assembly or meeting is to continue. By the time these preparations are accomplished, it is night, and the assembly have taken their seats in order. The exterior extremity or outer end of the spiral circle takes fire and immediately rises into a bright flame (but how this is effected I did not plainly apprehend; I saw no person set fire to it; there might have been fire left on the earth; however, I neither saw nor smelt fire or smoke until the blaze instantly ascended upwards), which gradually and slowly creeps round the center pillar, with the course of the fire, feeding on the dry canes, and affords a cheerful, gentle, and sufficient light until the circle is consumed, when the council breaks up.

Soon after this illumination takes place the aged chiefs and warriors are seated on their cabins or sofas, on the side of the house opposite the door, in three classes or ranks, rising a little one above or behind the other; and the white people and red people of confederate towns in like order on the left hand, a transverse range of pillars, supporting a thin clay wall about breast high, separating them; the king’s cabin or seat is in front; the next to the back of it the head warriors’, and the third or last accommodates the young warriors, etc.

The great war chief’s seat or place is in the same cabin with and immediately to the left hand of the king and next to the white people; and to the right hand of the mico or king the most venerable headmen and warriors are seated. The assembly being now seated in order, and the house illuminated, two middle-aged men, who perform the office of slaves or servants pro tempore, come in together at the door, each having very large conch shells full of black drink, and advance with slow, uniform, and steady steps, their eyes or countenance lifted up, singing very low but sweetly; they come within 6 or 8 paces of the king’s and white people’s cabin, when they stop together, and each rests his shell on a tripod or little table, but presently takes it up again, and bowing very low, advances obsequiously, crossing or intersecting each other about midway; he who rested his shell before the white people now stands before the king, and the other, who stopped before the king, stands before the white people, when each presents his shell, one to the king and the other to the chief of the white people; and as soon as he raises it to his mouth, the slave utters or sings two notes, each of which continues as long as he has breath, and as long as these notes continue so long must the person drink, or at least keep the shell to his mouth. These two long notes are very solemn, and at once strike the imagination with a religious awe or homage to the Supreme, sounding somewhat like a hoo-ojah and a he-yah. After this manner the whole assembly are treated as long as the drink or light continues to hold out; and as soon as the drinking begins, tobacco and pipes are brought.

Mark Catesby (Hortus americanus, 1763) describes the Ilex cassine as follows:

This shrub usually rises from the ground with several stems to the height of 12 feet, shooting into many upright, slender, stiff branches, covered with a whitish, smooth bark, and set alternately with small evergreen serrated leaves, resembling those of the Aleternus; its flowers are small and white, and grow promiscuously among the leaves, and are succeeded by small spherical berries on short footstalks. These berries turn red in October and remain so all winter, whereby with the green leaves and white bark they produce an elegant appearance.