Barcia[334] makes no allusion to anything resembling hoddentin or "polvos de bledos" in his brief account of Vaca's journey. But Buckingham Smith, in his excellent translation of Vaca's narrative, renders "polvos de paja" thus: "It was probably the seed of grass which they ate. I am told by a distinguished explorer that the Indians to the west collect it of different kinds and from the powder make bread, some of which is quite palatable." And for "polvos de bledos": "The only explanation I can offer for these words is little satisfactory. It was the practice of the Indians of both New Spain and New Mexico to beat the ear of young maize, while in the milk, to a thin paste, hang it in festoons in the sun, and, being thus dried, was preserved for winter use."
This explanation is very unsatisfactory. Would not Vaca have known it was corn and have said so? On the contrary, he remarks in that very line in Smith's own translation: "There is no maize on the coast."
The appearance of all kinds of grass seeds in the food of nearly all the aborigines of our southwestern territory is a fact well known, but what is to be demonstrated is the extensive use of the "powder" of the tule or cat-tail rush. Down to our day, the Apache have used not only the seeds of various grasses, but the bulb of the wild hyacinth and the bulb of the tule. The former can be eaten either raw or cooked, but the tule bulb is always roasted between hot stones. The taste of the hyacinth bulb is somewhat like that of raw chestnuts. That of the roasted tule bulb is sweet and not at all disagreeable.[335]
Father Jacob Baegert[336] enumerates among the foods of the Indians of southern California "the roots of the common reed" (i.e., of the tule).
Father Alegre, speaking of the tribes living near the Laguna San Pedro,[337] in latitude 28° north—two hundred leagues north of the City of Mexico—says that they make their bread of the root, which is very frequent in their lakes, and which is like the plant called the "anea" or rush in Spain. "Forman el pan de una raiz muy frecuente en sus lagunas, semejante á las que llaman aneas en España."[338]
The Indians of the Atlantic Slope made bread of the bulb of a plant which Capt. John Smith[339] says "grew like a flag in marshes." It was roasted and made into loaves called "tuckahoe."[340]
Kalm, in his Travels in North America,[341] says of the tuckahoe:
It grows in several swamps and marshes and is commonly plentiful. The hogs greedily dig up its roots with their noses in such places, and the Indians of Carolina likewise gather it in their rambles in the woods, dry it in the sun, grind, and make bread of it. Whilst the root is fresh it is harsh and acrid, but, being dried, it loses the greater part of its acrimony. To judge by these qualities, the tuckahoe may very likely be the Arum virginianum.
The Shoshoni and Bannock of Idaho and Montana eat the tule bulb.[342]
Something analogous to hoddentin is mentioned by the chronicler of Drake's voyage along the California coast about A. D. 1540. Speaking of the decorations of the chiefs of the Indians seen near where San Francisco now stands, he says another mark of distinction was "a certain downe, which groweth up in the countrey upon an herbe much like our lectuce, which exceeds any other downe in the world for finenesse and beeing layed upon their cawles, by no winds can be removed. Of such estimation is this herbe amongst them that the downe thereof is not lawfull to be worne, but of such persons as are about the king, ... and the seeds are not used but onely in sacrifice to their gods."[343]