Cabeza de Vaca says that the Indians of Florida ate clay—"de la terre."[457] He says also[458] that the natives offered him many mesquite beans, which they ate mixed with earth—"mele avec de la terre."[459]
The Jaguaces of Florida ate earth (tierra).[460]
At the trial of Vasco Pocallo de Figueroa, in Santiago de Cuba, in 1522, "for cruelty to the natives," he sought to make it appear that the Indians ate clay as a means of suicide: "el abuso de los Indios en comer tierra ... seguian matandose de intento comiendo tierra."[461]
The Muiscas had in their language the word "jipetera," a "disease from eating dirt."[462] Whether the word "dirt" as here employed means filth, or earth and clay, is not plain; it probably means clay and earth.
Venegas asserts that the Indians of California ate earth. The traditions of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, California, and vicinity show that "they had fed upon a kind of clay," which they "often used upon their heads by way of ornament."[463]
The Tátu Indians of California mix "red earth into their acorn bread ... to make the bread sweet and make it go further."[464]
Long[465] relates that when the young warrior of the Oto or Omaha tribes goes out on his first fast he "rubs his person over with a whitish clay," but he does not state that he ate it.
Sir John Franklin[466] relates that the banks of the Mackenzie River in British North America contain layers of a kind of unctuous mud, probably similar to that found near the Orinoco, which the Tinneh Indians "use occasionally as food during seasons of famine, and even at other times chew as an amusement.... It has a milky taste and the flavour is not disagreeable."
Father de Smet[467] says of the Athapascan: "Many wandering families of the Carrier tribe ... have their teeth worn to the gums by the earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment." This does not seem to have been intentionally eaten.