ABSTRACT

The ancient have said “Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus,” that is “without Ceres and Bacchus Venus is cold.” Having then married our savages, it is meet to make dinner ready and to use them after their own manner. And for to do it one muet consider the times of the marriage. For if it be in winter they will have venison from the woods, if it be in the spring-time or in summer, they will make provision of fish. As for bread, there is no talk of it from the North of Newfoundland until one come to the country of the Armouchiquois, unless it be in trucking with Frenchmen, for whom they tarry upon the seashores, sitting on their tails like apes, as soon as the spring-time is come, and receive in exchange for their skins (for they have no other merchandise) biscuit, beans, peas and meal. The Armouchiquois and other nations more remote, besides hunting and fishing, have wheat, called maize, and beans, which is a great comfort unto them in time of necessity. They make no bread with it, for they have neither mill nor oven, and they cannot knead it otherwise than in stamping it in a mortar; and in gathering those pieces the best they can they make small cakes with it, which they bake between two hot atones. Most often they dry this corn at the fire, and parch it upon the coals. And after that manner did the ancient Italians live, as Pliny saith [lib. xviii., caps. 2 and 10]. And therefore one must not so much wonder at these people, seeing that they which have called others barbarous have been as barbarous as they.