Note 283 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN.

“They live in a country where we now have all the conveniences of human life: but as for them, their housing is nothing but a few mats tyed about poles fastened in the earth, where a good fire is their bed-clothes in the coldest seasons; their clothing is but a skin of a beast, covering their hind-parts, their fore-parts having but a little apron, where nature calls for secrecy; their diet has not a greater dainty than their Nokehick, that is a spoonful of their parched meal, with a spoonful of water, which will strengthen them to travel a day to-gether; except we should mention the flesh of deers, bears, mose, rackoons, and the like, which they have when they can catch them; as also a little fish, which, if they would preserve, it was by drying, not by salting; for they had not a grain of salt in the world, I think, till we bestowed it on them.” Magnalia, B. III. part iii. In his Letters and Notes on the North American Indians (Letter No. 17) Catlin comments on the failure of the Indians to make any use of salt, even in localities where it abounds. See supra, 161.