Re: NANFA-- upsetting the ecology

Christopher Scharpf (ichthos_at_charm.net)
Sat, 07 Oct 2000 09:40:02 -0400

> And during my recent visit to Ohio I went to Clifton Gorge
>Nature Preserve near Dayton. A sign there mentioned that the Miami Indians
>used crushed walnuts or buckeyes (I forget which, maybe neither) or their
>hulls to herd fish.

This reminds me of the Penobscot Indians of Maine, who formed large eeling
parties and stunned eels by stirrng a mile-long stretch of water with a poison
derived from pokeberry and Indian turnip root. Not only was this poison fatal to
eels, but it also caused painful skin inflammations among the Indians.
Apparently, the pain was worth it. Within a half hour or so, the stream was
littered with the bodies of dead or dying eels. Indians smoked their eels and
used the vertebrae for stock in corn soup.

Chris Scharpf
Baltimore

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