Edwin M. Hale

“ Instead of having any noxious quality, according to what many have experienced of the East India insipid and costly tea, it is friendly to the human system, enters into and contests with the peccant humors, and expels them through the various channels of nature. It perfectly cures a tremor of the nerves.
At the time Adair wrote the above, Chinese tea was a rare and expensive luxury in England, and its use was opposed as intensely as was the use of tobacco when it was first introduced. The power ascribed to cassine of curing “tremors” is significant. ”

“ There is a shrub or small tree, a species of holly (Ilex cassine) , growing in the Southern States along the seacoast, not extending inland more than 20 or 30 miles, from Virginia to the Rio Grande. Its leaves and tender branches were once used by the aboriginal tribes of the United States in the same manner as the Chinese use tea and the South Americans use maté. But while the use of Thea sinensis and Ilex paraguayensis still survives, the use of the shrub above mentioned has been almost abandoned by our native Indians and by the white people who once partially adopted it as a beverage. ”

“ Small quantities of the young leaf, parched in a pot until it assumed a brown color, produced a liquor acting as an exhilarant and gentle diuretic; it was drank by the people at the busk, and by the “elders” when assembled in council or when discussing every-day topics. After the potion had been poured from one pan or cooler into another, it begins to ferment and to produce a white froth, from which it is styled also white drink, the term “white” alluding simultaneously to its purifying qualities. To make the liquid stronger a larger infusion of the parched leaves is required ”

“ It is a mixture and not brewed of the cassine alone. All our beverages, such as tea, coffee, maté, and even chocolate, when drank very strong are capable of causing diuresis, purging, and vomiting.
One peculiarity of the drinking of the black drink is that, so far as I can ascertain, it was not used at their meals as we use tea and coffee, but wholly as a social beverage or at festivals and other public occasions. I do not think the women were allowed to drink it, at least not publicly. ”

“ A still larger addition of the cassine leaf produces a strong narcotic, which was, as mentioned previously, used by conjurors to evoke prophetic ecstacies accompanied by dreams. The black drink of the weaker sort acts as an emetic, [5] and was used as such at the annual busk and on other occasions extensively; this gave to the liquid its renown as a bodily and moral purificator, for primitive people are prone to regard agencies which act with mysterious force upon the bodily constitution as symbols for abstract spiritual or religious ideas. ”

“ All this time they continue bawling out aloud, “Who will drink?” and when the women begin to hear these exclamations, then it is that they settle themselves in their postures, and were they sitting or standing, though it were a tiptoe, or one leg up and the other down, they must continue so till the men have cooled their liquor and made it fit to drink. The reason of this is every whit as foolish and unreasonable as the custom itself, for they say should not the women stand still when they hear their voice some bad thing would be conveyed into the liquor, which they say would make them die ”

“ Adair, in the same paragraph, mentions another leaf used as a beverage, but his description is so indefinite that I am not able to decide as to its botanical name. It is certainly not the Ceanothus (New Jersey tea) . On referring to Rafinesque, I think this “North America tea” may be the Viburnum cassinoides, which, he says, is “also named cassine, and so used.” He also says that “V. levigatum and V. prunifolium are used for the tea in the South.”
Adair further says:
The North American tea has a pleasant aromatic taste and the same salubrious property as the casseena. ”

“ Several years ago, when reading that delightful narrative, by the younger Bartram, relating to his travels in Florida, I was much interested in his mention of the Ilex cassine, and the decoction made from it, called the “black drink,” in use among the Creeks and other aborigines of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. ”

“ The favored persons, whom the religious attendants are invoking the divine essence to bless, hold up their shells with both hands to their mouths during the awful sacred invocation, and retain a mouthful of the drink to spurt out upon the ground as a supposed drink offering to the great self-existing giver, which they offer at the end of their draft. ”

“ Our yopon is the article from which the famous black drink of the Southern Indians was made. At a certain time of the year they come down in droves from a distance of some hundred miles to the coast for the leaves of this tree. They make a fire on the ground, and putting a great kettle of water on it, they throw in a large quantity of these leaves, and, seating themselves around the fire, from a bowl that holds about a pint they begin drinking large draughts, which in a short time occasion them to vomit freely and easily. ”

“ In North Carolina, on the seacoast, the inhabitants modify the deleterious action of their brackish water by boiling a few leaves of cassena with it. (The African kola nut, powdered and added to foul water, is said to purify it. It contains theobromine, an alkaloid analogous to caffeine.)
Rafinesque (Medical Botany, 1828) calls it “Cassine Peragua” (Schoeph) , or Ilex vomitoria (Aiton) , and says:
This by some is said to be the true cassine of the Florida tribes. ”

“ They drink it down and disgorge it with ease, repeating it very often, and swallowing many quarts. They say it restores lost appetite, strengthens the stomach, and confirms their health, giving them agility and courage in war. It grows chiefly in the maritime parts of the country, but not farther north than the capes of Virginia.
The Indians on the seacoast supply those of the mountains therewith, and carry on a considerable trade with it in Florida, just as the Spaniards do with their South Sea tea from Paraguay to Buenos Ayres. ”

“ All of the hollies possess decided physiological action on the human system. Ilex opaca once had a large reputation in Europe and England in rheumatism, gout, cutaneous diseases, and intermittent fever. The young leaves and branches, in France, are fed to cattle, and said to increase the quantity and quality of the milk of cows.
Griffith (Medical Botany, 1847) writes of the cassine:
Another native species, the I. vomitoria, of Aiton, appears to be endowed with still more powerful properties. ”

“ The plant and decoction are called by the Sketimasha, nu’ut; by the Creeks, Assi luputski, small leaves, which is generally abbreviated to Assi [Pg 14] leaves. The term black drink originated among the British traders. In Ch. C. Jones’s “Tomochichi,” p. 118, it is called “foskey.”
The Creeks made use of the Assi as we use fermented liquors, to promote conviviality; but it entered also into their ceremonies of religion and warfare. But the black drink potion was not always prepared in the same strength. The ancient Creeks had three modes of preparing it ”

“ They decide upon nothing until they have held a number of councils over it, and they deliberate very sagely before deciding. Meanwhile the chief orders the women to boil some cassine; which is a drink prepared from the leaves from a certain root and which they afterwards pass through a strainer. ”

“ Marys, Fla. (6 miles from Fernandina) , in 1816, he mentions finding the Ilex prinoides predominant on the sandy, shrubby plains of the vicinity:
Its common height is about 6 or 8 feet, and at this season (December) , with its ripe crimson-colored fruit, makes a fine appearance. The berry of this species is considerably larger than that of any other I have seen, and is not unpleasant to the taste, possessing an agreeable sweet, along with a slight bitter. ”

“ There is no visible decay of the leaf, and October seems the proper time to gather it.
[Pg 17]
He frequently refers to the “sacred uses” of the black drink, a decoction of the cassine. I quote his most important allusions:
There is a carved human statue of wood, to which, however, they pay no religious homage. ”

“ A decoction which was allowed to ferment. In this condition it became an alcoholic beverage, capable of causing considerable intoxication, similar to that caused by beer or ale.
McCullough, in his “Researches,” seems to be in error when he asserts:
None of the people of Florida appear to have used intoxicating drinks; but they made a hot tea from the leaves of the cassine (Prinos glaber) , which they poured backwards and forwards until it frothed. This tea may have been slightly stimulant, but it seems to have had no other than a diaphoretic or diuretic effect. ”

“ It is a vast conical building of circular dome, capable of accommodating many hundred people: constructed and furnished within exactly in the same manner as those of the Cherokees already described, but much larger than any I had seen of them; there are people appointed to take care of it, to have it daily swept clean, and to provide canes for fuel or to give light. ”

“ The chief and his nobles are accustomed during certain days of the year to meet early every morning for this express purpose in a public place, in which a long bench is constructed, having at the middle of it a projecting part laid with nine round trunks of trees, for the chief’s seat. ”

“ The white people east of the Mississippi do the same.”
In the narrative of the expedition of Dominique de Gourges (1567) to Florida, to revenge the massacre of the Huguenots at St. Augustine, it [Pg 16] is narrated that when he was on a visit to the Chief Satoriona, whose tribe lived in southern Georgia, near the seacoast—
Before leaving there the savages made a beverage, called by them cassine, which they are accustomed to take at all times, and when they go to fight in places where there is danger. ”

“ Romans states (p. 96) that it was the business of the women to “prepare the cassine drink.” These are his only allusions to cassine.
William Bartram, in his “Travels in Florida” (1792) , one of the most fascinating books ever written, narrates that he attended a “feast” given by the “White king of Talahafochta,” near the River “Appalochuchla” (Apalachicola) , and says:
When the feast was over, * * * our chief, with the rest of the white people in town, took their seats according to order ”

“ He discusses the question whether the genus Prinos should not be merged into that of Ilex. They are so near alike that their leaves doubtless possess similar properties, and are probably mixed with cassine.
[Pg 21]
Collinson, in a letter from London, England, to John Bartram, 1739, makes mention of “the yupon of Virginia, or cassena of Carolina” (Ilex cassena or I. vomituria) . The Indians drive a great trade with the berries (?) to make tea with to the Gulf of Mexico. It grows nowhere to the northward of that island they found it on, which belongs to Col. ”

“ All the while this is over the fire the vessel must be close shut; and if by chance it should be uncovered, and a woman should come by in the meantime, they would drink none of it, but fling it all away. Likewise, while they stand cooling it and pouring it out to drink, a woman must not stir or move, or they would throw it all to the ground, or spew it up again if they had drunk any ”

“ Maté or Brazilian holly (Ilex paraguayensis) belongs to the same genus. Its ash analysis, as made by Señor Arate, is given in the second column. The plant grows wild in Brazil, and is very largely used by the South Americans. It has, according to Peckolt (Pharm. J. Trans. (3) 14, 121-124; Abstract Jour. Chem. Soc., 1884, 479) , been planted, and seems to succeed well, in the Cape of Good Hope, Spain, and Portugal. It is stated that six different species of Ilex are used in the preparation of this tea. Peckolt gives, in his analysis of the air-dried leaves, the percentage of caffeine as 0.639. ”

“ The same order is preserved when they present the calumet to smoke out of. Whilst you drink, they howl as loud as they can and diminish the sound gradually. When you have ceased drinking they take their breath, and when you drink again they set up their howls again. ”