When first known to the Spaniards, the Chilese were an agricultural people, dependent for their subsistence on the cultivation of such nutritious plants as accident or necessity had made them acquainted with. The plants chiefly cultivated by them for subsistence were maize, magu, guegen, tuca, quinoa, pulse of various kinds, the potatoe, oxalis tuberosa, common and yellow pumpkin or gourd, guinea pepper, madi, and the great strawberry; of each of which it may be proper to give a short account57.
Maize or Turkey wheat, the Zea mais of botanists, is called gua by the Chilese. It grows extremely well in Chili, where the inhabitants cultivate eight or nine distinct varieties. The kind in highest repute is called uminta, from which the natives prepare a dish by bruising the corn, while in a green unripe state, between two stones into a kind of paste, which they season with salt, sugar, and butter. This paste is then divided into small portions, which are separately inclosed in the skin or husk of the corn, and boiled for use. When ripe, the maize is prepared for winter use, either by slightly roasting, or by drying in the sun. From the former, named chuchoca, a kind of soup is prepared by boiling with water: From the latter they make a very pleasant beer or fermented liquor. The maize is sometimes reduced to meal by grinding between two stones, being previously parched or roasted by means of heated sand. For this purpose they prefer a variety of maize named curagua, which is smaller than the other, and produces a lighter and whiter meal, and in larger quantity. With this meal, mixed with sugar and water, they make two different beverages, named ulpo and cherchan.
Magu a species of rye, and tuca, a species of barley, were cultivated by the Chilese before the coming of the Spaniards to that country; but have been entirely neglected since the introduction of European wheat. They are still used however by the Araucanians, who make from them a kind of bread called couvue, which name they likewise give to bread made from maize or wheat.
Quinua is a species of Chenopodium/, having a black twisted grain of a lenticular form, from which they prepare a stomachic beverage of a pleasant taste. A variety of this plant, named dahue, produces white seeds, which lengthen out when boiled like worms, and are excellent in soup. The leaves of the quinoa have an agreeable taste, and are eaten by the natives.
Degul is a species of bean, of which the Chilese cultivated thirteen or fourteen kinds before the arrival of the Spaniards, differing but little from the common European bean or Phaseolus vulgaris, one of them having a straight stalk, and all the rest climbers58.
Chili is considered by naturalists as the native country of that valuable esculent the potato, or Solanun tuberosum, which is known there by the names of papa and pogny. It is found indeed wild all over the country; but those wild plants, named maglia, produce only small roots of a bitterish taste. It is distinguished into two species, and more than thirty varieties are cultivated with much care. Besides the common species, the second is the cari, Solanum cari, which bears white flowers having a large central nectary like the narcissus. The roots of this species are cylindrical and very sweet, and are usually roasted under the ashes.
The Oca, or Oxalis tuberosa, produces five or six tuberosities on each root, three or four inches in length covered by a thin smooth skin. It is eaten boiled or roasted, and has a pleasant subacid taste. Like the potato, it is multiplied by means of its bulbs cut in pieces. There are several species of this plant; one of which called red culle, is much used in dyeing, and Is considered as a specific remedy for inflammatory fevers.
Two species of gourds are known in Chili. The first species, with a white flower, called quada, has twenty-six varieties, several of which produce sweet and edible fruit, while that of the others is bitter. With one of these last, after extracting the seeds, the Chilese give a pleasant perfume or flavour to their cyder. The yellow-flowering gourd, called penca, has two kinds or varieties, the common and mamillary, owing to the fruit of the latter having a large nipple-shaped process at the end. Its pulp is sweet, and resembles in taste a kind of potato named camote.
The quelghen, or Chili strawberry has rough and succulent leaves, and its fruit is sometimes as large as a hens egg. This fruit is generally red and white; but in the provinces of Puchacay and Huilquilemeu, where they attain the greatest perfection, the fruit is yellow. "The Chili strawberry is dioecial, and has degenerated much in Europe by the want of male plants, and the females producing hybrid fruit by impregnation from the ordinary strawberries growing in the neighbourhood; in consequence of which circumstance the cultivation of this kind has been abandoned in Europe."
The madi, a new genus of plants peculiar to Chili, has two species, one wild and the other cultivated. From the seeds of the latter an excellent oil is procured, either by expression, or by boiling in water, of an agreeable mild taste, and as clear as the best olive oil. This plant, hitherto unknown in Europe, would be a most valuable acquisition to those countries in which the olive cannot be raised.
Many species of the capsicum, or guinea pepper, are cultivated in Chili, under the name of thapi, and are used as seasonings in the food of the natives.
The illmu, or Bermudiana bulbosa, produces bulbous roots, which are excellent food either boiled or roasted, and are very pleasant in soups. The liuto produces a bulbous root, which yields a very white, light, and nutritious flour, which is much used as food for the sick.
To these enumerated provisions from the vegetable kingdom, may be added the cuy or little rabbit, Lepus minimus, and the Chilihueque, or Araucanian camel; the flesh of which last affords an excellent food, and its wool furnishes clothing for the natives. If tradition may be credited, they had also the hog and the domestic fowl before the Spanish invasion. Besides these, the country produced the guanaco, and the pudu, a species of wild goat, and a great variety of birds. With these productions, which required only a moderate degree of industry, they subsisted with a sufficient abundance considering their situation and numbers; insomuch that, when Almagro invaded Chili, his army found abundance of provisions to recruit after the famine they had endured in their imprudent march through the deserts intervening between Peru and that country. With these advantages of abundant provisions in a fertile soil and mild climate, it appears that the first writers who treated of Chili cannot have greatly exaggerated in saying that it was filled with inhabitants at the first arrival of the Spaniards. Even the circumstance of one language being spoken through the whole country, is a proof that all the tribes were in the habit of continual intercourse, and that they were not isolated by vast unpeopled deserts, as is the case in many other parts of America.
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The following account of the plants cultivated by the Chilese for food, is extracted from the natural history of Chili by Molina; but the enumeration from the text of his civil history will be found to differ materially from that given from the natural history of the same author.-E.