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An Early Native American Tale About the Discovery of Maple Syrup
An Early Tale!
An Algonquin or Iroquois Indian chief, Woksis, discovered maple syrup in the following manner. One day, at the time the time of the melting snow, as he prepared to go hunting in a meager season of want and little game, he took his ax out of a maple tree where he had struck it a few inches into the bark the night before. His squaw happened to have a wooden or birch bark basket underneath, which collected the sap. Thinking that her warrior husband had filled it already with water, the squaw Moqua used the sap to cook some meat, most likely venison, though one source says moose meat. Upon his return, he was surprised by the sweet odor of the cooking meat. When eaten, the meat was sweet. They soon realized that this sweetness came from the sap of the maple tree.
(From http://coldcreek.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Iroquois-Legend.pdf)
That was the beginning of sweet water coming out of trees. It was a primitive way of gathering the sap. Besides the sap running down the tree the sticky sap picked up bark,dirt and insects. The Native American women made containers to catch the sap out of birch bark and stitched together with fibers of the birch bark. Finally the container was placed at the base of the tree to catch the sap .Needless to say the sap had to be strained though…
