Description of the New Netherlands/Part 4
Under the title of the wild animals of the New-Netherlands, we remain indebted for a description of the uncommon and natural habits of the beavers. Having said much of the manners and customs of the natives, we will in this place fulfil our promise oil the subject of the beaver. This animal has attracted many persons to the country. We will begin by stating the opinions of the ancient and later writers on the beaver, and by following the truth show how far they have wandered from it on this matter.
Pliny, the great naturalist, in his XXXII Book, Chap. 3, says that the limbs of the beaver, whereby he means the testicles, are very useful for many purposes in medicine. And that the animals when sought by the hunters for their tests, and when closely pursued, would castrate themselves with their teeth and leave the parts for the hunters, which the creatures knew to be the prize sought after. This most of the old naturalists and physicians believed to be true; although some denied the same, still they held that the beaver cods, which they named castorium, possessed many medicinal virtues.
They write that the beavers could bite very sharp; that they could fell trees as if cut with an axe. Olaus and Albertus remark on their carrying of wood for their houses. They also state that the beavers' tails are very long, and that that part is fish; that beavers will attack men and bite them severely, with many other things differing widely from the truth. Hence it may be inferred, that neither of them have ever seen a beaver, but have related their uncertain propositions upon the credit of ignorant, unlettered persons. We may give credit to their declarations, when they relate that they used beaver flesh and cods for medicines. This was their art; the virtue of the specific lay in the faith of the patients, which they saw suited their designs.
We will now relate in connection the disorders for which they say the medicines prepared from beaver testicles were infallible remedies. The smelling of beaver-cods will produce sneezing and cause sleep connected with the oil of roses and hogs-lard, and rubbed on the head of a drowsy person, it will produce wakefulness. Taken in water, it serves to remove idiocy. The sleeping are awakened by rubbing with cod oil. Two quarts of the oil, mixed with polay-water, will restore the menses to women, and remove the second birth, Beaver oil is good for dizziness, for trembling, for the rheumatism, for lameness, for the pain in the stomach, and for apoplexy, when the stomach is greased with it. Again, when taken inwardly, it removes the falling sickness and stoppages in the body, pain in the bowels, and poison. It cures the tooth-ache; dropped in the ear, it cures the ear-ache. Tingling and rustling in the ears is cured by a few drops of Macolim sap. Beaver oil, mixed with the best honey and rubbed on the eyes, restores the sharpness of sight. Beaver water is an antidote for all poisons, but to preserve it good it must be kept in the bladder. Those who have the gout, should wear slippers and shoes made of beaver skins.
After relating all those things we will proceed to an accurate description of the beaver, as we have found and known the animal. And that none may believe that I treat upon a subject which is unknown to me, the reader will please observe that in the New-Netherlands, and in the adjacent country, about eighty thousand beavers have been killed annually, during my residence of nine years in the country. I have frequently eaten beaver flesh, and have raised and kept their young. I have also handled and exchanged many thousand skins.
A beaver is a four footed animal that feeds on vegetables, and keeps in water and on land, coated with fur and hair, short-legged, quick, timid and subtle, and commonly as thick as it is long. The Greek name of this animal is castor, the Latin is eyber[1] the Dutch is beever. The other names by which it is known in Europe, are mostly derived from the foregoing. It has feet like the otter, or like other wild and tame creatures which keep on land.
The food of the beaver is not, as some suppose, fish and prey like the otter's; to which end the beaver has been described and delineated with a fish in its mouth, and to be part fish and part flesh. It feeds on the bark of several kinds of wood, on roots, rushes and greens, which it finds in the woods, fields and bushes, near the water sides. The kinds of bark whereon it feeds, are of the water willow, birch, and maple trees, which grow plentifully near the water sides, and of all other trees, which are not sour or bitter to the taste, which they dislike.
The beavers keep, (as is said, which is true,) in the water and on land; therefore they may be named land and water animals, but they are mostly on the dry land, and get most of their food on land, consisting of bark and herbage. The wood and grass used in the construction of their house are got on the land; they remain whole nights on land, and they cannot live and remain long under the water, particularly when they are chased and fatigued. In the water they obtain a scanty subsistence from the bark of roots of trees which extend into the water from the margin of the water courses, and the weeds and bushes which grow in some places, but mostly on the margin of the water. The true and certain reason why the beavers keep so much in the water arises from their natural timidity, which is supported by the testimony of the great beaver catchers. Being naturally timid, the creature can best preserve and secure itself much better and easier in the water than on land. To that end, as will be detailed hereafter, they construct their abodes over the water, having apertures in the lower stories that communicate with the water, from which they can readily retreat under water to places of safety, which they have always prepared near their houses; these consist of a hollow or hole entwining under water from the side of the stream whereon their houses are erected and ascending under the bank, into which they retreat on the approach of danger wherein they seem to be so safe and secure that no person can molest them.
The beaver's skin is rough, but very thickly set with fine wool (fur) of an ash grey colour, inclining to blue. The outward points also incline to a russet or brown colour. From the beaver fur, or wool, the best hats are made that are worn, which are named beavers or castoreums, after the materials from which the same are made, being at present known over all Europe. Outside of the coat of fur many shining hairs appear, which are called wind hairs, that more properly are winter hairs, for those fall out in summer and appear again in the fall. This outer coat is of a chestnut brown colour --- the browner the better --- it sometimes will be somewhat reddish. When hats are made of the fur, the rough hairs are plucked out, being useless. The skins usually are first sent to Russia (Muscovy) where they are highly esteemed for the outside shining hair, and on that their greatest recommendation depends with the Russians. There the skins are used for mantle linings, and are also cut into stripes for borders, as we cut the rabbit skins. Therefore we name the same peltries. Whoever there has the most and costliest fur trimmings is esteemed the greatest, as with us, the finest stuffs and gold and silver embroidery are considered the appendages of the great. After the hairs have fallen out, or are worn, and the peltries become old and dirty, and apparently useless, we get the articles back and convert the fur into hats, before which it cannot be well used for this purpose, for unless the beaver has been worn and is greasy and dirty, it will not felt properly therefore those old peltries are most valuable. The coats which the Indians make of beaver skins, and have worn a long time around their bodies, until the same have become foul with sweat and grease those afterwards are used by the hatters and make the best hats. They also work it with the combed wool or fur (which is so called) because the beaver skins before the same are sent to Russia are combed, by which process much of the fur is taken out of the long hair (or wind hair) with a comb this is also worked with the peltry fur, after its return from Russia.
The beavers have very short legs, appearing as if there were no middle bones, and when they run, their legs are scarcely observable, and appear as if their feet were joined to their bodies, with which they move. Their claws or paws are bare and blackish, with strong, brown nails, bound with a thick, strong skin, like swans' feet, which they resemble, but are not so broad, being shorter before than behind. The hinder part of the body is short, much like that of a goose or swan. The forefeet (as the creature has a short neck, or is almost without a neck, the head being near the shoulders) stand near the head, Therefore when they run, which they do with great activity, their whole body appears to touch the ground and appears to be too heavy for their small short legs : but far from it, they are well provided by nature with strong sinews and muscles and are very strong.
The beavers are so quick, that they not only can run wonderfully over the earth, when we consider their formation, avoiding men and dogs; but in the water they seem as active as fishes. Therefore the Indians must take them in traps; or when they lay in their burrows in the earth, they know how to take and kill them with long rammers (which have lances affixed at the ends) inserted at the holes of their burrows. That the beavers according to the meaning of Olaus Magnus and Albertus, will be inclined to bite and wound persons dreadfully, is a mistake; for it is a timid creature, which seeks to preserve itself by flight if possible, and as it has a sharp scent and hearing, we seldom happen to see it on the land. Nor will it ever keep near man like the otters, which the latter sometimes do. The beavers keep in deep swamps, at the waters and morasses, where no settlements are. Still when they are beset and bitten by dogs, they can defend themselves very well, and do great injury to a common dog, when they take hold of the same with their foreteeth; but as to their attacking men with violence, it is erroneous. I have seen and conversed with hundreds of beaver hunters, but have never known more than one who had been bitten by a beaver in his shoulder and received a bad wound. This happened when the hunter's dog and a beaver were striving for the mastery, and the hunter stooped down to help his dog; when the beaver missing the dog probably, in terror and misery, bit the hunter in his shoulder.
That the beavers are subtle animals appears by the construction of their houses, and in rearing their young, which we will presently relate, with their continual watch, which they keep to prevent surprise and being taken; which, we are informed, they keep at every house, for the beavers commonly have six or seven in a family in every house, at which they in turn keep watch. It is certain that when it freezes hard, which it frequently does where the most and best beavers resort, there always sits one, not as Albertus and Magnus assert, with half of the body in the water (for this would be impossible in severe frost). The beaver can keep above water without pain, which they nevetherless on the contrary feel; but I assert that one of the family always sits near the running water, for they always build on running waters, that with the striking of their tails they keep it open; the noise of which resembles the continual striking of a person with his flat hand, by which means they prevent the freezing of the water and keep it open. This is not done because, as the doctors say, they cannot remain out of water without pain, but to keep the entrance of the houses open, so that they can seek food, and in case of danger, that they can readily with little difficulty retreat to their strongholds, which they always have near their houses under the banks of the water courses.
The form of a beaver resembles the shape of a cucumber which has a short stem, or a duck that has the neck and head cut off, or like a ball of yarn wound in long form and flattened a little, being often thicker than long, or like a swine which is flat on the back, with its belly hanging down. The dead beaver resembles a dead mole which is somewhat flattened with the foot.
When full grown, the skins are about an ell long and an ell broad; they are not round, but frequently nearly square. From this size up to five quarters, the skins are merchantable they are seldom larger. From December to the first of June, the skins are good, and then they are killed. The fall skins have the winter hairs in part, with very little fur. The summer skins and those taken from ungrown beavers are of little value. Still the Indians kill all they find when they are hunting.
Their houses, as Sextius, Albertus, and Olaus say, they construct always over a running stream, with several stories, four, five, or more, above each other, of curious workmanship, and worthy of speculation. Every apartment and story in their houses is made perfectly tight with wood, grass and clay to the top, which keeps out the rain. They lodge in those houses in whole families, and parts of families, and break out like bees, with their increase when disturbed. The wood used in the construction of their houses is of the soft kind, such as maple, pine, white-wood, &c. which they find laying along the water courses. When this supply is insufficient, they have recourse to the nearest trees, which is done as follows. When a beaver intends to fell a tree, it selects one of a proper size, of about six inches diameter, the bark of which is not bad tasted. The beaver then begins cutting with its front teeth, of which it has two in the upper and two in the lower jaw; very strong and about half an inch long, more or less, according to its age. Those teeth are yellow on the outside. When this is scraped off and taken inwardly, it will cure the jaundice. With those teeth, which are common to the squirrels and other animals, they commence gnawing, making a cut of about a hand's breadth or more around the tree, which they work at until the tree falls, and then the ends resemble the turned whip-tops, used by children. Whether they look up when the tree falls, to observe its direction, I have never heard. But I have seen many trees which had been cut down by the beavers, that had fallen fast against trees that stood near by, that were left by the animals. After a tree has fallen down, they then gnaw off the wood into proper lengths for their work. They carry the wood together, and nearly all the inhabitants of the New-Netherlands know that many skins are sold from which the outside wind hairs are worn off on the back, which are called wood-carriers' skins, because they carried wood for the construction of their houses; this is not done as the ancients relate, between their legs, as upon a sled or waggon; but the Indians who have seen the beavers labour, have frequently told me, that after the wood is cut off and ready for removal, the female places herself under the piece to be removed, which the male and the young ones support on her back to the place where it is used. In this manner every stick is carried. That the carrier is dragged by its tail with the wood, lying on its back, by the other beavers, is a fabulous tale. The tail of a beaver is not large and long, as the ancients remark. The largest are not larger and broader than a man's hand, without the thumb. Their tails also are tender and would not bear pulling by the same with the sharp teeth of another beaver.
The beaver tails are flattish, without hair, coated with a skin which appears as if set with fish scales, and when chopped up with the flesh of the beaver, it is a delicate food, and is always preserved for the Emperor's table, whenever a beaver is caught in Germany, which seldom happens. The beaver tails excel all other flesh taken on land and in the water. Wherefore the Indians deem it a special favour to permit us to partake with them of a part of a beaver's tail; and they will seldom part with any beaver flesh. The most of the settlers in the New-Netherlands have never tasted it but the best and most excellent part of a beaver is its tail. The Indians will seldom part with it, unless on an extraordinary occasion as a present.
The beaver like the swine goes with young sixteen weeks; they bear once a year and in summer, some earlier than others, and have four in a litter, except at the first, when they sometimes have but two or three. The young beavers, whenever they are brought forth, cry like children, so that a person coming to a place where there is a young beaver, if he did not know to the contrary, would suppose a child was at hand. The beaver have two paps between the fore-legs at the breast, resembling the paps of a woman, and no more. She suckles her young sitting and permits two to suckle at the same time, like children standing at the breast. Meanwhile the others lay, as if they were crying, in their nest they are suckled in turn. A young beaver is a beautiful creature; is easily raised and will become as tame as a dog, and will feed on any food, like cats, except flesh and fish, which they will eat when boiled. When they are taken very young they require milk, which they readily learn to suck from a rag-teat, out of a horn. They are gentle to handle as a young dog, and will not get cross or bite. When grown they are fond of the water, and will sport and play in a stream with astonishing agility; and if they are not confined in locked waters, by going into streams every day they stroll away and become wild, and do not return again, like the deer, which also can be made very tame.
The doctors of medicine, as before related, ascribe many medicinal virtues to the beaver cods, which they name castorium. Aristotle, Pliny, and the writers of those days meant that the beavers seldom castrated themselves. But Olaus Magnus, Agricola, Albertus, and Sextius have not admitted this, but say much fraud was practised in the sale of beaver-cods, which is evident. And as I have been at great pains to arrive at a certainty on this subject, for which purpose I have not only examined many Indians carefully, who were most acquainted with the matter, but have also with my own hands opened many beavers, which I have examined curiously; the result of which, friendly reader, on this occasion will not be withheld from you.
I have heard, that for medicinal purposes, small kegs of dried and salted cods have been shipped to be sold by druggists, but for the most those were beaver kidneys, dugs, or not the real castor cods, therefore the article did not sell well. Several persons also have left the New-Netherlands for Holland, who took with them, as they supposed, the real cods, which they had obtained from the Indians; but on their arrival, they were found to be a spurious article. Having heard of this several times, my curiosity became excited, and I even doubted whether I had seen real castor cods. All I had seen were round, some larger than others, but as long as they hung to smoke or dry, the fat dropped out as from pork hung in the sun. Finally I observed one somewhat long, like a preserved pear, shrivelled and a little musky. This I presented to an experienced physician in the New-Netherlands, who pronounced it to be a true beaver cod, of the proper kind, and as the article should be. It happened at this time that beavers were found not far from my residence, and several were brought to me by the Indian hunters, unopened and fresh; these I opened and examined with great care for the real castor cods, but to no purpose. I found deep in the body, under the os pubis, or eys bone, small ballats like a fleur-de-lis, which in Holland were pronounced spurious. At last, a discreet Indian hunter, who had assisted me in my experimental dissections, after I had represented to him that the subjects sought for were flattish, and in form somewhat resembled a pear, advised the opening of a female beaver. We took in hand a female which was with young, to see how the young lay; upon which I found against the back bone two testiculos, of the form which I sought after, flatfish like some pears, resembling young calves' tests, and yellowish, covered with a tolerable tough fleece or skin. I took them out, and for further certainty and assurance, that it was a female beaver, I removed four young from the body. After some time I presented those testicles to the doctor before mentioned, at the Governor's house, before much company. The doctor and all present pronounced the articles real beaver testicles. After I had related to them the whole procedure, they were amazed, but adhered to their first opinion, and that the same were the real beaver castor cods. Afterwards I have opened more beavers with the like result; therefore, without prejudice to the feelings of any person, I am decidedly of opinion, that the real castorium is found in the females and not in the males. The round balls of the males the Indians carve fine, and suck much with their tobacco: it is healthy and well tasted. The; fat or pork around the body of a beaver is frequently two or three fingers thick, of which the Indians are very fond. It resembles fed pork. The tails are great delicacies. The Indians always burn the beaver bones, and never permit their dogs to gnaw the same; alleging that afterwards they will be unlucky in the chase.
The beavers are usually all of the same colour; a few are a little browner than others. Among all the beaver skins I have seen, no more than one was of a different colour, and that was white. The outer wind-hairs were golden yellow. This skin was shipped on board the ship Princess, with Director Kieft, which was lost at sea.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Misprint for fiber. - Ed.