(Footnote.  Volume 2 page 624.)

The third sort, which, like the second, is found only in the Northern parts, seldom grows more than ten feet high, with small pinnated leaves, resembling those of some kind of fern; it bears no cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the size of a large chestnut, but rounder.  As the hulls of these were found scattered round the places where the Indians had made their fires it was taken for granted that they were fit to eat; however those who made the experiment paid dear for their knowledge to the contrary, for they operated both as an emetic and cathartic, with great violence:  still however it was not doubted but they were eaten by the Indians, and, in order to determine this more clearly, they were carried to the hogs, who might be supposed to have a constitution as strong as the Indians, although the ship’s people had not.  The hogs ate them indeed, and for some time apparently without suffering any inconvenience, but in about a week they were so much disordered that two of them died; the rest were recovered with great difficulty.  It is probable however that the poisonous quality of these nuts may lie in the juice, like that of the cassada of the West Indies, and that the pulp, when dried, may be not only wholesome but nutritious.

...

MODE OF RENDERING THEM INNOXIOUS.

The native women collect the nuts from the palms in the month of March, and, having placed them in some shallow pool of water, they leave them to soak for several days.  When they have ascertained that the by-yu has been immersed in water for a sufficient time they dig, in a dry sandy place, holes which they call mor-dak; these holes are about the depth that a person’s arms can reach, and one foot in diameter; they line them with rushes and fill them up with the nuts, over which they sprinkle a little sand, and then cover the holes nicely over with the tops of the grass-tree; in about a fortnight the pulp which encases the nut becomes quite dry, and it is then fit to eat, but if eaten before that it produces the effects already described.  The natives eat this pulp both raw and roasted; in the latter state they taste quite as well as a chestnut.  The process which these nuts undergo in the hands of the natives has no effect upon the kernel, which still acts both as a strong emetic and cathartic.

I have taken some trouble to ascertain if any traditional notion exists amongst the natives which would in any way account for their having first obtained a knowledge of the means by which they could render the deleterious pulp of the Zamia nut a useful article of food; but in this, as in all other similar instances, they are very unwilling to confess their ignorance of a thing, and rather than do so will often invent a tradition.  Hence many intelligent persons have raised most absurd theories and have committed lamentable errors.

ROVING HABITS DEPENDANT ON FOOD.