On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Mac Marshall wrote:
 
> The only Native Americans in what is now the USA who had alcoholic
> beverages pre-European contact were located in one small corner of the
> desert Southwest.  So if his reference is to the Wampanoag before the
> arrival of Europeans, then he is correct.
 
This comment is conditional on WHAT we refer to as "alcoholic beverages".
 
All of the necessary ingredients of alcohol were present in pre-European
contact North America:  yeast, water, and fruit sugars or starches, plus
seasonal warmth.  In fact, one of the names used by Leif Erickson in
naming the new land was "Vineland" - due to the number of wild grape vines
he found here.
 
Certainly, the aboriginal Americans had the means to make beverage alcohol
- although deficient in some apparatus of manufacture - such as bowls and
siphons, etc.  What they lacked was a religion that emphasized the
importance of drinking and intoxication as a religious rite.
 
Common sense would conclude that if they occasionally found fermented
piles of fruits they wouldn't have just thrown it away before tasting it.
It just simply did not have the importance that it took the europeans to
contribute.
 
Thayne
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 *  A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.