Dear Thayne,
 
You're certainly entitled to your opinion but there is a large and
consistent record in the contact literature that makes clear that anything
most of us would recognize as and call an alcoholic beverage was absent in
Native North America (absent the one small area I mentioned), and likewise
throughout the Pacific Islands.  I have this image of Leif Erickson and his
crew positively FALLING upon the grape vines that they ostensibly found...
 
Mac
 
At 03:11 PM 10/7/97 -0800, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       Alcohol and Temperance History Group
<[log in to unmask]>
>Poster:       "Andersen, Thayne I." <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Re: Alcohol in preEuropean North America
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>
>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
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> *  A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
>
>