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Updated: May 11, 2025
In comparing the herbaceous and nourishing fibres of the young undeveloped leaves of the palm-trees with the sago of the Mauritia, of which the Indians make bread similar to that of the root of the Jatropha manihot, we involuntarily recollect the striking analogy which modern chemistry has proved to exist between ligneous matter and the amylaceous fecula.
"The conversion of fecula into sugar, as one of the ordinary processes of vegetable economy, is effected by the production of a secretion termed diastose, which occasions both the rupture of the starch vesicles, and the change of their contained gum into sugar. This diastose may be separately obtained by the chemist, and it acts as effectually in his laboratory as in the vegetable organization.
That amylaceous fecula which the seeds of the cereal plants furnish in all its purity, is found united with an acrid and sometimes even poisonous juice, in the roots of the arums, the Tacca pinnatifida, and the Jatropha manihot. The savage of America, like the savage of the South Sea islands, has learned to dulcify the fecula, by pressing and separating it from its juice.
The water, charged with fine particles of fecula, and forming a sort of milk, flows through the tube, z, into the lower part, N, of the washing apparatus, F, while the pulp runs over the sieve and falls into the grinding-mill, H. This latter divides all those cellular portions of the fecula that have not been opened by the rasp, and allows them to run, through the tube, h, into the washing apparatus, F, where the fecula is completely separated from woody fibers.
His cold and silent gravity, the respect with which he was treated by his attendants, everything denoted him to be a person of importance. He was equipped, however, in the same manner as his Indians. They were all equally naked, armed with bows and arrows, and painted with onoto, which is the colouring fecula of the Bixa orellana.
The colours used by the Maypures are the oxides of iron and manganese, and particularly the yellow and red ochres that are found in the hollows of sandstone. Sometimes the fecula of the Bignonia chica is employed, after the pottery has been exposed to a feeble fire. This painting is covered with a varnish of algarobo, which is the transparent resin of the Hymenaea courbaril.
We are struck with the observation, that the Indians of the Orinoco, like the natives of North America, prefer the substances that yield a red colour to every other. Is this predilection founded on the facility with which the savage procures ochreous earths, or the colouring fecula of anato and of chica? I doubt this much. Indigo grows wild in a great part of equinoctial America.
They contain a kind of starch or fecula; this starch, in the process of malting, becomes converted into a kind of sugar; and from this malt-sugar or transformed starch, may be obtained ale or beer, gin or whisky, and vinegar, by various processes of fermenting and distilling.
By means of the rapid manipulation of the fecula and the beautiful appearance presented by the unleavened breads created with this element, the shameless imposture had been so propagated that now the mystery of the transubstantiation hardly existed any longer and the priests and faithful were holding communion, without being aware of it, with neutral elements.
WOAD. The leaves steeped in water till the parts are decomposed, produces a fine blue fecula, which is made into cakes, and sold to the woollen-dyers. For its culture, see p. 32. LICHEN Roccella. ORCHIL. The fine purple called orchil is extracted from this moss. LITHOSPERMUM officinale. GROMWELL. The roots afford a fine red, which is used by the young girls in Sweden to colour their faces.
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