Two Drinks That Never Were: Native Alcohol Traditions in the Pacific Northwest

If you ever find yourself reading through the Wikipedia article on “Alcohol and Native Americans” or “The History of Alcoholic Beverages,” you may find the following passages:

“In the northwest, the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island produced a mildly alcoholic drink using elderberry juice, black chitons, and tobacco.[57] Despite the fact that they had little to no agriculture, both the Aleuts and Yuit of Kodiak Island in Alaska were observed making alcoholic drinks from fermented raspberries.[56]”¹

and,

“In addition: […] The Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island produced a mildly alcoholic drink using elderberry juice, black chitons, and tobacco.[56] […] Both the Aleuts and Yuit of Kodiak Island in Alaska were observed making alcoholic drinks from fermented raspberries.[55]²

Both of these reference the same two sources as evidence:

• Cherrington, EH. “Aborigines of North America.” In E. H. Cherrington (Ed.), Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, Westerville, OH 1925; Vol I, pp. 3-42. (regarding raspberries)
• Lemert, EM. Alcohol and the Northwest Coast Indians. University of California Publications in Culture and Society, vol 2, No. 6. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1954. (regarding elderberry/chiton/tobacco)

Both claims, and both citations, were added by Wikipedia user Cmacauley, around the middle of August 2019. They were originally sourced to Patrick J. Abbott, M.D.’s 1996 paper, “American Indian and Alaska Native Aboriginal Use Of Alcohol In The United States”³, and later updated to reflect the sources from which Abbott pulled his claims.

If you’re a nerd like me with a special interest in ethnobotanical fermentation practices, this is catnip: two traditions from the Pacific Northwest for me to recreate? Amazing. There’s just one problem: Neither of the traditions are real. Let me explain.

Let’s first examine the claim that “The Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island produced a mildly alcoholic drink using elderberry juice, black chitons, and tobacco.” This claim is directly sourced to the work of Edwin M. Lemert (May 8, 1912 – November 10, 1996), a sociology professor at the University of California. The full passage is as follows:

“All available evidence seems to concur in placing the native peoples of the Northwest Coast of America among American Indians who in aboriginal times were without knowledge and techniques for brewing or distilling intoxicating beers or liquors. One exceptional note comes from reports on the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island, who made a beverage of elderberry juice, black chitons, and tobacco, which they claimed “made them dizzy.” However, white men who tried this concoction did not experience any feelings of intoxication. Even allowing for the possibility that the drink was an intoxicant, it remains clear that at the time of initial contact of the Indians with white culture it was neither in widespread use in the coastal area nor indeed of any noticeable significance as a culture trait of the Kwakiutl.^{4 5}

This drink sounds fascinating – perhaps somewhere between an elderberry fruit-wine and an oyster stout, with tobacco used simultaneously as a bittering agent and for its psychoactive effects. I tried making a very loose recreation from elderberry juice (Sambuccus nigra), flue-cured tobacco leaves (Nicotiana tabacum), and abalone (as Black Chitons are both not available commercially and protected in the USA from idle foragers under the Coastal Zone Management Act) … and nearly poisoned myself and my housemate with a lethal dose of nicotine upon tasting it.

This raises the first issue with the claim of a drink containing tobacco leaves. Nicotine is completely soluble in water below 60.8°C, meaning that a tea extracts a huge amount of nicotine from the leaves. While 53-77% of total nicotine is matrix-bound in cured tobacco (requiring temperatures above ~200°C for thermal release)⁶, and swallowed nicotine undergoes extensive first-pass hepatic metabolism which reduces systemic bioavailability to 20-40% of the total ingested⁷, that still means that 10 grams of N. tabacum could release as much as 230 mg nicotine into a tea, of which 92 mg would enter the drinker’s bloodstream, a potentially lethal dose.

Another concern is the variability of nicotine content between species, or even between two plants of the same species. Three species of tobacco are native to Washington State: N. rustica, N. attenuata, and N. quadrivalvis. Of these, N. quadrivalvis is likely what the Kwakiutl would have the most access to, and indeed records exist of Kwakiutl families growing it in garden plots. N. quadrivalvis also has the lowest nicotine content of the three, and while thus theoretically the safest to brew, still contains enough nicotine for a tea made with 71 g of dried leaves to be likely fatal.

If it were merely a dosing issue that would be one thing, but the variation in concentration between one plant and the next even within the same species, often comprising an entire order of magnitude, makes a safe dosing guide next to impossible. If only the Kwakiutl had had access to the Carolina Biological Supply Company or the Dark Web, from which to order purified nicotine.

For his claim, Lemert cites Edward S. Curtis’ “The North American Indian.” Tracking down that citation, however, we see something quite different:

“Red elderberries are gathered in July before they are thoroughly mature. Near each of the berry-patches there used to be a “work house,” which was used in common by all the berry-pickers in the neighborhood. At the present time few parties go so far from home that they cannot return for the night. Elderberries are plucked in clusters, and when a sufficient quantity has been secured they are poured into a small canoe and heated stones are thrown in among them. No water is added, the juice of the berries being sufficient to boil them without burning. As they are stirred, the stems are loosened and thrown to the surface, and are removed. After the boiling, chests are brought alongside the canoe and the contents are bailed into them. When the berries have settled to the bottom, the liquor is skimmed off and poured into other chests, leaving only the moist berries. Or the clusters are steamed in pits, removed to a cedar chest, and there stirred and crushed.

“Then everybody eagerly crowds up to drink the juice down to the last drop, and soon all are apparently completely intoxicated, though there can be little if any alcohol in the beverage. These Indians assert that lupin-roots eaten raw produce a strong contraction of the eyelids, as if one were gazing at the sun, which continues until the taste of the roots has passed away. It is also averred that one who eats steamed black chitons (C. Katherina tunicata) and immediately thereafter smokes tobacco loses control of his locomotor muscles and, powerless to check himself, walks straight ahead, always toward the sea, and into the water until some one restrains him or the shock of cold water brings him to his senses. Many white men have been curious enough to experiment on themselves with elderberry juice, lupin-roots, and black chitons, but none has succeeded in producing the expected result. Yet there is ample testimony that the Indians are so affected, and the only explanation of the phenomenon is that their susceptible imagination induces a state of auto-hypnosis.”⁸

Note the key distinction between Curtis’ account and Lemert’s retelling: In the original, it’s made explicit that the (boiled but unfermented) elderberry juice is drunk separately from the eating of chitons or smoking of tobacco. Whether this was an unintentional miscommunication or an intentional embelishment is unclear, but either way, we can dismiss Lemert’s claim of a fermented elderberry/chiton/nicotine brew. But what, then, is the method of effect of the practice?

Ethno-pharmacology

Elderberries

Red elderberry plants (Sambucus racemosa, not S. nigra subsp. cerulea, as I’d assumed) contain cyanogenic glycosides – primarily (S)-sambunigrin and (R)-prunasin – that release hydrogen cyanide (HCN) when plant tissue is disrupted. The berries, however, contain only very low levels of glycosides, on the order of 3.12 ± 0.15 μg/g dry weight.⁹ The boiling process described further reduces the danger: temperatures above 60°C denature β-glucosidase, the enzyme responsible for releasing cyanide from intact glycosides. Additionally, any released cyanide would volatilize and disperse rapidly during the outdoor cooking, since the boiling point of cyanide is only 25.6°C. In tests done with black elderberries, heating for 30 minutes and boiling for 5 was sufficient to effect a 95.7% reduction in Sambunigrin, from 18.8 ± 4.3 mg/kg to 0.8 ± 0.21.¹⁰ Curtis states that the boiling and drinking of the elderberry harvest took place over the course of a single day, and is therefore correct that the juice could not contain any alcohol – it’s just tasty.

Lupine Roots

Lupine is a different matter. All lupines contain quinolizidine alkaloids (QAs), primarily Lupanine and 13-Hydroxylupanine. While no systematic analysis of the QA content of lupine roots has been performed, they are unlikely to be absent from them. As for which of the several species of lupine native to Vancouver Island was used, Chapman and Bell assert that it was Lupinus littoralis, the seashore lupine, called ḵ̕wa̱’ni. The large, sweet, and starchy taproots of L. littoralis can reach up to multiple meters in length and were eaten raw or boiled or steamed in spring.

“The fleshy taproots were eaten in the spring when the salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) first began to bud and the oulachen started to run. At this time the people were very hungry (Cranmer, 1969). The roots were dug in clay soil on open river flats and were found only at Knight Inlet (King, 1972). Sometimes they were eaten raw by a family, but they made one dizzy, is “as if he were drunk from whisky.” Therefore, they were usually eaten in the evening just before bedtime. One did not get dizzy if the roots were cooked, however. They were placed on red-hot stones in the bottom of a kettle and covered with dried grass. Four clamshellfuls of water were poured on, and the roots were allowed to boil until the kettle was dry. One ate them with the fingers, dipping them in oil and biting the end off. Water was drunk afterwards (Boas, 1921). Another way to cook lupine roots was to steam them for several hours in a box lined with green grass (Elymus mollis) and skunk cabbage leaves (Lysichitum americanum) with holes poked in them to allow the steam to come through (op. cit.). Ashes from burning the roots were rubbed into a newborn baby’s cradle to make it sleep well (Boas, 1966).”¹¹

A 1998 study testing sparteine, lupanine, and lupin extract on the CNS of a mouse supported the reported “dizzy” feeling, finding that they produce a “weak sedative effect”: specifically, QAs “display similar agonistic activities as the alkaloid nicotine”(!), with both affecting Na⁺ and K⁺ ganglion channels.^{12 13}

Tobacco

Speaking of nicotine, the tobacco element. People are pretty familiar with the plant from cigars and cigarettes, so I wont go into too much detail here besides to offer a comparison of nicotine levels in native tobacco species to the species (N. tabacum) most commonly cultivated for modern use.

As stated above, while N. quadrivalvis has the lowest concentration of nicotine of any of the four species reviewed, the concentration is still certainly high enough to be psychoactive if smoked.

Black Chiton

Black chitons (Katharina tunicata) are the most curious component listed, by far. I initially thought that the chitons might accumulate saxitoxins during toxic algae blooms, leading to Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP), however The Alaska Sea Grant (a specialized authority on Alaskan marine resources) explicitly refutes this, stating:

“Most single-shelled shellfish, such as non-predatory snails, chitons, gumboots, and abalone, are bottom forage feeders and do not accumulate PSP toxins.”

Chitons are grazing herbivores that scrape algae from rocks using their radula. Because they don’t filter-feed on dinoflagellates the way bivalves do, they don’t accumulate saxitoxins in their tissues and cannot cause PSP.

I instead went looking for potential drug interactions with compounds that do accumulate in chitons. Chitons are an excellent source of taurine, which makes up about 33% of free amino acids in chiton tissue.^{14 15} They are additionally known to contain betaine and glycine, and their nervous system utilizes FMRFamide, serotonin, and nitric oxide synthase in small quantites.

Of these, the only one that would have any effect whatsoever is taurine. All the other compounds identified either have no effect on mammals (betaine, for example, only affects mollusks). There’s just one problem: according to PubMed, the taurine-nicotine interaction is protective rather than synergistic. That is, taurine counteracts the effects of nicotine.

Şener et al. showed that taurine supplementation reversed contractile dysfunction caused by nicotine, restored endogenous GSH levels, and decreased lipid peroxidation from nicotine exposure.¹⁶ If the chiton had any effect at all, it was as a natural protection mechanism against overdosing on a mixture of nicotine and quinolizidine alkaloids.

They’re also just tasty – often described as somewhere between sea urchin roe (uni)¹⁷, mussels¹⁸, and abalone. A single chiton can provide an estimated 42 kcal of food energy.¹⁹ In Nutrients in Native Foods of Southeast Alaska Helen M. Drury described the particular value of black Katy chitons as:

"[an] excellent sources of iron. A 100 mg amount provides a minimum of two-thirds of the adult RDA for iron. … Leather chiton [is also] a good source of vitamin A. One hundred grams contained nearly one-fourth of the RDA for both riboflavin and niacin and more than one-eighth of the RDA of calcium. This nutritious member of the mollusk family, popularly called gumboots, is very well liked by southeastern Alaska Natives. Chiton can be gathered from the rocks of the rugged coastline during low tides. They are cooked briefly, below the boiling point of water, and are eaten either warm or cold, with or without seal oil or eulachon fat.”²⁰

Summary

While a practice did exist among the Kwakiutl of achieving an altered state through a combination of elderberries, nicotine, lupine roots, and black chitons, the process was not mediated by alcohol, but by alkaloids.

This case is a bit more promising, if one is looking exclusively for a pre-contact fermentation practice, but still ultimately unlikely. The Cherrington reference can be sourced to a single sentence on page 6 of volume 1 of Cherrington’s Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem²¹:

“In the far northwest of the American continent the aborigines were almost wholly without knowledge of alcoholic beverages. The known exception is that of the Koniagas²², the southern Eskimos inhabiting the western coast of Alaska from Kotzebue Sound southward. These people, before the advent of the white man, made a fermented beverage from the juice of blueberries and raspberries.”

While not cited, Cherrington likely derives this claim from the account of Gavriil Ivanovich Davydov (1784-1809), a Russian naval officer famous for his voyages to Russian America (Alaska) between 1802 and 1807. In his account, he describes:

“Островитяне чрезвычайно пристрастились к табаку: без него почти быть не могут и живущие по далее, не имея возможности получат оным, всегда бранят Русских, за чем они их к тому пристрастили. мужчины и женщины держат табак во рту, весьма редкие из Них нюхают, и ни один не курит, ибо думают, что от сего дыхание становится тяжелее и не столь легко ходить можно. Жители Кадьяка, да и все дикие Северо-западной Америки, начинают чрезвычайно пристращаться к горячим напиткам; однако Коняги и до приходу Русских до пьяна напивались, заквашенным соком малины и черники. Русские же из сего двоят очень хорошую водку. Из бочки ягод, выходит одно только ведро оной.”²³

Or in English,

“The islanders have become extremely fond of tobacco: they can hardly exist without it, and those living farther away, having no opportunity to obtain it, always curse the Russians for having made them so addicted to it. Men and women keep tobacco in [their] mouth, very few of them sniff it, and no one smokes it, for they think that from this breathing becomes heavier and one cannot walk as easily. The inhabitants of Kad’iak, and indeed all the savages of Northwest America, are beginning to become extremely fond of strong drinks; however the Koniags even before the arrival of the Russians got drunk on the fermented juice of raspberries and bilberries. The Russians distill a very good vodka from this. From a barrel of berries, only one bucket of it comes out.”

This is particularly interesting because it is the only reference to pre-contact fermentation practices by the people of the Kodiak peninsula: other ethnographers and archaeologists either don’t mention berry fermentation at all, or find no evidence for it. Admiraal et al²⁴, for example, performed molecular analysis of pottery from Kodiak island and found no evidence of berry fermentation (but did find evidence of salmon fermentation, possibly similar to Igunaq). Ivan Veniaminov (later renamed Innocent of Alaska)’s works are difficult to find online but he (ca. 1840) also does not seem to have mentioned fermented berries, although he also references fermented fish and roe.²⁵

Critically, Davydov visited Kodiak Island ca. 1802, fourty years after the initiation of sustained contact with Russian explorers. It’s entirely possible that while Davydov believed the raspberry drink to be a pre-Russian tradition, it was in fact only a few decades old. It’s also possible (although in my opinion somewhat less likely) that multiple ethnographic and molecular surveys missed or neglected to mention the practice.

There is one last confounding account. Geraldine Berreman, in her 1956 “Drinking Patterns of the Aleuts”²⁶, writes:

“Prior to European contacts the Aleuts knew no alcoholic beverages. The only reference to possible precontact liquor is in a story told by present-day villagers. This story concerns a village, which once existed near Nikolski, whose inhabitants found an empty barrel washed up on the beach. They filled it with berries and put it in a storage house. The following winter two servant girls were sent to get the berries but found only liquid in the barrel. They tasted some themselves and brought some back to the villagers, who consumed it. After several such trips everyone was acting strangely, including the girls, and no one knew why. On the final trip, the giddy girls tipped over their seal oil lamp on the grass floor, set the storage house on fire and burned up the winter’s store of food as well. According to informants, such potent liquid was not encountered again until the Russians came.

“More reliable evidence is at hand for the postcontact period. Liquor was first effectively introduced by Russian Cossack workers who were brought to the Aleutians in the fur trade during the last half of the 18th and in the early 19th centuries.”²⁷

While this accidental fermentation was likely not what Davydov was describing, as he seemed to believe the practice was widespread rather than a single event in a single village, it’s the only corroborating evidence we have. Davydov does mention Russian brewing of local ingredients to make a wine/kvass,

“Островитяне приготовляют также себе кушанье из макарши (змеиный корень), мешая оную с брусникою и китовым жиром; Русские же из брусники и корня папоротника делают квас.”

“The islanders also prepare for themselves a dish from makarsha (snake root)²⁸, mixing it with lingonberry and whale fat; The Russians on the other hand make kvass from lingonberry and fern root.”

but this passage makes a clear distinction between the bistort, lingonberry, and whale fat preparation the Alutiiq made and the alcohol the Russians made.

Kvass

At the time Davydov was writing, “квас” (kvass) was not as limited in definition as it is today. Modern kvass is defined as “A fermented cereal-based low alcoholic beverage,” but that is a Soviet standardization of a very broad term. Vladimir Dal’s Толковый словарь живого великорусского языка (Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language) (1880-1882), compiled from decades of fieldwork documenting living Russian usage, defines kvass as “кислота, кисловатость” (acidity, sourness) before describing the bread-based drink. Crucially, Dal writes:

“Квас медовой, на меду; — клюковный, грушевой, яблочный, готовятся и без муки, наливкою воды на плоды”²⁹

“Honey kvass, with honey; cranberry, pear, apple [kvasses] are prepared even without flour, by pouring water on fruits”

Similarly, Ushakov’s dictionary (1935-1940) lists “шипучий напиток из ягод или фруктов” (sparkling beverage from berries or fruits) as the second meaning of the term.

Davydov’s lingonberry (брусника) and fern root (корень папоротника) kvass makes sense: Multiple native ferns, in particular the Spreading Wood Fern (Dryopteris expansa) and the Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) have starchy, edible roots, and fern roots are eaten in Siberia as a delicacy. It makes sense that Russian explorers would have adapted preparations they were familiar with to the available ingredients. The interesting thing here is that a recipe containing only fern roots, lingonberries, and water, would not contain the necessary amylase to break down the starches in the roots. For that, you’d likely need to add either raw honey or diastatic malt, both of which contain amylase.

The amylase content in honey decreases rapidly with age, and with any heating above 50-60°C (122-140°F) also causing sharp reductions in amylase content. Malted grains would have been a relatively infrequent luxury, although possible, as Fort Ross in California supported Russian America with raw wheat and barley after 1812.

Additionally, lingonberries are high in polyphenols, which inhibit the action of amylase, and benzoic acid, which inhibits fermentation, meaning that their addition would have to happen late in fermentation, after conversion of starches to sugars.

For the best chance at a successful fermentation, my suggestion would be as follows;

Recipe: Kvass from the Alaskan Frontier ca. 1802

• Spreading Wood Fern (Dryopteris expansa) or Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) roots³⁰
• Fresh or frozen lingonberries, pureed.
• Fresh, raw honey

Thinly slice or dice the fern roots, and toast them gently over low heat until golden brown. The malliard reactions will break down some of the starches in the roots into simple sugars. After toasting, grind or pound the roots into a paste, and add to a pot of boiling water. Boil for 10-20 minutes to gelatinize the remaining starch. Allow the mixture to cool to under 38ºC (100ºF) and add the honey. Mix the honey into the warm water until it dissolves, making sure to keep the roots in suspension. After about 10 minutes, add the lingonberry puree. For maximum authenticity, allow the mixture to begin wild fermenting on its own or start from a previous batch, but if you are worried about losing your brew to an unlucky wild ferment, you can add store-bought yeast here instead. Sourness is central to kvasses, so try to add some lactobacillus as well as saccharomyces.

Summary

We’ve strayed a bit off topic, into concurrent and co-located Russian preparations, but it’s my blog and I can get distracted if I want. The point is, here again we have failed to substantiate the claims of a pre-contact fermentation tradition. In this case, the trail is a bit murkier, as Russians seem to have gotten right around to brewing kvass as soon as they came to Alaska, which even created contemporary confusion regarding whether the knowledge had preceeded them. However, as neither ethnographers nor molecular archaeological surveys have been able to find evidence of a pre-contact fermentation practice, and even those who claim one existed assert that it would have been the one of if not the only known fermentation practice on the West Coast, I am inclined to think that this too is a dead end.

Wikipedia has grown greatly from its beginnings as “the thing teachers tell you not to cite” to a genuine hub of well-sourced and well-cited information… usually. In this case, it has perpetuated claims of indigenous fermentation traditions in the Pacific Northwest that are at best unlikely. Neither the elderberry-tobacco-chiton claim nor the fermented raspberry claim has borne fruit, and all evidence points to neither tradition having been alcohol-based. (How long does a conclusion need to be? This was always the part of writing papers I was worst at.) Fuck it, send it. That’s it that’s the post.