Cabeza de Vaca says that the Indians of Florida ate clay--"de la terre."[457] He says also[458] that the natives offered him many mesquite beans, which they ate mixed with earth--"mele avec de la terre."[459] The Jaguaces of Florida ate earth (tierra).[460] At the trial of Vasco Pocallo de Figueroa, in Santiago de Cuba, in 1522, "for cruelty to the natives," he sought to make it appear that the Indians ate clay as a means of suicide: "el abuso de los Indios en comer tierra ... seguian matandose de intento comiendo tierra."[461] The Muiscas had in their language the word "jipetera," a "disease from eating dirt."[462] Whether the word "dirt" as here employed means filth, or earth and clay, is not plain; it probably means clay and earth. Venegas asserts that the Indians of California ate earth. The traditions of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, California, and vicinity show that "they had fed upon a kind of clay," which they "often used upon their heads by way of ornament."[463] The Tátu Indians of California mix "red earth into their acorn bread ... to make the bread sweet and make it go further."[464] Long[465] relates that when the young warrior of the Oto or Omaha tribes goes out on his first fast he "rubs his person over with a whitish clay," but he does not state that he ate it. Sir John Franklin[466] relates that the banks of the Mackenzie River in British North America contain layers of a kind of unctuous mud, probably similar to that found near the Orinoco, which the Tinneh Indians "use occasionally as food during seasons of famine, and even at other times chew as an amusement.... It has a milky taste and the flavour is not disagreeable." Father de Smet[467] says of the Athapascan: "Many wandering families of the Carrier tribe ... have their teeth worn to the gums by the earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment." This does not seem to have been intentionally eaten. "Some of the Siberian tribes, when they travel, carry a small bag of their native earth, the taste of which they suppose will preserve them from, all the evils of a foreign sky."[468] We are informed that the Tunguses of Siberia eat a clay called "rock marrow," which they mix with marrow. "Near the Ural Mountains, powdered gypsum, commonly called 'rock meal,' is sometimes mixed with bread, but its effects are pernicious."[469] "The Jukabiri of northeastern Siberia have an earth of sweetish and rather astringent taste," to which they "ascribe a variety of sanatory properties."[470] There is nothing in the records relating to Victoria respecting the use of any earth for the purpose of appeasing hunger, but Grey mentions that one kind of earth, pounded and mixed with the root of the _Mene_ (a species of Hæmadorum), is eaten by the natives of West Australia.[471]