OED and "cassina" -- not 1780 nor any other year
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Fri Aug 17 02:05:43 UTC 2012
Why don't I find in the OED "cassina" = 'caffeine-containing
beverage of Southeastern American Indians', or the plant from which
it is made (in the quote below apparently smoked like tobacco)? See
(1) Wikipedia, "Black drink";
(2) Collections of the Georgia Historical Society: Volume 1 (1840) -
Page 274, "At Harrington Hall, the seat of Captain Demere, the
enclosures were entirely of orange or cassina, a species of Ilex ..."
(GBooks, full view);
and many others in GBooks., including
(3) 2001 "The World of Caffeine", by Bennett Alan Weinberg & Bonnie
K. Bealer, p. 256: "In North America, the cured leaves of the yaupon
holly, Ilex vomitoria, also called "cassina" or "Appalachian
holly,"38 have been similarly infused for centuries to make cassina,
a hot, stimulating drink" (GBooks preview).
I offer the following, from 1780 (less than 50 years after Georgia
was settled by the English):
"... though the Queen, barring the Want of an Eye, and her being a
great Smoaker or Casseni, was, when dressed, a very amiable Princess."
Philip Thicknesse, in The St. James Chronicle, 1780 July 20, p,
4. At least I hope so -- it is quoted in:
Rodney M. Baine, "Philip Thicknesse's Reminiscences of Early
Georgia," The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Winter
1990), p. 676.
Joel
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