DCHP-1 Online

sagamité sagamite, sagamity, shag(g)amitie, etc. [< Cdn F < Algonk.; cf. Cree kisakumitew it is a hot liquid and Ojibwa kisagamite the broth is hot]

• 1 n. a broth or soup of boiled meat, fish, etc.

  • Although the entered form is that derived from Algonkian through Cdn French, the word was undoubtedly borrowed independently by the English traders from the Crees of the Hudson's Bay region. Early spelling variants are numerous. See also further note at def. 2.

  • c1665  (1885)  Then my father made a speech shewing many demonstrations of vallor, broak a kettle full of Cagamite with a hatchet.
  • 1633  (1858)  [les Sauuageais aiment for le sagamité le mot de Sagamiteou en leur langue signifie proprement l'eau, ou de brouet chaud: maintenant ils estendent sa signification a toute sorte de potage, de bouille, choses semblables.]
  • 1748  From the Meats they boil they have the Advantage of the Broth, which they call Sagamite, and in Winter Weather set it out in the Kettle to freeze till it becomes Ice, and so portable Soop.
  • 1791  Among several of the tribes of Indians, pap is made of saga[m]ite, from a root they call toquo, of the bramble kind; this is washed and dried, afterwards ground, or pounded, and made into a paste, which being baked is pleasant to the taste, but of a very astringent quality.
  • 1938  On the long carrying places campfires were kindled while the packers toiled and kettles of sagamité were slung above them for the evening meal.

• 2 n. a kind of porridge made from Indian corn, long associated with the Hurons.

  • Although long in use among the corn-growing Hurons to refer to hominy, or corn porridge, this word originated among the non farming Algonquins, who used it to refer to hot liquid, such as soup or broth. The Hurons may have borrowed it directly from the Algonquin, adapting it to their own purposes; or they may have learned it from the French missionaries, who would in that case have borrowed it from the Algonquins somewhat earlier.

  • 1632  (1939)  [I could not yet eat their sagamité . . . being unaccustomed to it. . . .]
  • 1760  Of this vegetable [corn] is made what they call sagamite .is received from the women. . . .
  • 1916  Probably no corn or other food is referred to so frequently as hominy, or sagamité, as it was more familiarly known to the early French.
  • 1963  Their [Hurons'] sagamité, a kind of corn porridge that drew excruciatingly long faces from the early Frenchmen, was, nevertheless, remarkably nourishing.