bark of Rhus glabra, MINBDI-HI. A black dye for porcupine quills was made from the bark of Quercus rubra, BUUDE-HI. Passing to the native food plants, I mention first roots, bulbs and tubers. The bulbs and tops of Allium spp. were eaten both raw and cooked. The thickened roots of Apios apios, NU, were eaten after being boiled until the skin came off. The annual report of the commissioner of agriculture for 1870 says: "Apios tuberosa, on the banks of streams and in alluvial bottoms, is the true 'pomme de terre' of the French and the MODO, or wild potato, of the Sioux Indians and is used extensively as an article of diet . . . It should not be confounded with the groundnut of the south." Helianthus tuberosa, PANHE, tubers were a common article of food. The thickened root of Psoralea esculenta, NUGTHE, was eaten fresh and raw or dried and cooked with soup. This is the root called "pomme blanche" and "pomme de prairie" by the French voyageurs. The annual report of the commissioner of agriculture for 1870 (p. 408), says: ". . . Indian turnip, pomme de prairie of the French, TIPSINNAH of the Sioux, who used it extensively. Generally the size of a hen's egg, of a regular ovoid shape .... Indians of Kansas and Nebraska consider this root an especial luxury." The tubers of Sagittaria latifolia, SIN, were cooked and furnished a farinaceous food. I have not found that any plants were used as salads or relishes. As a pot herb Asclepias syriaca, WARTHA-HI, was eaten at three stages. First, the young shoots were used much as we use the young sprouts of asparagus. Next, the inflorescences before the flower buds open are cooked as greens, and in the last stage the very young fruits are used in the same way. The bark of Ulmus fulva, EZHON ZHIDE, was cooked with rendering fat to give it a pleasant flavor, and also it was supposed that it gave the suet keeping quality. After |
cooking in the fat the pieces of bark are much prized. by the children as special titbits. The nuts of Corylus americana, UNZHINGA, and Juglans nigra, TDAGE, were eaten plain or prepared by mixing with honey. The fruits of Crataegus coccinea and C. mollis, TASPANHI, were eaten fresh from the hand by children and also sometimes by adults in case of famine. Logan creek in northeastern Nebraska is called NI-TASPAN-BATE by the Omaha in reference to the abundance of Crataegus growing thereon, BATE meaning groups or thickets. The fruits of Ribes missouriensis, PEZI; Rubus occidentalis, AGATHUNKEMONGE-HI, Fragaria virginiana, BASHTE-HI; Morus rubra, ZHONZI; and Lepargyraea argentea, ZHONHOJE WAZHIDE, were eaten fresh and also dried for winter use. The fruits of Prunus besseyi, NANPA-TANGA, were eaten fresh, those of P. virginiana, NANPA-ZHINGA, were eaten fresh and also pounded up, pits and all, made into thin cakes, dried and used in winter with dried corn, or cooked alone with sugar. P. americana, KANDE, was eaten fresh, or, after being pitted, was dried for winter use. Vitis riparia and V. vulpina, HAZI, were eaten both fresh in season and dried for winter use. There is a certain wild bean which grows very generally over the continent from which the Omaha formerly obtained a considerable item of their alimentation. It is Falcata comosa (L.) They call the vine HINBTHI- HI and the fruits HINBTHI ABE. The plant grows most luxuriantly and fruits profusely. From the aerial, conspicuous flowers a great abundance of legumes is produced, each containing several grayish mottled beans about the form and size of lentils, but from geotropic, nontwining, leafless vines at the base of the plant are produced subterranean legumes each of which contains one bean which may attain a diameter of seventeen millimeters. The subterranean legumes are produced from cleistogamous flowers. The geotropic runners on which they are produced |
are leafless and colorless and form a perfect network on the surface of the ground beneath the twining vines. The subterranean beans are gathered by the field mice and stored by them in quanitities from a quart to several quarts in a place. These stores were sought by the women, and after soaking the membranaceous hulls were rubbed off and the beans were boiled, affording an article of food similar in taste and quality to the common kidney bean. The acorn most used by the Omaha for food was that of Quercus rubra, BUUDE HI. All other species of Quercus were without differentiation called by them TASHKA-HI. The acorns were freed from tannic acid by boiling with wood ashes. Q. rubra is also called by the Omaha NUNBA NARADI, in reference to its characteristic in burning to flame again after it has apparently burned down to coals--NUNBA, twice; NARADI, flames. The plant of first importance in aboriginal use was zea mays,10 which by all evidence of tradition, history, archaeology, meteorology, ethnology, philology and botany, had central and southern Mexico as its place of origin, as is so well shown by Harshberger in "Maize: A Botanical and Economic Study".11 But prior to the coming of Columbus it had been artificially distributed and cultivated over almost all the tropical and temperate regions of the western hemisphere. For the gift of this grain the whole modern 10 Brinton, "Myths of the New World" N. Y. 1873, says: "It (maize) was found in cultivation from the southern extremity of Chile to the fortieth parallel of north latitude, beyond which the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop." Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, Tome III, p. 342, Paris, 1758: "Le Mahiz ... est la nourriture principale des Peuples de I'Amerique." Lafitau, Moeures des Sauvages Ameriquains, Tome III, p. 57, Paris, 1724: "La mais ... lequel est le fondement de la nourriture de presque toutes les Nations sedentaires d'un bout de l'Amerique a I'autre." 11 Harshberger, v. 1, No. 2, Contributions from the Botanical Laboratories of the University of Pennsylvania: "Maize originated in all probability. . north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and south of the 22d degree north latitude, near the ancient seat of the Maya tribes." |
world is indebted to those remote and obscure toilers who labored all their lives and for many generations without thought of their incalculable service to humanity or of the richness of their contribution to the world's storehouse. But too often does it so occur that we complacently accept the good things that have come to us and to our times, congratulating ourselves upon our possessions and accomplishments, and too seldom do we remember to bestow credit where it is due for legacies we have received from remote times and alien peoples. Another cereal which, though not cultivated, was by some tribes artificially distributed and formed a staple food for the tribes living in its range, was wild rice, Zizania aquatica. This formerly grew in the northeast part of the territory of the Omaha along the Missouri river to a very limited extent, but has been extinct there for many years. having been exterminated by the pasturing of cattle. It still grows in the ponds of the sand-hill region. The Omaha called it SINWANINDE. Of plants used for food my informants would often say: "We used to use this, but we don't now. Before the white man came we had to eat whatever we could get of just what grew in the country then." They had the beginnings of agriculture, cultivating many varieties of flint corn, flour corn, dent corn, sweet corn, and popcorn. They also raised beans, squashes, pumpkins, gourds, melons, and a kind of tobacco which was different from the tobacco of commerce to-day. They say it was milder. These crops they cultivated by means of digging sticks and hoes made of the shoulder blade of the buffalo fastened with rawhide to a wooden handle. For the rest of their vegetal food they depended upon wild fruits, seeds, nuts, roots, tubers and fungi. Sugar and syrup were obtained by boiling down the sap of Acer saccharinum, WENUN-SHABATHE-HI, and of |
A. negundo, ZHABATE-ZHON-HI. Indeed the derivation of sugar from the maple tree is another of the contributions of the North American Indian to the benefit of the world. All the tribes dwelling in regions in which grew Acer saccharum, A. saccharinum and A. negundo practiced this art, and European colonists learned it from them. In this connection it should be said that the Omaha word for sugar is ZHON-NI-ZHON, wood, and NI, water, showing that they had a word for sugar, and also indicating the source of the article before contact with the whites. Of the use of fungi, MIKAI HTHI, as food, it may be said that meadow mushrooms were roasted, and certain mushrooms, TENI HAGTHE ZHA EGA, growing on decaying wood, were boiled and seasoned with salt. To our mind, perhaps, the most curious fungal food is Ustilago maydis, WAHABE-HTHI (literally "corn sores"). This was cooked and eaten before the spores matured, "before it turns black", as my informant said. They say it tastes somewhat like corn and is very palatable. The Omaha had no alcoholic drinks previous to the coming of the white men, but they made hot aqueous drinks from the leaves of a number of plants, including Ceanothus americana, TABÉ-HI; Verbena stricta, PEZHE MANKAN; Mentha canadense, PEZHE BTHUN, (PEZHE, herb; BTHON, fragrant); Rubus occidentalis, AGATHUNKA MUNGI-HI; and the young twigs of Crataegus coccinea, or of C. mollis, TASPANHI. Tobacco seems to have been firmly interwoven in the ceremonial life of all the tribes of Indians. In the old time no journey was undertaken by the Omaha without making an offering of tobacco in the following formula. The pipe was extended with the mouthpiece toward the sun with these words: "Ho, Mysterious Power, you who are the Sun. Here is tobacco. I wish to follow your course. Grant that it may be so. Cause me to meet whatever is good for me |
and to pass around whatever is bad for me. In all the world you control everything that moves, including human beings. When you decide for man that his last day on earth is come, it is so. It cannot be delayed. Therefore, 0 Mysterious Power, I ask a favor of you." In the ceremony of the Hako among the Pawnee, corresponding to the Wawan Waan, or Pipes of Fellowship ceremony of the Omaha and the Calumet of some other tribes, tobacco holds a very important ceremonial place. In Part III of the seventh ritual in this ceremonial "The son takes a pinch of tobacco from the bowl of the pipe and passes it along the stem and offers it as the priest directs . . . . . When the pinch of tobacco has been offered to the powers above, it is placed on the earth." In Newport's Discoveries in Virginia (1608) the writer says: "They sacrifice tobacco to the sun, fayre picture or a harmfull thing,--as a swoord or peece also: they strincle some into the water in the morning before they wash." One of the cultivated plants of the Omaha, as also of the other plains tribes, was a species of Nicotiana. The Omaha have now many years since lost the seed of it, but they told me that sometimes on visits to some of the northern tribes they receive presents of it, which they are always glad to get because they prefer its mild quality to the common tobacco of commerce. They all agree on the characteristics of the plant, and they told me that the Arikara still cultivate it. I wrote to the agent of Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota, where the Arikara reside, inquiring about the plant. It was not known to any of the government employes that the Indians there had any such plant, but on inquiring they found it was true, and that it was grown by both Arikara and Grosventres. Mr. G. W. Hoffman, the agent, took the trouble to obtain for me some seed and specimens of the plant from a Grosventre by the name of Long Bear, a man seventy-three |
years of age in 1908, who kindly supplied the material for the purpose of my investigation. By comparison I conclude, that it is Nicotiana quadrivalvis, which is described as being found in Mexico: This agrees with the traditions of the origin of the Arikara, who are an offshoot of the Caddo stock, coming originally from Mexico by way of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and so to North Dakota. The other tribes of the Caddoan stock are Caddo, Hueco--from which Waco, Texas, is named--Wichita, and the Pawnee nation. The Omaha call the Arikara the Sand-hill Pawnee, referring to their relation to the Pawnee and to their former position in the sand-hills of Nebraska. Another substance used for smoking, either alone or mixed with tobacco, was the inner bark of Cornus amomum, NINÍGA-HI-HTÍ ZHIDE. Straight growths of this shrub were cut and after scraping off the outer bark with a dull knife, the inner bark was scraped off which, after drying, was finely comminuted with a quantity of tobacco for smoking. It is commonly but erroneously said that Indians smoke the bark of "red willow". No species of Salix is ever used for smoking. The bark used for this purpose is, as just stated, that of Cornus amomum. When NINIGAHI-HTI- ZHIDE could not be obtained, the leaves of Rhus glabra, MINBDI-HI, were used, being gathered for this purpose after they turned scarlet in autumn and prepared by stripping out the veins. The parenchymatous area of the leaf then made brittle by drying, was broken fine and used like the bark of Cornus. For the medicinal uses of plants it is not necessary to the Indian's mind that there should be any connection between the physical and chemical properties of plants and of the human body. His notions of disease are thoroughly demonistic, and his notion of medicine is of something occult, of mysterious power, and with his animistic ideas of the universe there dwell mystic powers in everything in |
Nature, both plant and animal, and in inanimate objects. Indeed the demonistic notion of disease is not so far distant from our own stage of civilization. Dr. G. A. Stockwell, writing in Popular Science Monthly, 1866 (v. 29, p. 649), says: "The medicine of the Indian is his religion and philosophy, and it comprises everything in Nature, real or imaginary, superstitious or occult .... The savage knows absolutely nothing of the relationships between cause and effect, of the action of the remedies as remedies, of physiological conditions and phenomena, or indeed of any agency not directly born of the occult." Often the suggestion to the Indians of a plant as a remedial agent came from a dream or vision; and yet they have happened upon many remarkably useful therapeutic agents which have been adopted into our own materia medica, as, for example, Echinacea angustifolia, the uses of which the Indians of the plains have known for ages. In Lloyd Brothers' Bulletin for 1907-8 they say: "In the year 1897 we introduced to the medical profession a preparation of Echinacea angustifolia, a western plant native to Nebraska and other sections of the northwest.... The credit for discovering the qualities of the drug belong, however, to Doctor Meyer, who had used it since 1870." Dr. D. T. Powelson, in a paper read at a meeting of the Eclectic Medical Society of Pennsylvania, says: "The introduction of the remedy into professional practice is due conjointly to Dr. H. F. G. Meyer, of Pawnee City, Nebraska, and the late Professor King. Doctor Meyer had been using it for sixteen years previous to reporting it to Doctor King, his claim for it being as an antispasmodic and an antidote for blood poisoning; among his claims for it was also its action as an antidote for the poison of various insects and particularly to that of the rattlesnake." I must say that the origin of most, if not all, so-called "Indian medicines" sold as nostrums by street venders and |
others, lacks the slightest connection with any tribe of Indians; but the name Indian, having so large a place in the imagination and credulity of the common people, is used to foist upon the gullible buyers, to the mercenary advantage of the venders, articles either trivial or useless. Among the Omaha, and this is true also with other tribes, the efficacy of a plant as a remedy was believed to lie in its specific use by the properly authorized persons in connection with the prescribed songs, prayers and other religious ceremonies. A plant useful for medicine was the property of some individual or of one of the secret societies which pertained to the religious political organization of the tribe and could be used only by them or by their authority and upon the payment of a fee, but could not even be offered by the proprietor unless requested by the sufferer or his friends, otherwise there was no virtue or healing power. Of plants used medicinally, one of the greatest importance is Echinacea angustifolia, called INSHTOGARTE-HI in reference to its use for sore eyes; called also MIKA EGAN TASHI, in reference to the use of its spiny cone for a comb by children in play. In medicine the part used was the root, macerated and applied as an antidote for snake bites, stings, and all septic diseases. It was applied to the hands and arms by the "mystery man" as a local anaesthetic to deaden sensation so that they might remove pieces of meat from the boiling pot without flinching--thus manifesting their "supernatural power" and so obtaining influence over the credulous. Two kinds were distinguished as NUGÁ, male, and MIGÁ, female, the apparent differences being the size, NUGÁ being larger, the small size or MIGÁ being considered the efficient medicine. It ought to be remembered that the Indian does not make specific distinctions in plants. He gives names to such as are useful to him in any way and to such as strike his fancy, while he ignores others which may be in the same |
genus. On the other hand, if he makes the same use of two or more species of the same genus, he will call both by the same name; for example, the Omaha use the acorns of Quercus rubra for food. They call this tree BUUDE HL They do not make so much use of the acorns of any other oak, though they may use the timber. So all oaks except Q. rubra, BUUDE HI, are by them indifferently called TASHKA HI. So with Salix, Solidago and other genera, specific differences may not be noted. This may explain any uncertainty of specific indication in my list. The leaves of Amorpha canescens, TDE-HUNTON-HI, were dried, powdered, and used to blow into cuts and open wounds, by their astringent property causing an incrustation. Also the very small ends of twigs were broken into pieces of five or six millimeters length and used as a moxa, being applied by sticking into the skin over a region affected with neuralgia or rheumatism and there burned. The fruits and roots of Rhus glabra were steeped together to make a wash for sores, probably their astringent quality being the agent sought. Mentha canadensis, PEZHE-NUBTHON-HI, was used as a carminative. Acorus calamus (sweet flag), MANKAN-NINIDA, was used to the same effect, and also as a tonic, the rootstock being chewed at will, or triturated and given in doses. For alleviation of colds in the head and for pain in any part, various plants were used in a manner of treatment called ÁSHUDE-KITHE. In this treatment the affected part was enveloped in a skin or blanket under which was placed a vessel of coals, and on the coals were placed some fat and the part of the plant to be used for medication. Thus the warm smoke of the root or other part of the plant was caused to permeate the affected part. For ASHUDE-KITHE the root of Silphium perfoliatum, ZHABEHOHO-HI, was very commonly used. A decoction was made from the leaves of Artemisia gnaphalodes, PEZHE ROTE, for |
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