
- 352 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Uses of Plants by the Hidatsas of the Northern Plains
About this book
In 1916 anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson worked closely with Buffalobird-woman, a highly respected Hidatsaborn in 1839 on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota, for a study of the Hidatsas' uses of local plants. What resulted was a treasure trove of ethnobotanical information that was buried for more than seventy-five years in Wilson's archives, now held jointly by the Minnesota Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Wilson recorded Buffalobird-woman's insightful and vivid descriptions of how the nineteenth-century Hidatsa people had gathered, prepared, and used the plants and wood in their local environment for food, medicine, smoking, fiber, fuel, dye, toys, rituals, and construction.
From courtship rituals that took place while gathering Juneberries, to descriptions of how the women kept young boys from stealing wild plums as they prepared them for use, to recipes for preparing and cooking local plants, Uses of Plants by the Hidatsas of the Northern Plains provides valuable details of Hidatsa daily life during the nineteenth century.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Editorâs Note
- 1. Plants That Are Eaten
- Domesticated plants
- Sunflowers
- Corn-smut
- Prairie turnips
- Jerusalem artichokes
- Hogpeanut
- Chokecherries
- Buffaloberries
- Gooseberries
- Black currants
- Wild grapes
- 2. Plants That Can Be Eaten
- Hawthorns
- Wild white onions
- Ball cactus
- 3. Plants That Are Sweet
- Juneberries
- White juneberries
- Wild plums
- Strawberries
- Roses
- Red raspberries
- Biscuitroot
- Nannyberries
- Purple prairie clover
- 4. Plants That Are Good to Chew
- Sticky gum
- Pine pitch
- 5. Plants That Smell Good
- Purple meadow-rue
- Blue giant hyssop
- Sweetgrass
- Wild bergamot
- Pine needles
- Perfumes used in beds
- Beaver musk
- 6. Plants That Have Medicinal Uses
- Big medicine
- White and red baneberry
- Gumweed
- Purple coneflower
- âMedicine in the woodsâ
- Poison ivy
- Unknown grass
- Peppermint
- 7. Plants Used for Fiber
- Dogbane
- Upright sedge
- Grasswork ornaments on leggings
- 8. Plants Used for Smoking
- Tobacco 9a
- Tobacco 9b
- Red-osier dogwood
- Bearberry
- Bearberry or kinnikinnick
- 9. Plants Used for Dye and Coloring
- Yellow owlâs-clover
- Water smartweed
- Dye plantsâunidentified
- 10. Plants Used for Toys
- Umakixeke, or game of throwing sticks
- Popguns
- A toy horse
- Reed whistle
- 11. Plants Used for Utilitarian Purposes
- Cordgrass
- Buckbrush
- Cattails
- Boxelder
- Buffalograss
- Big bluestem
- Common rush
- Scouringrush horsetail
- Puffball
- Snakewood
- Goldenrod
- Prairie grasses as fodder
- 12. Plants Used for Rituals or with Ritual Significance
- The three kinds of sage
- Pasture sage 1
- Pasture sage 2
- Common sagewort
- Black sage
- Fringed sage
- Juniper (Cedar)
- Creeping juniper
- Prairie sandreed
- Bittersweet
- 13. Sources of Wood
- Wood as a resource
- Cottonwood
- Ash
- Peachleaf willow
- Sandbar willow
- Heart-leaved willow
- Quaking aspen
- American elm
- Water birch
- Boxelder
- 14. Uses of Wood
- Gathering firewood
- Digging-sticks
- Mortar and pestle
- Making a bullboat frame
- Making a wooden bowl
- Rakes (and the bison scapula hoe)
- Paddle for working clay pots (cottonwood bark)
- 15. Arrows
- Significance and utility
- Making arrows
- Types of arrows
- Bows
- Arrows for boys
- Mock battle with grass arrows
- 16. Earthlodges
- Building an earthlodge
- On Earthlodges (The observations of Hairy Coat and Not A Woman)
- Winter lodges and twin lodges
- The peaked or tipi-shaped hunting lodge
- The use of sod as an earthlodge covering
- Dismantling an old earthlodge
- Like-a-Fishhook Village and environs
- 17. Miscellaneous Material
- Basket making
- Native drinks of the Hidatsas
- How our meals were served
- Nettles
- Forest fire
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Frederick N. Wilsonâs Comments
- Bibliography
- About the Authors