|
 |  | Monday November 23, 2009 2:52 AM |
 | | Historical Readings about the Spokane Indians | |
Food and Medicinal Plants
The camas root is a lily, the most important vegetable food known to the Indians of the northwest...
The cattail shoots made delicious vegetables raw or cooked. The outer leaves were stripped off and only the tender crisp portions used. When cooked, these have a texture similar to okra and a flavor all its own,
The green immature spikes can be cooked like corn on the cob and tastes like young corn.
Wild peppermint was an Indian tea and was widely used.
Black moss could be gotten any time of the year. It was found in branches of pine fir and tamarack trees. Women and children used long hooked sticks to gather the moss. They steamed it in a pit oven for 12-14 hours then pressed into hard squares and dried. It could be served for three years. It tastes like licorice and it was served as a dessert.
Foam berry, brewberry and huckleberry were picked in June, July, August and late summer and fall. The dried berries were cooked, whipped into a froth resembling whipped cream and was called Indian ice cream.
Wild carrots were used as a seasoning in venison, bear or rabbit soup.
The Indians went to lakes and gathered the eggs of swans, wild geese, wild ducks, brant and tooloo. They always left two eggs in the nests.
Sunflower seeds could be gathered in June and July. When dried, they could last 6 years.
Wild onions could be harvested in April, may and June.
One of the medicinal plants of the Colville area was cascara bark, an Indian laxative made from the bark.
Marijuana was used an anesthetic and for those in pain. Older people smoked it while youngsters chewed the leaves.
Kenghentia leaves were used as a healing agent. This was found in swampy areas and used as a compress medicine.
Enghanchanson, a yellow flower resembling goat weed, was used as a compress for aching teeth.
Leaves of potuse was boiled for a healing agent. This was found in swampy areas and used as a compress medicine.
Balsam had medicinal qualities and the oil was used for blisters. A small amount of concentrated balsam tea was used for cough syrup but used sparingly because it "affected the kidneys".
Aching joints could be relieved by bathing in water seeped with tender branches of balsam.
Drinking chokecherry tea cured dysentery.
Princess Pine and Oregon Grape was used as a tonic severe infections were relieved by compresses from crushed elderberry leaves and the bark of red willow was made into a tea and used for eye infections.
Cattail pollen was sifted and used as an astringent in surgery and childbirth.
There were other uses of wild plants. Cattail leaves were made into mats to insulate their teepees in winter. Tule fluff was used for hundreds of years as the disposable lining for baby's buckskin diapers. The buckskin diaper was continually used as it was seldom soiled, Tule fluff was also used as a baby comforter.
Indians made soap from the leaves of a small vine growing along the creeks. When rubbed on the body it formed a lather that eliminated odor.
The wild parsnip was used as a repellent to keep flies and other insects away from the drying salmon and meat.
Mats of red willow were used as platters to serve fish and other cooked meats.
Cedar roots made watertight bags and corn husks were used to make bags for carrying salmon and lunches.
The prevailing vegetation at and around Kettle Falls is coniferous forest. At lower elevation, around the falls, it consisted of ponderosa pines. More humid slopes and gullies contain Douglas fir and tamarack.
Bushes include hazelnut, chokecherry, service berry, syringa and hawthorn.
Local food plants around the falls include camas, arrowleaf, balsam root and wild hyacinth.
Historically the only big game present may have been deer, mainly white tail, and bear. Smaller animals were beaver, muskrat, porcupines, martins and coyotes.
Food and Medical Plants of the Colville Area
from the book of Steven Doyle
NOTE -
The preceding article is from
a mimeographed pamphlet published by the
Stevens County Historical Society in 1981:
Indians of the Kettle Falls Area, pages 10, 12-13.
Taken from a number of sources,
the material was edited by
Iris A. Pringle in 1981 for the
Stevens County Historical
Society's Oral History Project.
Last Updated
December 21, 2004
|
