Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe Indians

by Huron H. Smith

The writer found but few who remembered the battle, for while there were over a hundred men able to bear arms in 1898, the Ojibwe could not successfully fight the influenza attack of 1919 and the present population consists of only fourteen persons: John Peper, wife, daughter and mother; White Cloud, shown in [plate 59], fig. 2, wife and son; Moîckaˈwus and wife; John Smith, Frank Marshall, wife and two children. John Peper’s mother was said to be 106 years old and looked the part, as shown in [plate 59], fig. 1. John, her youngest boy was past 70 years of age. Another very old resident, John Smith, had died the year before the writer arrived. His age was said to be 138 years. His recollections are said to have included George Washington as President of the United States.

All of our Ojibwe residents in Wisconsin and those in Michigan and Minnesota were forest Indians and, as such, great hunters, although they cultivated maize in a small way. They made very superior birch bark canoes and were at home on the many lakes of the northland, subsisting largely on fish and game. While at the present time, they dress themselves to satisfy the pre-conceived ideas of tourists, in the early days, their headdress consisted of otter skin caps, often embellished with eagle feathers, one for each enemy slain in battle and consequently for each scalp secured. The great feathered bonnet was not of their culture, but has been more recently borrowed from the Plains Indians. They never used the tepee of the Plains Indians, such as is shown in [plate 46], fig. 2, and in [plate 58], fig. 2, but built a wigwam. The wigwam was easily constructed in a half-day’s time. Poles were thrust into the ground in a circle of from twelve to twenty feet, their tips bent and securely tied in the center with basswood bark cord to form a hemisphere, about eight feet in height at the center. The whole was then covered with bark of balsam, or woven cat-tail mats, such as the one shown in [plate 46], fig. 2, and roofed with birch bark. An entrance and smoke hole were left and mats thrown upon the ground. It was much warmer than a tepee and better adapted to the heavy snow fall of the north, and to low temperatures. All of their storage houses and their smaller sweat lodges were similarly made. Their medicine lodges followed the same construction though they were much longer: being eighty, a hundred and even a hundred and fifty feet in length.

We had occasion to see the medicine lodge in use several times during our stay at Lac du Flambeau. This lodge was in the old Flambeau village, just at the edge of the woods. It was a huge affair, about one hundred and fifty feet long, with a stout framework of saplings joined together and arched over at a height of eight feet. The framework was rigidly held together with other horizontal saplings secured by basswood bark cord at every junction of poles. It stood as a framework for several years. During use, the sides of this framework are covered with cat-tail mats and the top with sewed birch bark, as shown in figure 21, of the Museum’s 1923 Yearbook. By using a bone needle and nettle string the cat-tail mats are sewed together with an invisible stitch, that makes a windproof cover.

Down the center of the lodge is a long ellipse where countless dance steps have bared the earth of this otherwise grassy plot. The entrance of the lodge faces the east, and there is an exit to the west. A fire is usually burning just inside the eastern entrance, the smoke ascending through a smoke hole left in the roof. The medicine men are gathered to the left of the fire on the north while the patient is usually seated to the right of the fire on the south. The medicine drum in use during a treatment for healing is smaller than the dream dance drum, usually seen by tourists, and of a different shape. It is about eight inches in diameter and sixteen inches high. The buckskin stretched over the end is moistened from time to time by reversing the drum which contains water, and rubbing the skin to permit it to take up the liquid. The tone and volume are greatly enhanced by this procedure.

The medicine lodge members sit in groups around the lodge starting at the north side, and proceeding down to the west and back along the south side toward the east again. Every song and march around the lodge is repeated four times, this being their sacred number. The time needed in effecting a cure is varied but the writer has seen a woman carried in on a litter, recover in three hours time and take part in the dancing.

The Indian Service in the past has wished to discourage treatment by medicine men and on larger reservations has supplied a resident physician. It is a constant competition between the two, for naturally a white physician cannot cure every case any more than a medicine man can, and when the medicine man apparently effects cures after the physician has given up or appeared to produce no improvement, the credulous patients are going to continue to believe in the medicine men. Christianity has had but little effect upon the Ojibwe so far as the writer has been able to observe, largely because of the reputation of the medicine men among them.

According to the late Dr. William Jones, the ethnologist mentioned in “Ethnobotany of the Meskwaki Indians”, Part 2 of this volume, the Pillager Band of Bear Island occasionally practiced cannibalism ceremonially, and even as late as 1902 ate human flesh on the Rainy River during a famine. He cites the fact in 1905 that polygamy was once common and even still occurred among wandering bands.

Many visitors to the northland think of the country in terms of sand, and consider it unfit for use agriculturally. While sandy soil is common, it is also easy to find very good productive soil and in some cases even clay. The Indian settlements and homesteads were never extensive and four or five acres of land seem to suffice them for growing hay and garden crops. The agency Indian farmer maintains demonstration garden plots, such as the one shown in [plate 46], fig. 1, and also more extensive farms, and constantly advises with those who are trying to farm. The Indian women even grow some cultivated flowers. At Lac du Flambeau, the Ojibwe take great pride in their annual Indian fair and display farm animals, horticultural products, and native arts and crafts for premiums. It is a pity that more do not follow agriculture because they have sufficient farming land and have also good examples to follow. Most of them like the quick returns made in selling Indian art work, or made acting as guides for fishing and hunting parties. The easy money is too soon spent and they suffer considerably before the winter is over.

The native flora is about the same at both Lac du Flambeau and Leech Lake, and the species are by no means as varied as on the Menomonie Reservation. They make full use of everything that occurs with them except the adventive or introduced plants. They recognize regular types of soil as sources of their medicinal plants. Sandy meadows, sandy wastes, lakes, still ponds, swamps, upland swamps, rocky openings in the forest, evergreen forests, and hardwood forests all are searched for distinctive plants. The greatest number of species of native plants are found in the composite family and we find the Ojibwe making more use of these than any other tribe. The heath family contributes many species and is important to them. Grasses and sedges, while numerous in species are not so well known to them, although here again they use more species than the neighboring tribes.