Medicinal Monday...Meadow Salsify

Meadow Salsify is a pretty yellow biennial perennial plant that is in the Aster family.  Originally introduced from Europe, it can be found in Connecticut and across much of the United States. As its name implies, it is often found in fields and meadows. Native American communities found several interesting uses for this pretty yellow flowering plant that is in the Aster family.

About Meadow Salsify

This plant has grass-like leaves that are lance-shaped and curved backward at the tip. The leaves are tufted with wooley hairs when young and become hairless as the plant matures. The grows up to three feet tall and has a single hairless erect stalk. The roots, stems and leaves have a milky sap. A solitary yellow-like Daisey flower blooms on the stalk from May to August. The fruit is slender and has a pappus of white feathery bristles. Their feathery pappus, similar to a dandelion plume has allowed these plants to spread across North America by the wind.

Medicinal and Edible Uses

Many Native American communities ate the roots of meadow salsify, raw and cooked. They have a sweet flavor because of their inulin content. In the spring the flowering stem including buds was boiled and served like asparagus. The root was also harvested in the autumn and dried for use in the winter. It is said the roots taste like parsnips when cooked.

The most common use of this plant was to treat liver and gallbladder problems because of its detoxifying effect. Many Native Americans used the milky sap to treat gallstones. They would also wait for the sap to curdle and then chew it to aid in digestion. A syrup was made from the root to treat coughs and colds and a tea was made to stimulate the appetite. An extract was made from boiling the roots and was used to relieve heartburn and liver trouble.  The Navajo Ramah made a cold infusion of this plant and gargled it with the mixture to treat a sore throat. They also used this cold infusion to treat boils. A cold infusion also was given to horses to treat them for internal injuries.

Did You Know...

This plant is also called Jack Go to Bed At Noon, Noonflower, Noontide, Meadow's Goat Beard, and Yellow Goat's Beard.

The origin of the genus name Tragopogan is derived from two words, Tragos meaning goat and pogon meaning beard, that refers to its feathery seedhead.

It is called Jack Go to Bed at Noon because this flower closes by noon on sunny days and forms a slim pod.

Bees and other insects are attracted to the flowers for their nectar and pollination.

Holiday Market Features Indigenous Artists & @ Institute for American Indian Studies November 25 & 26, December 2 & 3, 9 & 10

Once again this year, the Institute for American Indian Studies located at 38 Curtis Road in Washington is hosting a one-of-a-kind holiday shopping experience that celebrates Native American culture. What makes this Holiday Market unique is that it offers both deeply traditional crafts and more contemporary artistic expressions rooted in Native American cultural experience. Artists represented here are some of the finest working in the area today. It is a celebration of Native American diversity and inspiration. 

The Holiday Market located throughout the Institute’s impressive exhibition galleries takes place on Saturday, November 25 and Sunday, November 26, and Saturday, December 2, and Sunday, December 3. The final weekend for the holiday market is on Saturday, December 9, and Sunday, December 10. The market is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. This is one of the few Holiday Markets that showcases only Native American-inspired artwork. 

There are so many gifts to choose from including Native American jewelry, paintings, photography, and decorative gourds, to pottery, rattles, flutes, candles, apparel, and more at a variety of price points. The chance to talk with the artists who have created these one-of-a-kind objects and to learn about the culture that inspired them makes your gift purchase even more meaningful. 

For music lovers, musicians, and collectors, the magical-sounding authentic Woodland Native American flutes handcrafted by Allen Madahbee are truly unique. Madahbee is an Anishinaabe, born on Manitoulin Island, and is a registered Native American in Canada and the United States. In addition to the one-of-a-kind flutes, Madahbee is offering handmade beaded moccasins, woodcarvings, rock sculptures, and original paintings inspired by his ancestors and experiences. 

Another vendor, Kim Lewis from Native Visions will be offering an array of Native American Art from Oklahoma and the Southwest including a fine selection of original paintings and prints, Zuni Fetishes, silver jewelry, pottery by Mel Cornshucker, plus Hopi, and Navajo Kachinas. 

Primitive Technologies, a nationally known small business that has worked with everyone from filmmakers to museum curators to recreate the material culture of prehistoric Native American life. They offer exquisite wood-fired replica pottery, hand-constructed from local river clay, hand-carved flint arrowheads and flint animal necklaces, carved stone art, traditional stone tools, containers made out of natural materials, unusual jewelry, and decorative gourds. 

Jeanne Morningstar Kent, a recognized Abenaki artist and enrolled member of the Nulhegan Band, Coosuk-Abenaki of Vermont will be offering her artfully crafted decorative gourds in all sizes. Kent’s work is housed in many museum collections including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian Studies, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Roger Williams University, Chimney Point Museum, and many more. What makes these gourds unusual is that they utilize traditional Abenaki and Wabanaki designs. 

Brandy Sawyer Emmans of Cherokee descent and owner of bthunder will once again be at the holiday market. Runway model for the Sky Eagle Collection, Native American educator, and advocate for MMIW (Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women), bthunder offers an evocative selection of contemporary Native American-inspired art, jewelry, apparel, candles, and accessories. 

Not to be missed is Eva Newell, an enrolled citizen of the Pokanoket Tribe, Pokanoket Nation in Rhode Island. Eva is a multi-talented artist who offers a range of artwork including beadwork, coil baskets, paintings, and glass mosaic storyteller vases. When she is not vending, Eva is an exhibit artist and craft instructor who has worked with institutions throughout New England."Newell's beadwork and baskets are also extraordinary. Eva will be participating during the December 9th and 10^th market only.

 

The Museum's Gift Shop will be open and brimming with gifts large and small in many price ranges. Here you will find a distinctive collection of Native American jewelry, including wampum jewelry crafted by Annawon Weeden, Mashpee Wampanoag, and Pequot artist Dan Simonds, head of the Wampum Wear Collective. A highlight is the jewelry and gift items from Eighth Generation, owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe in Seattle, which partners with Native artists across the country. The result is some of the most beautiful and authentic items available. 

For foodies, there is a wonderful selection of traditional Native American food products from Sweet Grass Trading Company from the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. And, in the spirit of the Metis culture, Pemmican Patty’s products offer a selection of bisonberry-blended jerky that will connect you with Native foodways and nutrition. The gift shop also has a good selection of books and children’s items. 

Although entrance to the museum and the Holiday Market are free, donations are always appreciated. A tour of the museum for a nominal fee is a fun and insightful experience that compliments this unique shopping experience. 

About The Institute for American Indian Studies 

 Located on 15 acres of woodland acres the Institute For American Indian Studies preserves and educates through archeology, research, exhibitions, and programs. They have a 16th c. Algonquian Village, Award-Winning Wigwam Escape, and a museum with temporary and permanent displays of authentic artifacts from prehistory to the present allows visitors to foster a new understanding of the world and the history and culture of Native Americans. The Institute for American Indian Studies is located at 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT.

Medicinal Monday Arumleaf Arrowhead

One of the most interesting things about the use of plants as medicine by Native Americans is that they have to know when to harvest the plants. At times, the medicinal qualities are inert, undeveloped, or dispersed by being too old. In most cases, external afflictions are treated with lotions or poultices, while internal troubles are almost invariably treated with medicinal tea. Sagittaria arifolia also known as Arumleaf Arrowhead is in the water-plantain family that was used for food as well as medicinally.

About Arumleaf Arrowhead 

This aquatic perennial plant can be found in New England including Connecticut and has spread throughout much of North America including Alaska and most of Canada. This plant doesn't grow in most of the south of North America. Arumleaf Arrowhead can be found growing in slow-moving and stagnant ponds, lakes, and small streams. This attractive plant has arrowhead-shaped leaves that rise from a fleshy tuber.  The whorls of flowers grow on an erect and stout single stem around arrowhead-shaped leaves that float. The flowers bloom from June-September depending on where they are located. The many veined leaves have three white petals and three sepals and are either staminate or pistillate. The lowest node bears female flowers and the upper nodes bear male flowers. The male flowers have yellow stamens and the female flower has a spherical cluster of pistils that develop into a group of tiny fruits. The leaves that are submerged have no true leaf blade. The roots are tipped with starchy tubers and the plant spreads by long creeping above-ground horizontal stems and often forms dense colonies. Arumleaf arrowhead may be found both in calm water and along the muddy shores of rivers and ponds and in marshes, swamps, and wet prairies. It is often found in moderately deep water with the blades floating or barely raised above the water.

Medicinal and Culinary Uses

Many Native American communities prized the tubers as food and would boil, bake, roast, or dry them. The Cheynne would peel the skin off the stems below the flowers and eat them raw. 

The most common use among Native American communities of this plant was digestive. Commonly the roots were steeped for indigestion. Another common steep a tea of the roots and use it as a diuretic. Many communities also made a poultice from the tubers and used the mixture to treat wounds and sores. The Ojibwe eat the corms for indigestion and in addition to boiling them to eat, they also candied the tubers with maple syrup. The Cheyenne and Chippewa used the leaves in a variety of medical mixtures. The Navajo used this plant to treat headaches. The Cheyenne gave dried leaves to horses to treat urinary troubles and sore mouths. 

Did You Know..

The prefix of the genus name, sagitta means arrow.

Arumleaf arrowhead is sometimes known as wapato, or occasionally as floating arrowhead. 

It is listed as endangered in Connecticut and New Jersey and threatened in New Hampshire and Ohio.

The tubers are a favorite of muskrats and beavers that store them in large caches.

Arum leaf arrowhead was one of the staple foods that kept the Lewis and Clark expedition fed in the winter of 1805.

The difference between Sagittaria latifolia and Sagittaria arifolia is that Sagittaria latifolia doesn't have leaves that float.

The poisonous arrow arum looks similar to the arum leaved arrowhead, except for the veins on the leaves. 

Medicinal Monday - American Bittersweet

When most of us think about bittersweet, we think of the invasive Oriental Bittersweet that spreads like wildfire, whose vines climb up trees strangling them, and has beautiful red berries that stay red throughout the drab winter months. What many of us don't realize is that in New England you can also find American Bittersweet, a shrub in the same genus as Oriental Bittersweet. In a nutshell, the difference between American and Oriental bittersweet is that Oriental bittersweet has fruit and flowers located in the leaf joints along the stem, and American bittersweet only flowers at the end of the branches in clusters. 

About American Bittersweet

Celastrus scandens, also known as American bittersweet is native to central and eastern North America. This sturdy perennial climbing vine, which can grow up to 30 feet twines its way around trees and shrubs for support. New stems are green and become grey-brown and woody with age. The bark of the vine is lightly textured with scattered grayish pores, and older stems have flaky bark. The oblong leaves are finely serrated around the edges, hairless, and taper to a sharply pointed tip. Like their invasive cousin, Oriental bittersweet, the leaves turn a bright yellow in the fall. 

Tiny scentless white flowers usually bloom in May and June at the tips of the branches. They have 5 petals and 5 green sepals with male and female flowers on separate plants. Male flowers have five stamens with yellow tips. Female flowers have five non-functioning stamens surrounding a lobed stigma at the top. The fruit is initially green, then yellow, and finally turns red in late summer. The fruit splits open in the fall to reveal a bright red fruit inside that can live through the winter. It grows in partly shady areas around woodland edges, in fields and forests, on prairies, along rocky bluffs, and in thickets. American bittersweet spreads both by seeds and root suckers that tend to form large colonies in the wild. 

Medicinal Uses

The roots of American bittersweet were used by Native Americans to induce vomiting and to treat symptoms of tuberculosis. This sturdy shrub was also used in many other ways. The Cherokee made a strong compound infusion of the roots and red raspberry leaves to help ease the pain of childbirth. They would chew the roots to treat coughs and would boil the roots to treat cancer. An infusion of the bark was taken to settle stomach aches and to treat other gastrointestinal problems. 

The Chippewa and Delaware boiled the roots and used it as an ointment to treat sores, and a decoction of the stalk was applied to skin problems. The Delaware also made an infusion of the roots and used it to treat colds and coughs and to clear up liver spots. The Iroquois made an infusion of the leaves and stems and gave this mixture to women to help regulate menstruation and to soothe the soreness from pregnancy. They also mixed an infusion of the root bark with wine and drank it to cure anemia, and an infusion of the leaves and stems was used as a diuretic. Children were given a decoction of the roots which was used to relieve the pain of teething. The Meskwaki made a compound from the root and gave it to women to help relieve the pain of labor. The Ojibwa used the berries to treat stomach trouble.

Culinary Uses

The inner bark was cooked in times when food was scarce. The Ojibwa made a  thick soup when other food was not obtainable in the winter. The Ojibwe name of bittersweet is manidobima kwit which means spirit twisted and refers to the twisted intestines of Winabojo, their cultural hero. The Potawatomi and Menominee, among other tribes, also cooked and ate the inner bark when food was scarce. 

Did You Know...

Other common names for American bittersweet are false bittersweet, climbing orange root, fever twig, staff vine, and Jacob's ladder.

All parts of American bittersweet are poisonous, however, some songbirds, ruffed grouse, pheasant, fox, and squirrels eat the fruit of this shrub.

It was given the name bittersweet by colonists in the 18th century because they thought the fruit of this plant looked like the fruit of common nightshade.

Oriental and American bittersweet have been known to hybridize with their offspring being more aggressive and the berries not as hardy.

The berry produced by bittersweet is technically called an aril. The berry usually contains two seeds that are often widely distributed by birds that feed on the berries.

Native Americans also used American bittersweet in decorations, and even today it is commonly used in dry flower arrangements and for winter decor. 

Tellabration! A Celebration of Oral Tradition November 18 in Washington Connecticut

Storytelling is how we communicate. We share experiences and knowledge through stories. Tellabration! was started by internationally acclaimed storyteller J.G. "Paw Paw” Pinkerton in Connecticut in 1988 as a means of building community through storytelling. The following year it expanded nationwide under the umbrella of the Storytelling Network, and by 1998, there was Tellabration! events in cities and towns around the world. 

Guests are invited to join the Institute for American Indian Studies on Saturday, November 18 at 1 p.m. for a Tellabration! at the Washington Montessori School on 240 Litchfield Road in Washington, Connecticut. Guests will enjoy an amazing array of stories that are personal, traditional, humorous, historical, poetic, spiritual, and instructional. 

Darlene Kascak (Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, and Education Director at IAIS) will make history come alive from the oral traditions of her indigenous ancestors that have been passed down and preserved from one generation to the next. Motoko, whose repertoire includes Asian folktales, Rakugo and Zen tales, and oral memoirs from her childhood in Osaka, Japan, will enchant audiences of every age. Drawing from her own travels, internationally known storyteller Valerie Tutson will bring to life an assortment of myths, folktales, and historical accounts from the African continent and African Diaspora. 

After the storytellers have concluded their performances, there will be an open mic opportunity for up-and-coming storytellers to share their stories with a live audience. 

One of the many important takeaways from this event is that the audience will learn that the art of storytelling is not just reading from a book. It’s a performance that captures the essence of what a book or folktale wants to convey and brings people together. Storytelling is one of the most important ways in which we come to understand our world. 

 Participants are asked to pre-register for this event by visiting https://iaismuseum.charityproud.org/EventRegistration/Index/13983 The price of participation is $15 for the general public and $10 for members of the Institute. This program is supported by a grant from the Connecticut Humanities in partnership with the CT Storytelling Center. 

 About The Institute for American Indian Studies 

 Located on 15 acres of woodland, the Institute For American Indian Studies preserves and educates through archeology, research, exhibitions, and programs. They have a 16th c. Algonquian Village, Award-Winning Wigwam Escape, and a museum with temporary and permanent displays of authentic artifacts from prehistory to the present that allows visitors to foster a new understanding of the world and the history and culture of Native Americans. The Institute for American Indian Studies is located at 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT. 

Medicinal Monday...Wake-Robin

Great White Trillium is one of the most showy spring flowers with large white blossoms up to three inches long. The plant is native to eastern North America and parts of Canada and was used medicinally by many Native American communities. It is Ontario's official flower and is often referred to as the birth root because of its medicinal qualities.

About Great White Trillium

Most trilliums are native to the woodlands of North America where they cluster together making a beautiful understory in the forest. In the spring the cup-shaped blossoms are bright white and change to a soft pink and are surrounded by solid green leaves with deep veins that radiate from the base of the leaf. Leaves, petals, and sepals all come in groups of three. The petals have wavy edges and in the center have several yellow stamens. Each plant has a single flower at the end of its stalk. Flowers give way to berry-like capsules. In the summer, this plant goes dormant along with other shade-loving perennials, only to reappear the following spring. The Great White Trillium is a long-lived but slowly maturing perennial. Its seeds are usually spread by ants, which take their fruit underground to eat, leaving the seed behind.

Medicinal & Culinary Uses

One of the most common uses of this plant among many Native American tribes was to use the root to facilitate childbirth. Tea made from the roots was given to mothers after childbirth to stop bleeding. It was considered to be a sacred female herb and only spoken of to the medicine woman.  The Chippewa made a decoction of the roots and applied the mixture to aching joints and dropped it in sore ears. The Menominee prescribed the root for menstrual cramps. The Menominee also made a poultice of the root and applied it to eye swellings and took it as a diuretic. The young leaves were cooked and eaten by some Native Americans and are said to taste like sunflower seeds.

Did You Know...

The seed of the Great White Trillium has an appendage called an elaiosome that is very sweet and attracts ants, who take the seed back to their nest, eat the flesh, and discard the seed. 

Seeds that are dispersed by ants are called myrmecochory.

White-tailed deer eat the foliage and flowers of the white trillium.

The flower's common name is Wake-Robin, which was the title of American naturalist and essayist John Burrough's first essay collection, Wake-Robin.

The Great White Trillium is an official symbol of Ontario and the state wildflower of Ohio.