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<\/a>A Cedar Longhouse in Ketchikan, Alaska<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0People rely on plants for many things.\u00a0 We use them for food, building materials, medicine, clothing, dye, cosmetics, in rituals, and more.\u00a0 Ethnobotany is a branch of anthropology that studies the use of plants by native peoples. <\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, historically, western civilization has horribly mistreated many herbalists, usually women, who used their knowledge to benefit their community.\u00a0 Due to their position of respect and power, they were often looked upon with suspicion by church leaders and branded as witches. Conquering armies and colonists also had little respect for the knowledge of \u201cprimitive\u201d native peoples.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 Erna Gunther\u2019s \u201cEthnobotany of Western Washington\u201d was the first and is still an often used resource on the use of plants by Pacific Northwest natives.\u00a0 In the 1930\u2019s, she interviewed both women and men. Women knew the food and medicinal plants; men knew the materials in nets, fishing gear, and woodworking.\u00a0 Another good resource today is the University of Michigan<\/span><\/span> database of Native American Ethnobotany.<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 The northwest could be called the \u201cberry capital of the world,\u201d due to the preponderance of berry bushes.\u00a0 Native peoples ate berries fresh, dried like raisins, cooked, mashed and dried into cakes, or preserved in fats such as oolichan grease extracted from a small fish. The most important berries for eating were Salmonberry, Salal, huckleberries, Thimbleberry, Oregon Grape,<\/a> Serviceberry, elderberries, and strawberries. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Camas Flowers<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0\u00a0 Bulbs and roots were also important foods; the most important was camas.\u00a0 Except for Salmon, no article of food was more widely traded.\u00a0 Bulbs were dug in the late spring and cooked in a pit, sometimes dried after cooking and cached in baskets in trees.\u00a0 Undercooked camas causes severe gas & flatulence, as members of the Lewis & Clark party painfully discovered; cooking breaks down the complex sugar, inulin, to fructose. The roots of Wapato was also cooked, dried, and eaten with fish. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 Western Hazelnuts were readily available if a person could beat the squirrels to them. Native people that lived near Oregon White Oaks would soak acorns to leach out the tannins or they would bury them in baskets over the winter and eat them in the spring.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A “Culturally-modified” Cedar along the trail to Shi Shi Beach on the Makah Indian Reservation<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0 The most important tree for native people was the Western Red Cedar<\/a>, also known as Giant Arborvitae or \u201ctree of life.\u201d The wood was used for building long houses, totem poles, canoes, cradles, etc. The bark was made into clothing, mats, diapers, etc.\u00a0 Limbs were twisted into rope.\u00a0 Baskets were made from the roots. Alaska Yellow Cedar <\/a>was used similarly by natives in BC and Alaska. Douglas Fir<\/a>, Western Hemlock<\/a> and alder<\/a> were also used for making tools and for firewood. Yew<\/a> wood, prized for its strength and elasticity, was used to make tools and weapons, particularly bows. Oceanspray, known as \u201cIronwood\u201d in English, was used for tools and utensils; it was made harder by heating it over a fire and polishing it with horsetail stems.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A canoe bailer & berry-picking basket from Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge’s Cathlapotle Plankhouse Interpretive Display<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many plants were used in basketry and for making mats and rope including Vine Maple, willows<\/a>, Red-twig Dogwood, Trumpet Honeysuckle, Beargrass, Slough Sedge, Cattails, and Tule or Hard-stemmed Bulrush.\u00a0 Large leaves such as Thimbleberry, Big-leaf Maple<\/a>, and Sword Ferns were used as containers or to line cooking pits or drying trays.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>