Leigh Alon, Trish Brandt,
Bryan Graybill, and Bailey Zweifel
Integrative Research Seminar
Maddie McLeester
June 5, 2014
Economic Plant Usage
I. Introduction
Before European settlement, Native Americans looked at plants much differently than we
see them today. We define economic plants in this paper as plants that people use for a variety
of purposes, including food, medicine, ceremony, charms, and domestic materials. We explored
plants used for these reasons at Little Calumet River Prairie and Wetlands, Marquette Park, and
Marquette Pannes. We used the Northwest Indiana Restoration Monitoring Inventory, NIRMI,
to create a list of plants at each of the three different sites. Then, of these plants, which totaled
544, we classified them as either economic or non-economic, according to whether they were
used by Native American tribes whose territories were relatively nearby the Calumet region,
which today may be classified as the metropolitan area surrounding Lake Calumet and the
Calumet River system. We also included some groups more prominent in neighboring areas,
such as the Winnebago and Ojibwa in the north and the Iroquois to the east. A caveat is that there
was more data available on some groups than others. Yarnell focuses on the Ojibwa, while
Moerman includes more detailed information regarding the Iroquois. At all sites combined, we
found a total of 264 economic plants, which are listed in the spreadsheet at the end of this paper,
and described in terms of their various usages.
Our source material provides only a limited view of the uses of these plants and data on
plant uses is heavily skewed towards certain groups based on the source. Daniel Moerman’s
ethnobotanical dictionaries are extremely comprehensive but very slanted towards the Iroquois.
1
Anthropologist R.A. Yarnell’s paper focuses much more on the Ojibwa. Other sources that
describe historical landscapes and practices were less useful than these sources since the NIRMI
sites have presumably changed a lot in the last several centuries, that is, the plants here today are
probably not the plants that were here pre-European settlers. Primary sources like Deliette’s
Memoir of De Gannes concerning the Illinois country have data about plant usage in the region
but as foreigners who have never encountered many of these plants, do not offer particularly
useful information for cross-referencing with the NIRMI species lists. However, we hope to
achieve a potential summary of how Native Americans may have used these plants historically,
even though the plant composition is likely very different, and we only have limited data. It is
impossible to accurately and comprehensively reconstruct how the specific groups who lived in
the Calumet used plants but we can extrapolate from the data that we can find to make some
generalizations about how they may have lived.
At each of the sites, we classified plants based on if they were economic or noneconomic. As is depicted in the figure below, 50% of the plants at Little Calumet River Prairie
and Wetlands were economic and 50% of the plants are non-economic.
2
At Marquette Park, the percentage of economic plants was also 50% and the percentage
of non-economic plants was 50%.
At Marquette Pannes, the percentage of economic plants was less than that of the noneconomic plants; only 43% of the plants were economic.
As is evident from the graphs, plants that were historically used by Native Americans for
various economic usages make-up large percentages of plants at the three sites. It is possible that
the Native Americans used the plants at these sites for a variety of usages. These usages,
specifically for food, medicine, ceremony, charms, and domestic materials will be detailed in the
3
following sections. In total, we found 94 plants used as food, 211 plants used for medicinal
reasons, 62 plants used in ceremony and as charms, and 25 plants used as domestic materials.
Many plants had multiple uses, for example, some plants were used as both food and medicine.
In other cases, different Native American groups used the plants for different purposes, leading
to further overlap in the categories. The breakdown of uses per site is below:
Site
Food Medicine
Charms and
Domestic
Ceremony
Material
Total
Total
Economic
LCPR&W
37
100
28
9
238
119
M. Park
40
72
23
9
184
92
M. Pannes
17
39
11
7
122
53
II. Food Plants
Based on the sources we looked at, the Native Americans in the Midwest (including the
Potawatomi, Meskwaki, Menominee and more) ate a highly developed and varied diet based on
what was seasonally available and what they had preserved. Their diets included hunted foods,
cultivated plants, foraged plants, and eventually domesticated animals. Plant-based foods
included grains, masts, vegetables, herbs, seasonings, sugars, roots, fruits, berries, and more.
Across the three sites, there were a total of 94 entries of food plants out of 264 economic
plants, making up 35.6%. Per each site, the following graphs show how many of the plants are
food plants, relative to the total economic plants or the total plants per site. Out of the number of
economic plants, Marquette Park has the highest percentage of food plants with 44%, followed
4
by Marquette Pannes and Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands. Out of the total plants per
site, Marquette Park again had the highest percentage of food plants with 21.7%, followed by
Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands and Marquette Pannes.
Some plants were harvested for their below-ground components, including Allium
cernuum whose bulbs were eaten in the spring by the Ojibwa and the Menominee (Yarnell) and
was spotted at Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetland as per the NIRMI data. Equisetum
arvense’s tuber was possibly eaten by the Ojibwa (Yarnell 1964) and can be found in Marquette
Park and Marquette Pannes. Oenothera biennis was found at all three sites and its roots were
harvested in fall and early spring for roasting.
Many of the food plants found in the NIRMI sites produce fruit or berries of one kind or
another. These plants were used by almost every group in the region and were eaten raw, cooked,
preserved, dried and reconstituted in the winter. Some were made into drinks and others were
used to flavor other foods. Some examples include hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), wild lily-ofthe-valley (Maianthemum canadense), sand cherry (Prunus pumila), wild black cherry (Prunus
serotina), choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), common blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis), black
raspberry (Rubus occidentalis), riverbank grape (Vitis riparia), wild strawberry (Fragaria
virginiana), and more.
5
Some of the most important and widely used food plants were sugar maple (Acer
saccharum), white oak (Quercus alba), and milkweeds. The sap of the sugar maple, tapped in
early spring, was an extremely valuable source of sugar and was used for lots of cooking, vinegar
making, intoxicant making, and more by the Potawatomi, Menominee, Meskwaki, Ojibwa, and
Iroquois. The bark was also used by the Iroquois to make flour for bread and cakes. These trees
and other sap trees were found in Marquette Park for the most part. This suggests that perhaps
the character of the woodland areas of Marquette Park had been influenced by Native American
inhabitants who may have selected for sap-producing trees. However, it is highly likely that the
tree composition of these sites has changed considerably in the last several centuries, so it would
be impossible to definitively say that this is the case beyond speculation.
Acorns were a staple crop for a number of midwestern Native American groups who
processed them into flour and other starchy products. White oak was favored in particular since
its acorns have fewer tannins that have to be leached out before they can be eaten (Abrams
2008). There is considerable evidence that these trees and other mast/fruit producing trees were
managed intensively by Native Americans and were very important food crops (Abrams 2008).
White (Q. alba), red (Q. rubra), and black (Q. velutina) oaks are present in Marquette Park and
nearby in the Marquette Pannes, furthering the inclination that these areas may have been
managed for their tree crops.
Milkweed, a common sight in wet ecosystems, was readily available and used by the
Iroquois, Meskwaki, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Winnebago. Often considered
poisonous, this plant is in fact edible. When young, shoots, flowers, buds, immature fruits were
cooked or dried and added to a number of foods such as soups, meat, or cornmeal mush
6
(Moerman 2009). This plant is very common and was found in Marquette Park and Little
Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands.
In terms of what would be considered a more ‘formal’ agricultural system, Native
Americans used the land available to them to cultivate many economic plants, shaping the land
itself in practices that are not unlike contemporary agricultural ones. Great, elevated, ridged
fields with drainage ditches have been documented across the Midwest, especially in locations
where the Potawatomi and Ojibwa lived in what is modern day Wisconsin. These fields took up
a massive amount of land, individual fields ranging anywhere from 8 ha to 120 ha. Native
Americans would have filled the fields completely with corn, beans, squash, and other food
plants. Because these plants were domesticated, they no longer grow at the sites surveyed in our
study since there is no one actively growing them.
In addition to traditional fields, raised ridged wetland fields in various regions of Illinois
suggest that at one point wetlands were used as part of intensive agriculture systems. There is
compelling evidence to suggest that the use of raised fields in wetlands provided serious
advantages over traditional fields. These advantages are yielded from various factors within the
wetland ecosystem that when applied to Native American domestic agriculture, allowed for an
innovative and productive agriculture system. The cooler temperature of wetland soil in
comparison to the temperature of dry soil allowed Native Americans to extend the growing
season of their crops, allowing for a semi-cyclical continuous agricultural practice. In addition,
the soil composition of wetlands differs greatly from regular soil in that it is coarser and sandier,
a trait that is preferable in growing local domesticated plants. All ridged fields in the region were
cultivated carefully and precisely, with long parallel rows stretching out to provide an even
growing space in which to plant (Doolittle 2000).
7
III. Medicinal Plants
Plants played a large role in the medicinal practices of the Native Americans of the
Calumet region, as reflected by our findings at the three NIRMI sites studied. A full 42% of all
the plants at Little Calumet River Prairie and Wetlands were used for medical purposes. 39.10%
of plants were medicinal at Marquette Park, and 32% at Marquette Pannes. Medicinal plants
also made up the vast majority of economic plants at each of the sites: 84% at Little Calumet,
78.30% at Marquette Park, and 73.60% at Marquette Pannes. Therefore, Little Calumet had the
highest percentage of medicinal plants, both when considering the total plant population and the
economic plant population, while Marquette Pannes had the lowest. There was also the largest
absolute number of medicinal plants at Little Calumet, at 100 plants, and the lowest at Marquette
Pannes, at 39, with Marquette Park in the middle with 72 (refer to table in introduction).
Medicines were found that were used by the Iroquois, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Meskwaki,
Winnebago, and Menominee, based on the sources we utilized. It can be reasonably assumed that
other groups were using these plants for medicinal purposes and that we do not have sufficient
sources to explore their medical practices.
8
The plants studied were found to have a wide variety of uses and many of their uses, as
well as the manner in which they were applied, reflected the linkage between spirituality and
medicine for the Native American groups studied. The following is a description of some healing
practices among the Illinois as described in the Memoir of De Gannes. The highly venerated
elderly members of the tribe who treated the sick were believed to have a special connection to
spirits which controlled the health of individuals (Deliette). Indeed, it was these medicine men
who would give patients the charms described in the next section. Reflective of the links between
religion and medicine, treatments were implemented through traditional ceremonial customs.
When a family member was sick, it was customary for the family to hang up an item such as a
kettle, gun, or blanket, depending on the severity of the disease and their means, which served as
payment to the medicine man (Deliette). The first step in the healing ceremony involved the
medicine man shaking his chichicoya, a gourd filled with glass pearls (Deliette). Chanting that
his manitou, that is the spirit animal particular to this healer, has revealed the remedy, he then
applies the medicine he deems appropriate. This process is repeated twice a day, and should the
patient get better, the healer then sings loudly in praise of his manitou, chanting that his manitou
9
is “the true manitou” (Deliette). Once the patient recovers, the family passes their hands over the
medicine man in gratitude and he collects his payment (Deliette).
Deliette describes an additional ceremony which demonstrates the integration between
spirituality and medicine. Twice a year, the medicine people gathered in the center of the village
with their chichicoyas, and chant about the virtues of their particular manitous. As they are
chanting , several men fall before them, initiating a ceremony in which the medicine men revive
them with their medicines, ending with a medicine man holding up a rattlesnake in victory,
claiming that it was responsible for the illness, leading the people to chant in praise of medicine
(Deliette). There are also additional specific ceremonies for specific kinds of illnesses. For
example for wounds near the chest and ribcage, water diluted with drugs would be poured in, and
then the patient would exhale, expelling the mixture as well as clotted blood. Next after putting
the herbs in his mouth, the medicine man would sprinkle them onto the wound and close it up
(Deliette). One such plant, Circaea Lutiteana ssp. canadensis, found at Marquette Park, was used
by the Iroquois to “wash wounds” (Moerman).
Deliette also describes ceremonies regarding menstruation that he observed. He writes
that the first time a girl menstruates she is secluded to a cabin far from the village for the
duration of her period, and every time after that women reside in specified cabins within the
village, coming in contact only with other menstruating women the entire time (Deliette). They
are also advised not to eat or drink during this period (Deliette). Indeed, there were a large
number of medicinal plants dedicated to women’s health and menstruation at the three sites. For
example, Celtis occidentalis found at Little Calumet and Marquette Park was used by the
Iroquois against “suppressed menses” and Asclepias syriaca, found at all three sites, was used by
the Ojibwa for a variety of unspecified “female ailments” (Moerman).
10
Although extensive ceremonies and rituals did not exist for every disease treatment or
were not uncovered in our research, historical Calumet Native Americans utilized the wide
variety of plants around them to treat an enormous number of ailments through diverse
processes. An ailment that was addressed by a wide variety of plants was diarrhea, with specific
herbs addressing specific types. For example, Agalinis purpuria, found at Marquette Pannes, was
used by the Iroquois for diarrhea in children, while Ambrosia artemisiiflora, found at Little
Calumet and Marquette Park, was used by the Iroquois for diarrhea with bleeding (Moerman).
Additionally, a common treatment was “blood purification” and plants such as Acer rubrum at
Marquette Pannes, were used by the Iroquois to “purify blood,” (Moerman). The Meskwaki in
particular, also had some treatments for various psychological ailments. For example, Ambrosia
trifida (found in Little Calumet) was a root chewed to “drive away fear at night” and Anemone
cylindria (found in Marquette Pannes) was a treatment for “crazy people” (Moerman).
Additionally, plants treating eye ailments were very common, such as Acer rubrum, mentioned
previously, being used by the Iroquois to “purify the eyes” (Moerman). General emetics were
also widespread, such as Asclepias incarnata , found at all three sites, and used by the Meskwaki
as an emetic (Moerman). There were also treatments for various skin conditions, such as Acer
Saccharum found at Marquette Park and used by the Iroquois to relieve itch (Moerman).
Notably, there were a number of plants which served as cancer treatments, such as Aralia
nudicalis, found at Marquette Park and used by the Iroquois (Moerman). There were also some
treatments for nutritional diseases, such as the leaves of Chenopodium album, found at Little
Calumet and Marquette Park being used by the Potawatomi against scurvy (Moerman).
Tuberculosis was also a concern, and one treatment was Anemone virgiana, used by the Iroquois
and found at Little Calumet and Marquette Park. Additionally, there were a number of treatments
11
for venereal diseases, a notable one of the Iroquois being a powder of Cornus racemosa from
Marquette Park, which was placed into a bag along with the penis of the patient (Moerman).
Finally, the importance of horses was reflected in the fact that a number of plants addressed
horse ailments, such as Conzya canadensis by the Potawatomi, found at Little Calumet and
Marquette Park (Moerman).
Historically, Native Americans used a wide variety of processes in creating their
medicines. For example, the Meskwaki used a decoction of the bark of Acer Negundo as an
emetic and the Iroquois an infusion of the bark of Acer rubrum to treat sore eyes (Moerman).
Anemone cylindria was created into a poultice by the Iroquois to treat burns (Moerman).
Meskwaki steamed Aster ericoides (found at Little Calumet and Marquette Pannes) to revive
unconscious patients.
The sheer number of plants used, the number of ailments they addressed, as well as the
variety of ways in which the plants were processed, are a testament to how central plants were to
the way Calumet Native Americans viewed disease, healing, and spirituality.
IV. Charms and Ceremonial Plants
Historically, Native Americans of the Calumet Region used 62 plants out of all the plants
at Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands, Marquette Pannes, and Marquette Park as charms
and in ceremony. Charms and ceremonial plants have a broad definition, as defined by Yarnell.
He states that charms and ceremonial plants include “charms for love and success, charms
against snakes, lures for hunting and fishing, medical and ceremonial incense, medicine for
malicious magic and supernatural dreams, sacred beads, and sacred bundle components”
(Yarnell 1964). We used historical ethnographic data from the Iroquois, Meskwaki, Menominee,
12
Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Chippewa and Winnebago to understand how people would have used
these plants for ceremonial and charm purposes. The graph below shows the percent of
economic plants that are used in ceremony and as charms for each of the sites. Of the economic
plants that are ceremonial and charm plants, Marquette Park has the greatest percentage, in
comparison to the economic plants that are ceremonial and charm plants in Little Calumet River
Prairie and Wetlands and Marquette Pannes.
Additionally, we graphed the percentages of plants that are used in ceremony and as
charms out of all the plants at each of the sites. Based on these percentages, Marquette Park had
the highest percent of ceremonial and charm plants out of the total number of plants found at that
site.
13
10 of the 62 charms and ceremonial plants were charms used for hunting. These charms
were used to attract animals, such as deer. One such plant is Aster novae-angliae, which is found
at Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands. The Chippewa smoked the roots of this plant in
pipes as a charm in order to attract game. Love charms were another important type of charm.
These charms could bring about love, but also counteract love. One plant, Anemone Cylindrica,
could be used as both a love charm and an anti-love charm. If the stems and roots of the plant
were infused, then Anemone Cylindria served as a love charm, but if the roots were decocted,
then it was an anti-love charm. Another interesting charm is one that the Winnebago used during
storms. They dried the root of Silphium laciniatum, found at Little Calumet River Prairie &
Wetlands, to act as a charm against lightning.
In addition to charms, 7 of these plants were ceremonial. For example, Elymus
canadensis, found at Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands, was used as a ceremonial plant.
Native Americans used the plant with other plants to soak corn seeds during a ceremony before
they planted the seeds to ensure a successful harvest. Phragmites australis, found at Little
14
Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands and Marquette Pannes, served as a ceremonial plant in this
way too.
Ceremonial and charm plants, as Yarnell states, also include medicine used for malicious
magic. 12 plants found at the three sites related to witchcraft, a type of evil magic that Native
Americans feared and sought to avoid and protect themselves from. Oxalis stricta, for example,
found at Little Calumet River Prairie & Wetlands and Marquette Park, was used by the Iroquois
to prevent witchcraft. Other plants related to witchcraft were capable of removing bewitchment,
detecting bewitchment, bewitching, and strengthening to kill a witch. From these examples, it is
clear that plants in the Little Calumet River Prairie and Wetlands, Marquette Park, and Marquette
Pannes were very important in ceremony and as charms for Native Americans in this region.
V. Domestic Material Plants
Of the total amount of plants that were documented at the three different sites, 25 were
documented as being used by local tribes for construction or other domestic needs, such as saps
and dyes. The category of domestic plants was created as a catch-all for plants that were of
economic value to Native Americans, but do not fall into the respective categories of food,
medicine, or religious plants. Respective to their sites, domestic plants accounted for a relatively
slim amount of the total economic plants, with Marquette Pannes possessing the highest amount
at 13.2% of the site plant composition. When measured as part of the total plants per site,
domestic plants are seen to exist in ever slimmer proportions, with Marquette Pannes once again
representing the highest concentration of domestic plants at 5.7%.
15
The majority of the plants that were incorporated into Native American culture as
infrastructure were large woody plants. The most featured of these plants include the species Red
Maple (Acer rubrum), Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum),
Dogwood (Cornus obliqua), and Sassafrass (Sassafras albidum). These plants were valued for
their thick and sturdy but also pliable trunks that would be stripped at a young age to use in the
frameworks of domestic buildings. The staple housing units of the Native American tribes that
lived in the region are wigwams and longhouses respectively, and so these were the buildings
most commonly built with woody trees. (Smith). We documented that the Potawatomi used the
Dogwood tree (Cornus obliqua), Bristly Buttercup (Ranunculus pensylvanicus), and Black-Eyed
Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) to create dyes in such colors as red or yellow. Yellow dyes were often
mixed to color mats or baskets. The Ojibwa employed a variety of plants in addition to the ones
16
mentioned above including the Black Oak (Quercus velutina), Red Oak (Quercus rubra), and
Hairy Puccoon (Lithospermum caroliniense var. croceum). The dyes made from these plants
could be smeared as pigments or incorporated into articles of clothing through a process in which
the dyes are chemically bonded to the fibers of clothing. (Moerman) Specifically, the bark of the
Red Oak would have been boiled with given rushes local to the area in order to create a brown
dye. The varieties of rushes used all come from the Juncus family and would have included
species local to our sites such as Juncus nodosus, Juncus canadensis, Juncus acuminatus. Sedges
from the Scirpus family such as the plants Scirpus Pendulus and Scleria verticillata, (found at
Marquette Park and Marquette Pannes respectively), were used by the Potawatomi to weave mats
placed in wigwams (Smith).
VI. Conclusion
Our analysis of the Little Calumet River Prairie and Wetlands, Marquette Park, and
Marquette Pannes shows that a high portion of the plants at these sites could have been used
historically for economic purposes by Calumet Native Americans, with half the plants at LCRP
and Marquette Park found to be economic, and 43% in Marquette Pannes. LCRP had the largest
number of economic plants at 119, Marquette Park had 92, and Marquette Pannes had the least
with 53. We were able to divide the uses of these plants into the categories of food, medicine,
ceremony and charm, and domestic materials. The large number and variety of food plants
illustrates the diverse and seasonally-based plant diets of these groups and the prevalence of sap,
mast, and fruit trees could potentially suggest human encouragement, particularly in Marquette
Park. Plants used for medicinal purposes made up the largest proportion of economic plants,
making up 84% of economic plants at LCRP, 78.3% at Marquette Park, and 73.6% at Marquette
17
Pannes. The enormous number of medicinal plants (100 at LCRP, 72 at Marquette Park, and 39
at Marquette Pannes) reflected a wide variety of ailments treated through a large number of
different ceremonies and rituals, as Native American medicine is inextricably linked to their
religious beliefs, involving many different preparation methods of the different plants. In
contrast, domestic plants made up the smallest proportion of economic plants used at any of the
sites, representing 7.6% at LCRP, 9.8% at Marquette Park, and 13.2% at the Marquette Pannes.
However small in proportion, these plants played crucial roles in the lives of the Native
Americans that lived in the area, providing material for the development of local infrastructure
and the creation of dyes and pigments. The sum of the data behind the plants in all categories of
this study reveals that Native Americans learned to use local plants to support all aspects of daily
life, from nourishment to healing to physical shelter.
18
VII. Works Cited
Abrams, M., & Nowacki, G. Native Americans as active and passive promoters of mast and fruit
trees in the eastern USA. The Holocene, 18, 1123-1137.
Doolittle, William Emery. Cultivated Landscapes of Native North America. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2000.
Deliette, P., Pease, T. C., & Werner, R. C. (1934). Memoir of De Gannes concerning the Illinois
country. Theodore Pease and Raymond Werner, The French Foundations, 1680-1693.
Kindscher, K. (1987). Edible wild plants of the prairie: an ethnobotanical guide
Moerman, Daniel E. (2010). Native American Food Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary.
Portland: Timber Press.
Moerman, Daniel E. (2009). Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary.
Portland: Timber Press.
Sampson, Arthur W. (1924). Native American Forage Plants. New York: Wiley.
Smith, Huron. "Potawatomi Medicine - Plant Fibers." Potawatomi Medicine - Plant Fibers.
American Indian Council, n.d. Web. 08 June 2014.
<http://www.manataka.org/page54.html>.
Yarnell, R. A. (1964). Aboriginal relationships between culture and plant life in the Upper Great
Lakes region
19