Joe-Pye-weed (NPS photo)

Overview

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (INDU) was established at the south end of Lake Michigan on November 5, 1966 "to preserve for the educational, inspirational, and recreational use of the public certain portions of the Indiana dunes and other areas of scenic, scientific, and historic interest and recreational value" (P.L. 89-761, 89th Congress, 80 Stat 1309). The combination of sand dunes and diverse native flora in such close proximity to several urban areas provided the impetus for protection of the area. Subsequent amendments to the original authorizing legislation in 1976, 1980, 1986, and 1992 increased the park’s acreage to over 15,000 acres including 2,182 acres in Indiana Dunes State Park that are managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore encompasses a mosaic of habitats including beaches, sand dunes, bogs and other wetland areas, and woodland forests. The park includes the 1830's Bailly homestead, the 1900-era Chellberg farm, and several "Century of Progress" homes from the 1933-1934 Chicago’s World’s Fair. Today, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore ranks 7th among national parks in native plant diversity with 1,462 species, 217 of which having special status (INDU staff 2004):

While the main goal of the park has been to protect the dunes and diverse plant life, many American Indian tribes used and cared for the area extensively to support hunting, plant gathering, and fasting activities until the land was ceded in 1832 (Toupal 2006). The landscape inherited by the park contains remnants of the traditional landscape. The Ojibway people are among many tribes who used and/or traveled through the area including the Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Menominee, Meskwaki, Winnebago, Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Mascouten, Missisauga, Mohegan, Piankeshaw, Sauk-Fox, Wea, and Wyandot (Tanner 1987; Yarnell 1964). Today, Ojibway people continue to use many of the plants found in the park and the surrounding area in traditional ways (Herron 2002; Toupal 2006; Zede et al. 2000, 2001).

Rangers at Maple Sugar Time. (NPS photo)

Geographic and Cultural Focus of the Research

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and the plant species within it, provides the focal point for this ethnobotany. The plants found in the park once were found throughout the Great Lakes area and were used by many tribes including the Ojibway.

There are many Ojibway groups in Michigan and Wisconsin. Identification of traditionally associated Ojibway groups began with contacting the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA). The MACPRA president Summer Cohen recommended contacting all the Michigan tribes with interest in the southwest Michigan area (that in closest proximity to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore), and included lists of Michigan and Wisconsin Ojibway groups:

Southwest Michigan
Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, Grand Rapids, MI
Little River Band of Odawa, Manistee, MI
Hannahville Potawatomi Indian Community, Bark River, MI
Match-e-be-nash-shee-wish Band of Potawatomi Indians, Shelbyville, MI
Nottawaseppi Band of Huron Potawatomi, Fulton, MI
Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Dowagiac, MI

Michigan Ojibway (aver. 351mi)
Burt Lake Band (293mi)
Grand Traverse Band (293mi)
Little Traverse Bay Bands (293mi)
Saginaw Chippewa (217mi)
Bay Mills Indian Community (432mi)
Sault Ste. Marie Tribe (432mi)
Lac Vieux Desert Band (425mi)
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (425mi)

Wisconsin Ojibway (aver. 445mi)
Bad River Band (475mi)
Lac Court Oreilles Band (466mi)
Lac du Flambeau Band (406mi)
Red Cliff Band (513mi)
St. Croix Chippewa (452mi)
Sokaogan Mole Lake Community (360mi)

This ethnobotany draws from numerous ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources that establish a continuity of use over the years.

Pinhook Bog (NPS photo)

Ojibway Ethnobotanical Knowledge

The traditional lives of the Ojibway people were intwined with their environments and reflected indepth knowledge of and close relationships with the resources comprising those environments. This human-nature relationship is perhaps best expressed and documented where it concerns plants. Johnston (1990) wrote that humans and animals could not survive without plants, but plants could survive without humans and animals, and consequently, have primacy over all other life. His statement, however, misrepresents the Ojibway people’s relationship with the environment in two ways. It imposes a hierarchical structure to ecosystems that does not exist in the Ojibway worldview, and it ignores the Ojibway people’s role in caring for the environment. They believe that they must actively take care of the plants or the plants will be in poor condition or move away, scenarios that have played out repeatedly where the Ojibway were removed from the land.

The Ojiway people have retained their traditional relationship with environments, specifically the Great Lakes environments, to some extent; enough so that they retain much ethnobotanical knowledge, particularly with regard to medicines. Documentation of their knowledge began in the late 19th century (see Hoffman 1891) and continued almost four decades later with Densmore (1928), Reagan (1928), Smith (1932), Gilmore (1933), and Stowe (1940). Smith (1932) declared the Ojibway people to be the most knowledgeable about plants, and found that their knowledge extended beyond individual species to include soils and habitats. "[They make] full use of everything that occurs [native flora] 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. …Their knowledge of plants both in their own environment and far away is probably the best of any group of Indians. ...they make trips far away from their home to obtain necessary plants" (Smith 1932:342, 348). Densmore (1929) provided a basis for the Ojibway people’s indepth knowledge when she noted that the passing on of plant knowledge began early. Children were encouraged to gather flowers from which their parents or grandparents would dry, grind, and make a beverage. In this way, the children learned the value of plants and that some plants had medicinal properties.

Of the traditional use plants he recorded, Smith (1932) found that the Ojibway made more use of species in the composite (Asteraceae), grass (Poaceae), and sedge (Cyperaceae) families than did other tribes; they also made use of many species of the heath family (Ericaceae). Moerman’s (1979) analysis showed that statistically the composite family was the most important for medicinal needs. Investigations of native plant medicines have shown that these species have a real basis of effectiveness in phytochemical constituents such as monoterpenes, tannins, and salicylates (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981).

Volunteer with Ranger. (NPS photo)

The Ojibway people used a wide variety of plant parts for food including buds, flowers, shoots, leaves, fruits, nuts, seeds, roots, bulbs, rhizomes, inner bark (phloem and cambium), and sap. Fruits were the most exploited plant part, and were eaten fresh and preserved, or dried for use in cooking, including in soups and stews. Nuts were consumed raw, or mashed for use in soups and stews. Leaves, buds, and flowers of herbaceous plants were cooked and eaten as greens. Fern shoots (Matteuccia struthiopteris, Onoclea sensibilis, Osmunda cinnamomea) were a particularly important source of greens in the spring and early summer (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981).

The line between food and medicine plants (every plant is a medicine in Ojibway thought (Smith 1932)), and the line between medicine and ceremonial plants are not absolute. Beverages such as those made from the flowers the children collected could be for everyday use, for medicinal needs, or for spring and fall tonics that were taken as preventatives (Gilmore 1933). All of these were recognized as being beneficial to one’s health and well-being.

Medicinal and ceremonial plants had critical roles in the well-being of the Ojibway people and their communities as well (Zede et al. 2000, 2001), and the practice of medicine and religion often coincided in some way (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981). Since Indian medicine is complex, and an intricate part of maintaining a cohesive cultural unit, it must be understood as interwoven with the world view and religious beliefs of the Indian peoples (Herrick 1977). The Midewiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibway people is an ancient organization involving healing and religious guidance (Smith 1932). To become part of the Midewiwin, one progressed through a series of grades to learn the rituals and herbalism for curing physical and mental illnesses (Hoffman 1891; Landes 1968; Smith 1932).

Medicinal plants are sacred and must "be secured with the proper mide ceremony. This consisted of an explanatory song, and the offering of tobacco to grandmother, the earth, and Winabojo, their cultural hero" (Smith 1932:345). Only those who showed the predisposition for medicinal knowledge could become part of the Midewiwin, and that knowledge was shared through specific channels. "The young man, who had the proper dream following the period of fasting in his youth, predicting his predilection towards the medicine man's profession, was taken through a rigorous course of training. Individual knowledge was handed down through the family. Instruction to boys and girls usually comes from the uncle or aunt" (Smith 1932:349). There are four grades or degrees of the Midewiwin, each more complex than the preceding. The fourth degree is the most complex, and involves the use of charms or bewitching plants, and those most knowledgeable at this level are called jugglers or "Jessakîd." His powers include the supernatural, and he is the most feared and respected healer among the Ojibway (Smith 1932:426-427). Medicinal combinations of nine to twelve herbs were common, and reflected extensive training. The amounts of each herb varied with the strength of the plant; larger amounts of weaker medicines were combined with smaller amounts of stronger medicines. Sweetflag (Acorus calamus), for example, was used sparingly because its effect was so severe (Smith 1932).

Wild Lupines & Puccoons (NPS photo)

As with food plants, the Ojibway people make use of many plant parts for medicinal needs. Ojibway herbalists used roots, rhizomes, and whole plants as their major source of medicine (Youngken 1924), although all other parts of plants were used as needed. The Ojibway understood that the chemical constituents in plants often were concentrated in specific parts, and would collect these parts for specific needs but only at the appropriate time. If gathered at the wrong time, the plant’s medicinal qualities may be inert, undeveloped, or dispersed (Smith 1932).

The plant materials collected from the wild are seen as special gifts, available for the taking, but with a gift of tobacco given in exchange as spiritual cooperation is a necessary component for effective treatment (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981). When digging roots, for example, the herbalist would place tobacco in the cavity left by the roots, and pray through song to make the medicine potent. All plant gathering, particulary for medicinal purposes, involved songs specific to the plant and need. The need for the spiritual component is reflected as well in the results of scientific analyses to determine the reality of medicinal value. "Much of the knowledge of white men originated from studying the Indian plant uses, in the early days. Eclectic practitioners sought the Indian herbs and observed carefully what parts of the plant were used. This mass of early information was sifted scientifically by the students of medicine, and finally tested physiologically on animals. Perhaps sixty-five per cent of their remedies were found to be potent and are included in our pharmacopoeas; the other thirty-five per cent were discovered to be valueless medicinally" (Smith 1932:348). The apparent inefficacy of that thirty-five per cent supports the Ojibway herbalists’ understanding that while every plant is a medicine, it is not for everyone; nor is this a limitation that reduces the plant’s value as a medicine.

In the Ojibway language, plants can have multiple common names, some of which may be used for more than one species. These names reflect categories of medicinal use such as "revivers." The names are descriptive as well, illustrating the interwoven nature of the Ojibway people’s relationship with plants. "The medicine name usually tells what the plant looks like, where it may be found, some peculiar taste or property, or its chief use. Often a termination is added signifying the plural of a noun or the part of the plant used, such as the wood, the leaf, the flower, the root, or the berry or fruit" (Smith 1932:348).

In addition to foods, medicines, and ceremonies, the use of plants included utility, charms, and dyes. Most of the implements used food procurement and processing were made from the wood of trees and shrubs. Birch bark, for example, was indispensable in traditional food gathering activities, and crafts. It was used to build canoes and dwellings of seasonal camps, to make storage and cooking containers, to make tools, utensils, and numerous craft items (Zede et al. 2000, 2001).

Charms were made with medicine plants specific to the user’s need. Charms generally were for good luck in the hunt, protection in war, and success in love (Densmore 1929). Hunting charms, for example, were applied by tracing an outline of the target animal on the ground, drawing a line through its heart, and placing the appropriate medicine on the "puncture" (Smith 1932). Densmore (1929: 108) identified seven categories of charms: "(a) Love charms, (b) charms to attract worldly goods, (c) charms to insure safety and success, (d) charms to influence or attract animals, (e) protective charms, (f) charms to work evil, and (g) antidotes for evil charms." Fourth-degree healers were required to remove or counter evil charms.

Firefighters after the burn. (NPS photo)

Dyes were obtained from many plants including various berries and barks, gold thread roots, bloodroots, butternut and hazelnut nut hulls, and wild plums (Levi 1956). The Ojibway people would boil the material to be colored in a mixture of plant parts and some mordant to set the color. Mordants included various clays, the red or black sand that bubbles up in a spring, or stone dust, perhaps with a few, rusty, iron nails thrown in the kettle for good measure. Sometimes black oak bark (Quercus velutina) was used to set the color (Smith 1932).

Even as change came to the Ojibway people’s traditional life, they resisted giving up their plants and practices while adopting new ones. They added introduced plants to their native pharmacopeia (e.g. Plantago major), and developed new uses for native plants in response to European diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, and venereal disease (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981). The importance of foods such as wild rice and maple sap, and the medicine plants has remained, as evidenced in particular by the continuation of the Midewiwin (Zede et al. 2001). The Ojibway people continued to apply and teach plant knowledge to their children through the 20th century. In 1964, Yarnell reviewed traditional use of plants in the Upper Great Lakes area, placing it in an ecological, archaeological, and ethnobotanical framework (Arnason, Hebda, and Johns 1981). More recently, the continuity of Ojibway plant use was recorded by Zede et al. (2000, 2001) and Herron (2002). The Ojibway people’s traditional relationship with their environments continues to provide a resource today that they turn to in their efforts to retain and rebuild their culture.

            Text from An Ethnobotany of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore: Plant Uses of the Ojibwa People, April 2009.

(NPS photo)

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