Pȟežíȟota Hinápȟe: Spring sage, and Sage Tea

A shot from last spring: The first spring shoots of Pȟežíȟota (ceremonial sage, Artemisia ludoviciana) emerging in on the prairies of Standing Rock in late April 2018. Working with this plant over the years, I have noticed that there are certain times of the year that are better to pick it for certain uses. The

Tȟaópi Phežúta Yuksá: Harvesting Yarrow

Harvested with permission and proper protocols observed at Opaskwayak Cree Nation, MB, in Summer 2018. Both the flowers and leaves are useful medicinally. I’ll do another post about that in the future.

Early spring Cattail Fluff

It’s early spring, and the new green shoots of this year’s cattails are just getting started underwater, and aren’t yet visible. But the remains of last autumn’s cattail crop still stand, poking out of the cold water. Weathered by the winter, the cattails turn to fluff in my hands. You can only get the fluff

Wipážukȟa Wóšpi: Picking Juneberries

Ȟaŋté Ačháȟšlaya – Ice-covered Juniper

Photo taken in Shoshone-Bannock territory, at Massacre Rocks State Park in Idaho. Covered in ice and snow after an early-spring storm in mid-March 2019. There are so many juniper (ȟaŋté) species in North America, and I have yet to learn them all. This one is a little bit thicker, bluer, and more resinous than the

Wamákȟaškaŋ: Finding Food in Winter

A coworker of mine in another city, who grew up in the tropics, reacted with shock when I sent her a picture of a bison standing in deep snow, digging to get to the grasses below for a meal. “Don’t they hibernate during the cold months?” she asked. I won’t get into the biology of

Winter projects: seed sorting

Oníya Pȟežúta: Breathing medicine

More winter projects: A tincture I made for breathing. Included: cottonwood buds, Siberian elm root bark, curly cup gumweed flowers, mullein leaf.

On Čhaŋšáša and Traditional Tobacco

Winter projects, continued: Peeling the red outer bark away to reveal the green cambium layer on a fresh čhaŋšáša branch. Another, more abstract waníyetu wóečhuŋ: reflecting on what “traditional tobacco” means. If you are wondering about ceremonial uses of čhaŋšáša and would like to know more about the traditional teachings around it, there are a

Wild Grape Juice – Čhuŋwíyapehe Iyúwi Haŋpí

Wild grapes. Čhuŋwíyapehe iyúwi. Vitis riparia. I like wild grapes so much better than the domestic ones. They’re the perfect mix of tart and sweet, and there’s also the element of appreciating something you have to work for, since (at least on Standing Rock) harvesting wild grapes involves a trip into the woods, and usually