Goddess' Garden, Part Nine

Manna From Heaven, Part One

Besides the many roles that various Artemisias play in uses from treating disease to supernatural functions, to mundane uses such as having served Amerindians as “toilet paper” (you always wondered but were afraid to ask?), they also tend to serve in the most fundamental of ways, as food .

The inclusion of Artemisias in the page on this site, “Fighting Famine With The Old Ways” is both because of the documented history of these uses, and because of the abundant amount of usable food that they produce.

Often, it is the seeds that are used as food, and the plants tend to be very prolific seed setters... while the seeds are not particularly large, they are abundant. Various Artemisia can produce a quarter of a million seeds per plant, and this may be a conservative estimate. In older plants, or in plants that have been deliberately made to branch by cutting mmain branches, this number may run even higher.

Likewise, while not well documented, it is possible that the pollen of the plants may prove edible, and plentiful enough to be used like the pollen of other plants, used as flour for cooking and baking, such as cattails (Typha sp.) for these exceedingly large numbers of seed are the result of dense arrays of tiny flowerheads.

Unusual Vegetables: S0mething New for This Year’s Garden (edited by Anne Moyer Halpin) pg 15, notes that: “In Japan, bamboo shoots, and other wild mountain vegetables such as colt’s foot, watercress, bracken fern and sword fern shoots, wild onions and mugwort are among the first vegetables that can be eaten in spring.

The invaluable reference, “Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World” does not include references to Native American uses, and strongly creates the perhaps erroneous notion that any food use of the Artemisias amongst Asians or Europeans has long been lost; far more thorough searches of specialized literature is called for.

The following table partially summarizes the Native American use of Artemisias used as food for humans and animals that are cited in Dan Moerman’s “American Indian Ethnobotany” database (available for free use on the web). Some do not seem to quite make it perfectly clear whether the citation pertains to human or animal use or both. Obviously, even the citations of the use of Artemisia for animal use are important, since such uses could free more conventional resources such as grains for use by humans instead of animals.

SPECIES	USAGE	TRIBE	REFERENCES
Artemisia biennis	Seeds formerly used as food	Gosiute	1
Artemisia biennis	Plants eaten by turkeys	Iroquios	2
Artemisia campestris ssp. pacifica	Seeds made into mush	Kayenta Navaho	3
Artemisia cana	Plants used as fall and winter forage by horses	Blackfoot	4
Artemisia cana	Best sage for winter browse by livestock and game	Lakota	5
Artemsia carruthii	Species used for food	White Mountain Apache	6
Artemisia carruthii	Seeds ground and made into bread, dumplings or gruel	Navajo	7
Artemisia carruthii	Seeds used for food	Navajo	8
Artemisia carruthii	Ground seeds mixed with water, made into balls, steamed.	Zuni	9
Artemisia carruthii	Seeds considered amongst the most important food plants when the Zuni reached this world.	Zuni	10
Artemisia dracunculus	Leaves and young stems made into non-intoxicating beverage	Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero	11
Artemisia dracunculus ssp. dracunculus	Seeds used for food	Luiseno	12
Artemisia dracunculus ssp. dracunculus	Oily and nutritious seeds formerly used as food	Gosiute	1
Artemisia dracunculus ssp. dracunculus	Leaves roasted or boiled between hot, flat stones and eaten	Hopi	10
Artemisia dracunculus ssp. dracunculus	Leaves baked between hot stones, dipped in salt water and eaten	Hopi	13
Artemisia dracunculus ssp. dracunculus	Steeped seeds added to dishes for flavoring	Shoshoni	14
Artemisia filifolia	Used as stock feed	Navajo	8
Artemisia frigida	Crushed leaves mixed with stored meat to maintain a good odor	Blackfoot	15
Artemisia frigida	Spice; used with sweet corn when roasting	Hopi	16
Artemisia frigida	Plants considered excellent grazing plant for sheep and cattle	Isleta	17
Artemisia ludoviciana	Used to flavor meats	Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero	11
Artemisia ludoviciana	Candy; leaves chewed as a confection	Blackfoot	15
Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. incompacta	Seeds formerly used as food	Gosiute	1
Artemisia sp. (“Wormwood”)	Seeds parched, ground, kneeded into seed butter and eaten with fruit drinks or spread on bread	Havasupai	18
Artemisia tilesii	Raw shoots peeled and eaten with seal oil	Eskimo	19
Artemisia tilesii	Used to cover food odors	Eskimo, Inuktitut	20
Artemisia tridentata	Beverage: used to make tea	White Mountain Apache	21
Artemisia tridentata	Used as a seasoning	White Mountain Apache	21
Artemisia tridentata	Seeds roasted, ground into flour and eaten with water	Paiute	22
Artemisia tridentata	“Starvation food” used in times of food shortages	Pauite	22
Artemisia tridentata	Gum used as chewing gum	Paiute	23
Artemisia tripartita spp. tripartita	Seeds formerly used as food	Gosiute	1

REFERENCES: Many of these have been later reprinted in other forms; a number of them are still available as books. Almost any can be obtained from any public library or college library that does not already have them through Inter-Library Loan. Articles appearing in periodicals are listed by Volume, Number or month, and page number, i.e. 2(5):331-405 means Volume 2, pages 331-405.

1. Chamberlin, Ralph V. (1911) The Ethno-Botany of the Gosiute Indians of Utah. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, 2(5):331-405.
2. Rosseau, Jacques (1945) Le Folklore Botanique De L’ile Aux Condres. Contributions dl’Insitut botanique l’Universite de Montreal 55:75-111
3. Wyman, Leland C. and Stuart K. Harris (1951) The Ethnobotany of the Kayenta Navaho. The Museum of New Mexico Press
4. Johnston, Alex. (1987) Plants and the Blackfoot. Lethbridge, Alberta. Lethbridge Historical Society
5. Rogers, Dilwyn J. (1980) Lakota Names and traditional Uses of Native Plants by Sicangu (Brule) People in the Rosebud Area, South Dakota. St. Francis, SD. Rosebud Educational Society
6. Reagan, Albert B. (1929) Plants Used by the White Moutain Apache Indians of Arizona. Wisconsin.
7. Steggarda, Morris (1941) Navajo Foods and Their Preparation. Journal of the American Dietic Association 17(3):217-225 8. Elmore, Francis H. (1944) Ethnobotany of the Navajo.
9. Stevenson, Matilda Coxe (1915) Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians. SI-BAE Annual Report #30
10. Castetter, Edward F. (1935) Ethnobotanical Studies in the American Southwest I: Uncultivated Native Plants Used As Sources of Food. University of New Mexico bulletin 4(1):1-44
11. Castetter, Edward F. and M. E. Opler (1936) Enthobotanical Studies in the American Southwest III: The Ethnobiology of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache. University of New Mexico Bulletin 4(5):1-63
12. Sparkman, Phillips S. (1908) The Culture of the Luiseno Indians. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 8(4):187-234
13. Fewkes, J. Walter (1896) A Contribution to Ethnobotany. American Anthropologist 9:14-21
14. Murphey, Edith Van Allen (1990) Indian Uses of Native Plants. Glenwood Ill. Meyerbooks. (Originally published in 1959).
15. Hellson, John C. (1974) Ethnobotany of the Black foot Indians. Ottowa. National Museums of Canda. Mercury Series.
16. Vestal, Paul A. (1940) Notes on a Collection of Plants from the Hopi Indian Region of Arizona Made by J.G. Owens in 1891. Botanical Museum Leaflets (Harvard University) 8(8):153-168
17. Jones, Volney H. (1931) The Ethnobotany of the Isleta Indians. University of New Mexico, M.A. Thesis
18. Weber, Steven A. and P. David Seaman (1985) Havasupai Habitat: A. F. Whiting’s Ethnography of a Traditional Indian Culture. Tucson. The University of Arizona Press
19. Ager, Thomas A. and Lynn Price Ager (1980) Ethnobotany of the Eskimos of Nelson Island, Alaska. Artic Anthropology 27:26-48
20. Wilson, Michael R. (1978) Notes on Ethnobotany in Inuktitut. The Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 8:180-196 21.Reagan, Albert B. (1929) Plants Used by the White Mountain Apache Indians of Arizona. Wisconsin Archaeologist 8:143-161
22. Sweart, Julian H. (1933) Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33(3):233-250
23. Folwer, Catherine S. (1989) Willard Z. Park’s Ethnographic Notes on the Northern Paiute Western Nevada 1933-1940 Salt Lake City. University of Utah Press

Another important food though incidental food use is noted here, and that is the role of Artemisias as preservatives of meat. This role extends to the traditional use of mugwort and wormwood as seasonings for Thanksgiving turkeys, and began as the even more traditional use “to prevent the meat from smelling or tasting gamey or spoiled”.

Of course, such seasonings probably need to do more than simply mask the odor or taste of spoilage. While it is not necessarily clear if all Artemisias reliably act as disinfectants in this area, this same principle can be demonstrated in the very same use of thymes and oreganos, since they contain thymol which is known and widely used from commercial sources as an antiseptic, including its addition in many mouthwashes.

Certainly it takes no great stretch of the imagination here to see greater depth in the rationale why the personified herbs are personified as a Goddess of purification, the “virgin” Artemis, and likewise to include amongst the reasons for being designated a “Protectoress of Animals” that the role of these materials disinfecting and deodorizing meats so that they can be utilized instead of discarded, will help to minimize the enviromental impact of hunters. Such a role may extend even further (if Artemsias indeed contain the iron that Culpeper suggests, they can replace meat as a source of iron; likewise it would not be suprising to find Artemisias containing such other substances characteristic of meat as carnitine or related amino acids like glutamine, especially considering the association of Knotgrass), but this is one of many significant factors that should not be understated.

The role of chewing gum from these plants also helps to substantiate a certain interchangability of some aspects of Artemis trivia and Coyote stories. A certain Native American story, “Coyote Fights With A Lump Of Pitch” through title alone conjures up the impression that the Native American concern with wild and possibly rabid animals, and that the Native American propensity for making and using chewing gum may have been part of the answer to this concern.

Given the gum one is chewing, the animal may be distracted and substantially perplexed and intrigued with the substance, giving one the possible window of opportunity for safely escaping or instituting other protective measures. In instances where this material is possibly antiseptic in nature, such as pine or Artemisia gums or resins, such antiseptics may decrease the risk that any bite that may be received will be infectious, and the engaging nature of the material that often causes much bewildered and unsuccessful chewing, may help insure that the material is spread around the animal’s mouth thoroughly.

Thus, yet another aspect in which Artemis is a protectoress of both children and animals, and one which recalls a fair amount of ancient European preoccupation with numerous ways in which Artemisias and other natural products can help serve as deterrants to predation by numerous species, sometimes including man. Artemis is, for example, frequently associated with bears.

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