Uses of Plants by the Hidatsas of the Northern Plains

9. Plants Used for Dye and Coloring

eight Plants Used for Smoking plants used for smoking 163 Tobacco 9a hidatsa name: opi (tobacco) local english name: tobacco botanical name: Nicotiana quadrivalvis Pursh var. bigelovii (Torr.) DeWolf As recently as the mid-1990s, this species was thought by some botanists to be extinct. At that time I had it growing in my garden , having obtained some seeds from an Iowa schoolteacher who grew Indian crops. I once received a phone call from a taxonomist who had somehow heard of my garden and tracked me down. I assured him that it existed and sent pictures. It readily self-seeds and is one of the first plants to germinate in the spring, usually by the thousands. The seeds are tiny and germinate best if just “dusted” over well prepared soil and smoothed over with the hands. Planting in rows as Buffalobirdwoman describes just makes it all the more difficult to get it to grow. It can reseed itself about twice before it has exhausted the soil and the plot has to be established elsewhere. Although I have done no qualitative research regarding its effects on plants growing in its vicinity, it does seem that corn hills adjacent to tobacco do not do as well as those farther away. The tobacco has a strong and distinctive smell that transfers readily to anyone handling the plant. Plants typically grow to about 30 inches (75 cm) tall and flower profusely. The flowers are white and tubular—about an inch (2.5 cm) across. The flowers attract sphinx moths (Manduca sexta), which apparently do much of the pollination. The plants are also attractive to the sphinx moths as a place to lay their eggs. The resulting caterpillars grow into 4-inch (10 cm) hornworms. The hornworms can denude a tobacco plant in a single day. So the plants can provide food for both the adults and the young of the 164 plants used for smoking sphinx moth, and the gardener must be ever vigilant. I think that these are the insects that the Hidatsas call “tobacco blowers.” This tobacco species is originally from California and adjacent states (usda nd) and was probably traded into the Missouri villages up the Columbia River and down the Missouri by the same route that dentalium shells, valued for decorative purposes, made it into the region. The two accounts that follow are the perspectives of Buffalobirdwoman , who, because she was a woman, did not raise tobacco but was very familiar with its propagation and use, and that of her brother Wolf Chief, who maintained a tobacco garden and prepared tobacco for smoking for years. Buffalobird-woman’s account was the basis for a chapter in Wilson’s dissertation (1917: 121–27). Spelling and punctuation are as published. Buffalobird-woman (Wilson 1917: 121–27) Tobacco Tobacco was cultivated in my tribe only by old men. Our young men did not smoke much; a few did, but most of them used little tobacco, or almost none. They were taught that smoking would injure their lungs and make them short winded so that they would be poor runners . But when a man got to be about sixty years of age we thought it right for him to smoke as much as he liked. His war days and hunting days were over. Old men smoked quite a good deal. Young men who used tobacco could run; but in a short time they became short of breath, and water, thick like syrup, came up into the mouth. A young man who smoked a great deal, if chased by enemies, could not run to escape from them, and so got killed. For this reason all the young men of my tribe were taught that they should not smoke. Things have changed greatly since those good days; and now young and old, boys and men, all smoke. They seem to think that the new ways of the whiteman are right, but I do not. In olden days we Hidatsas took good care of our bodies, as is not done now. plants used for smoking 165 The tobacco garden The old men of my tribe who smoked had each a tobacco garden planted not very far away from our corn fields, but never in the same plot with one. Two of these tobacco gardens were near the village up on the top of some rising ground; they were owned by two old men: Bad...