it was required that the collector make a payment to the plant in 
the form of beads, etc. and to talk to the plant too. Many 
medicines required similar payment. 
Coyote, leading culture hero and trickster of the Flatheads, 
figured in several plant uses and beliefs. Once Coyote was bound 
in ropes, for example, and nothing could be found to free him 
until a leafblade of a species of Carex was used to cut the rope. 
The dried stalks of Prerosperma andromedea were thought to be 
“Coyotes’ arrows.” Rosehips were often called “Coyotes’ Berries” 
or “place of itching in the anus” because Coyote once ate the fruits 
and asa result his anus began to itch; he scratched so much that he 
eventually bled to death. 
PLANTS AND TECHNOLOGY 
The Flatheads made many of their everyday items from plants. 
For tepee poles they used young trunks of lodgepole pine (Pinus 
contorta). Willow (Salix spp.) and red-osier dogwood (Cornus 
stolonifera) were used in the construction of sweathouses. Wood 
for bows came from shrubs like mockorange (Philadelphus lewi- 
sii) and yet (Taxus brevifolia), while the wood for arrows was 
fashioned from branches of maple (Acer glabrum), serviceberry 
(Amelanchier alnifolia), and mockorange (Philadelphus lewisit). 
Whistles were fashioned from the stems of cow-parsnip (Hera- 
cleum lanatum) and elderberry (Sambucus spp.). Baskets and 
bags were made from the bark of cedar (Thuja plicata). And 
Flatheads made dyes from alder (A/nus incana) and lichen 
(Letharia vulpina). 
APPENDIX I. 
INDEX TO SCIENTIFIC NAMES 
Abies grandis (Dougl.) Forbes 
A. lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt. 
Acer glabrum Torr. 
Achillea millefolium L. 
Alectoria sp. 
Allium cernuum Roth 
A. douglasii Hook. 
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