plants in the Central Plains (North Dakota to Oklahoma). He 
speculated that Indian medicine men planted Sweet Flag in the 
interior, observing that the plant was highly valued among 
Indian tribes, such as the Pawnee of Nebraska; and he com- 
monly found the plant near former Indian village sites or near 
camping places along old Indian trails (Gilmore, 1931). In the 
early 1970’s, Richard Full Bull, a Sioux, showed Kay Young an 
area of Sweet Flag on the Rosebud Reservation in south-central 
South Dakota. Full Bull claimed that his father had planted it 
there about 1900 (Young, 1980). An elderly Oglala Sioux, born 
in 1896, remembers that when her grandmother was alive (nine- 
teenth century) some roots of Sweet Flag were transplanted to 
her reservation (Pine Ridge) in southwestern South Dakota 
from St. Charles in eastern South Dakota (Yankton Sioux 
country) (Chief, 1980). Although today Sweet Flag is rarely 
found growing at Pine Ridge, the roots are said to be more bitter 
and stronger than roots from eastern South Dakota (Chief, 
1980). The Oglala Sioux obtain most of their supply of Sweet 
Flag from Siouan tribes of central and eastern South Dakota, 
notably the Brule, Santee, Yankton and Sisseton. 
The inter-tribal trade price of the plant is rather high: an 
Oglala Sioux payed as much as $5.00 for a piece of root two 
inches in length (Good Shield, 1980). The Northern Cheyenne of 
Montana have also obtained the roots of Sweet Flag from the 
Sioux (Grinnell, 1923). 
The muskrat (Ondatra zibethica), a ubiquitous semiaquatic 
rodent native to North America, might have played an impor- 
tant role in the propagation of Sweet Flag. The muskrat has a 
voracious appetite for the plant, especially for its rhizomes. The 
animal’s eating habits may have increased the geographic range 
of the plant. When food is abundant, the muskrat is wasteful; 
scraps of plant parts are left behind on “feeding platforms” 
(Takos, 1947). The Canadian biologist, Michael Sarrazin, who 
pioneered in anatomical studies of the muskrat, believed that the 
special musky odor from the musk glands resulted from the 
animal’s abundant nourishment of Acorus Calamus (Vallée, 
1927). 
Muskrat furs constituted an important trade item for the 
Indian. The fecund muskrat was an economic mainstay of the 
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