The Cheyenne and the Sioux considered Sweet Flag to be an 
amulet. To keep away night spirits, Cheyenne children had a 
piece of the root tied to their necklet or blanket (Grinnell, 1923). 
The Sioux used the “smoke treatment” to “chase away ghosts” 
(Bull Man, 1980). An elderly Sioux woman gave an interesting 
account of Sweet Flag being utilized to drive away evil spirits: 
My grandmother’s son lived in a haunted house. He locked the 
door but it would open at night and there would be a strong wind 
even though it was quiet outside. Fifty years ago my grandmother 
told me that it (Sweet Flag) was good for haunted houses. Grind 
up the root and burn and smoke all the rooms to drive away 
spirits. My son did it and it worked. The door never opened again. 
(Chief, 1980). 
Even today, many elderly Sioux carry a piece of the rhizome 
with them as an amulet. 
Some tribes not only took Sweet Flag as a tonic for 
themselves but would give it to horses to make them spirited and 
run faster. The Omaha gave the plant as a snuff to horses 
(Grant, 1980); the Oglala and Yankton Sioux administered an 
infusion of Sweet Flag to race horses (Elk Boy, 1979; Primeaux, 
1979). When Peyote (Lophophora williamsii (Lem.) Coult.) was 
adopted by the Yankton Sioux in the earlier part of this century, 
however, they gave their race horses an infusion of Peyote 
(Primeaux, 1979). 
Smith reported an unusual use of Acorus Calamus by a 
Flambeau Ojibwe Indian, Big George, who soaked a gill net in 
an infusion of Sweet Flag and Sarsaparilla to make a “fine 
catch” of white fish (Smith, 1932); Smith relates that the fish net 
“still smelled of Calamus root after being in the water more than 
twelve hours...” (Smith, 1932). 
An informant of Hoffer and Osmund, who lived among the 
Cree of northern Alberta, experimented with large doses of 
Sweet Flag. On five different occasions, the informant and his 
wife chewed ten inches of the rhizome; each time, they had an 
experience similar to that induced by LSD (Hoffer and Osmund, 
1967). Since both the informant and his wife (a psychiatric 
nurse) had taken LSD several times under controlled conditions, 
they were perhaps preconditioned physiologically and psycholo- 
gically to have such a similar experience. The quantity that each 
243 
