56 USES OF PLANTS BY INDIANS [eth. ANN.S3 



Besides this body of special plant lore there was also a great deal 

 of kiiowledjjje of plants in general and their common uses, their 

 range, habits, and habitat, diffused among the common people. 

 There was also n body of folk sayings and myths alluding to plants 

 commonly known. 



INFLUENCE OF FLORA OX HLTVIAX ACTIVITIES AND 

 CULTURE 



The dominant charafter of the vegetation of a region is always an 

 imjiortant factor in shaping the culture of that region, not only 

 directly by the raw materials which it supplies or withholds, but 

 indirectly also through the floral influence on the fauna. The chase 

 of the buffalo with all that it entailed in habits of domestic life, in- 

 strumentalities and forms of government, industrial activities, and 

 religious rites, was directly related to the praiiue and plains forma- 

 tions of vegetation. The food staples, the style of housebuilding, 

 and forms of industrj- were quite different in the prairie region from 

 what they were in the eastern woodland regions, and in the desert 

 region of the Southwest they were different from either of the first 

 two regions. 



The Dakota came into the prairie region from the east in the lake 

 region, impelled by the onset of the Chippewa, who had the ad- 

 vantage of firearms acquired from the French. In the lake region 

 they had as the most important article of vegetal food the grain of 

 Zhania af/uatira. As they migrated westward the quantity of 

 Zizania diminished and the lack had to be supplied by substitution 

 of something which the prairie might afford. One of the food plants 

 of greatest importance they found on the prairie is PsoraJea escu- 

 lenta-. The Dakota name of the wild rice, Zizania aqu-atica, is -psi^ 

 and of Pxoralea escvJcnta is tipsi''na. From the etymology of these 

 two names Dr. J. R. Walker, of Pine Ridge, has suggested that the 

 second is derived from the first, indicating the thought of its useful- 

 ness as a food in place of what had been the plant of greatest im- 

 portance in the food supply of the region formerly inhabited by this 

 people. Doctor Walker offers this suggestion only as a possible ex- 

 planation of the derivation of fripsi"na. Ti"fa is the Dakota word 

 for "prairie": na is a sufli.x diminutive. It is suggested, then, that 

 in fips/'na we have a compound from fi"ta-p»i''-nn. This seems a 

 plausiiile explanation. It need not imply tliat Psoralea was thought 

 to i)e like Zizanin, but only that it was a little plant of the prairie, 

 tl't(u which served a use like to that of Zizania, psi". This is probably 

 a case in point, but whether so or not, instances could be cited of the 

 influence of vegetation on language, as in case of some names of 



