""•'"'■"'I TAXOXOMIC LIST OF PLANTS 35 



All tlie tribes iiscl the berries for food, fresh in season, or dried 

 for winter use. Young lea\es were steeped to make a drink like tea. 



According to an Omaha informant the root was used medicinally* 

 for which purpose it was scraped and l.oile.l: the decoction was 

 given to children as a remedy for bowel trouble. 

 Rosa i-ratincola Greene. AVild Rose. 



0»zhi''zhi"tka (Dakota). O^zhi'-zhrtka-hu, losebush. 



Wazhidti (Omaha-Ponca ) . 



Pahatu (Pawnee), red. 



There are several species of Rosa in Nebraska, the most conunon 

 being Rom pratincola, the prairie rose. The fruits are sometimes 

 eaten to tide over a period of food scarcity. An amusing instance 

 is told in the Omaha tribe of a time when the people were without 

 food and no game could be found. A man had been laboriously 

 gathering for his family a supply of wild rose fruits. After he 

 had a considerable quantity a man was seen returning with the 

 carcass of a deer he had been able to kill. At once the rose fruits 

 were cast away in prospect of the much more excellent food which 

 had come to hand. 



It is said that the inner bark of the ro.sebush was sometimes used 

 for smoking, either alone or mixed with tobacco. 



The Pawnee say there are sometimes large, brown liypertropliied 

 growths on the lower part of the stems, which, when charred by 

 fire and crushed to powder, were applied as a dressing to burns. 



A wash for inflammation of the eyes was made by steeping the 

 fruits, according to information from the Omaha. 



THE .SON(; OF TH?: WILD ItOSE 



The following is a translation into English out of the Dakota 

 language, by Dr. A. McG. Beede, of an old Dakota song. The people 

 of the Dakota Nation, and other tribes also, think of the various 

 plant and animal species as ha\ ing each their own songs. With these 

 people music — song — is an expression of the S(hi1 and not a mere 

 artistic exercise. 



Where the word " Mother " appears in the following song it refers 

 to '■ Mother Earth," a living, conscious, holy being in Indian thought. 

 The earth was truly venerated and loved by these people, who con- 

 sidered themselves not as owners or potential owners of any part of 

 the land, but as being owned by the land which gave them birth and 

 which supplied their physical needs from her bounty and satisfied 

 their love of the beautiful by the beauty of her face in the landscape. 



The trilled musical syllables at the close of the last two stanzas 

 express the spontaneous joy which comes to a person who has " life- 

 appreciation of Holy Earth," 



