56 USES OF PLANTS BY INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 33 
Besides this body of special plant lore there was also a great deal 
of knowledge of plants in general and their common uses, their 
range, habits, and habitat, diffused among the common people. 
There was also a body of folk sayings and myths alluding to plants 
commonly known. 
INFLUENCE OF FLORA ON HUMAN ACTIVITIES AND 
CULTURE 
The dominant character of the vegetation of a region is always an 
important 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 prairie and plains forma- 
tions of vegetation. The food staples, the style of housebuilding, 
and forms of industry 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 
Zizania aquatica, 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 Psoralea escu- 
lenta. The Dakota name of the wild rice, Zizania aquatica, is psi 
and of Psoralea esculenta is tipsina. 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 tépsi™na. Tinta is the Dakota word 
for “ prairie”; na@ is a suffix diminutive. It is suggested, then, that 
in tipsi"na we have a compound from ¢i*ta-psi"-na. This seems a 
plausible explanation. It need not imply that Psoralea was thought 
to be like Zzania, but only that it was a little plant of the prairie, 
tita, 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 
