70 USES OF PLANTS BY INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 33 
Maka"-ninida (Omaha-Ponea). 
Ma*ka"-kerek (Winnebago). 
Kahtsha itu (Pawnee) ; kahtsu, medicine; ha, in water; itv, lying. 
All the tribes hold this plant in very high esteem. It was used 
as a carminative, a decoction was drunk for fever, and the rootstock 
was chewed as a cough remedy and as a remedy for toothache. For 
colic an infusion of the pounded root stock was drunk. As 
a remedy for colds the rootstock was chewed or a decoction was 
drunk, or it was used in the smoke treatment. In fact, this part of 
the plant seems to have been regarded as a panacea. When a hunt- 
ing party came to a place where the calamus grew the young men 
gathered the green blades and braided them into garlands, which 
they wore round the neck for their pleasant odor. It was one of 
the plants to which mystic powers were ascribed. The blades were 
used also ceremonially for garlands. In the mystery ceremonies of 
the Pawnee are songs about the calamus. 
Among the Teton Dakota in old times warriors chewed the root- 
stock to a paste, which they rubbed on the face to prevent excitement 
and fear in the presence of the enemy. 
COMMELINACEAE 
TRrApDESCANTIA vircinica L. Spiderwort, Spider Lily. (Pl. 5, a.) 
This is a charmingly beautiful and delicate flower, deep blue in 
color, with a tender-bodied plant of graceful lines. There is no more 
appealingly beautiful flower on the western prairies than this one 
when it is sparkling with dewdrops in the light of the first beams of 
the rising sun. There is about it a suggestion of purity, freshness, 
and daintiness. 
When a young man of the Dakota Nation is in love, and walking 
alone on the prairie he finds this flower blooming, he sings to it a 
song in which he personifies it with the qualities of his sweetheart’s 
character as they are called to his mind by the characteristics figura- 
tively displayed by the flower before him. In his mind the beauties 
of the flower and of the girl are mutually transmuted and flow to- 
gether into one image. 
The following song, addressed to 7radescantia, is translated from 
the Dakota language by Dr. A. McG. Beede: 
“Wee little dewy flower, 
So blessed and so shy, 
Thou’rt dear to me, and for 
My love for thee I'd die.” 
