=Lesser Cat’s-Foot= (_Antennaria neodioica_ Greene) “gagîgeˈ bûg”
[everlasting leaf]. The Flambeau Ojibwe use the whole herb as a valued
remedy to make a tea to be given to the mother after child birth. It is
to purge the afterbirth and heal them internally.
Eclectic practitioners have used this plant as a hemostatic.
=Common Burdock= (_Arctium minus_ Bernh.), “giˈ masan” [big stickers].
The Flambeau Ojibwe use the root of burdock as one of the ingredients
of a medicine for pain in the stomach. It is also supposed to have a
tonic effect.
Burdock root has quite a reputation among home practitioners among
the white men as a diaphoretic, diuretic, alterative, aperient and
depurative. It has been used for rheumatism, gout, pulmonary catarrh,
chronic skin diseases such as scrofula and syphilis, and to dissolve
urinary deposits. Externally it has been used as a salve or wash for
eruptions, burns, wounds, hemorrhoids and swelling.
=White Sage= (_Artemisia ludoviciana_ Nutt.) “îmbjîˈgoa” according to
White Cloud, Bear Island Ojibwe, but “wîngûskw” or “bebejiˈgogaˈnji”
[horse medicine] by John Peper, another Bear Islander. Peper said the
Pillager Ojibwe used it as a horse medicine, but the Sioux smoked it.
Miners and frontiersmen prized it in their treatment of “mountain
fevers.”
=Large-leaved Aster= (_Aster macrophyllus_ L.), “naskosiˈ îcûs”. The
Flambeau Ojibwe consider this a feeble remedy but also good as a charm
in hunting. Young roots were used to make a tea to bathe the head for
headache. The informant giving this latter use called it “megîsiˈ bûg”
[eagle leaf]. There is no record of its use by the whites.
=Ox-eye Daisy= (_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_ L.). The Flambeau Ojibwe
had no name for this, as they said it was from the south, and they do
not use it.
=Canada Thistle= (_Cirsium arvense_ [L.] Scop.) “masaˈ nûck”
[prickly]. The Flambeau Ojibwe use the plant for a bowel tonic. Canada
Thistle is one of the worst American weeds, and white men have used the
dried plant for a diuretic and tonic.
=Common Thistle= (_Cirsium lanceolatum_ [L.] Hill), “jiˈ masaˈnûck”.
The Flambeau Ojibwe use the root of this for alleviating stomach cramps
in both men and women. The dried plant has been used by the whites as a
diuretic and tonic.
=Philadelphia Fleabane= (_Erigeron philadelphicus_ L.) “mîcaoˈgacan”
[odor of deer hoof]. The Pillager Ojibwe use the flowers to make a tea
to break fevers. The smoke of the dried flowers is inhaled to cure a
cold in the head. The disk flowers, pulverized, were snuffed up the
nostrils to cause the patient to sneeze and thus loosen a cold in the
head. The whites have used the Canada Fleabane as a remedy in the
pharmacopoeia, and also have used the Philadelphia Fleabane locally,
but for different purposes. It is diuretic rather than astringent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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