Ethnobotany of the Meskwaki Indians / by Huron H. Smith.

274

BULLETIN, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE.

[Vol. 4

icine. This is not the ordinary love charm but the root is used to make
married people congenial again after they have been estranged. It is
placed, as is the Lobelia root, in some dish that they are going to eat
in common. It makes them love each other again.
STAPHYLEACEAE (BLADDERNUT FAMILY)
Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia L.), "tamakona'tfiki" (M). The
seeds of the bladdernut are considered sacred in that they are used in
the rattles of the medicine dance.
CONCLUSION
We are fortunate to find an Indian tribe which has retained so much
of the ancient lore, even though they are few in number. It was very
gratifying to find them so ready to help the author set down all the
facts. The Meskwaki have adopted the ideas of the white man, and
most of them are prosperous. They still find time to keep up their old
dream dance ceremonies and the third week in August will usually find
them engaged in their annual corn dance. They are well worth visiting,
as they are right on the Lincoln Highway.
The writer is also fortunate in having available the excellent ethnobotanical data of the late Dr. Win. Jones, collected so many years ago
when the tribe was even less spoiled by contact with the whites. The
present bulletin, coupled with the work of Dr. Truman Michelson, of
the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C., along linguistic lines,
pretty well preserves to posterity the history of the Meskwaki.