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

1928]

SMITH, ETHNOBOTANY OF THE MESKWAKI.

207

and made into a drink for the treatment of gonorrhea. The root is
also known in specimen 5104 as "cagwaskwa piipyigwigita," and it is
used as a tea for one who is urinating blood. Specimen 3606 was
doubtfully determined as Diervilla root and has the name "a'kepicawitci" [when they are unable to urinate]. It has approximately the
same use as the foregoing. Eclectics among the whites have used the
fruit for its cathartic and emetic properties. The plant is also valued
by them as diuretic and as a means to alleviate itching in the urethral
tract.
Glaucous Honeysuckle (Lonicera dioica L.), "tipopa'kwisik"
(P P). The berry and sometimes the root bark is used in a tea to
cure worms in pregnant women, who are poor and weakly. It is
also used in combination with other roots. All the local species of
Lonicera have been used by the white man as medicine, though only
by eclectic practitioners. Many have a more than local repute as emetic
and cathartic drugs.
Common Elder (Sambucus canadensis L.),20 "pakwana'mishi'
(M) "papasikana"tik" (P P). The Potawatomi name is very much
like the Menomini and Ojibwe names for the same plant. The use by
Meskwaki and Prairie Potawatomi is different, however. The root
bark of the elder is used by them to free the lungs of phlegm. The bark
tea is used only in extremely difficult cases of parturition, when the
baby is born dead. Elder flowers have some local repute among white
men as a medicine, and in infusion are used on sores, blisters, hemorrhoids, etc. Young shoots of elder have been gathered for their inner
bark which is diuretic and purgative, when used in large amounts. It
is also a repellant to flies and insects, which find the odor highly objectionable. White men say that the root of the elder is extremely poisonous when taken internally.
Wolfberry (Symphoricarpos occidentalis Hook.), "tatepa'siki"'
[twisted] (M), "tatopa'kwasit" [twisted] (P P). The root of this
makes a tea which is drunk to cleanse the afterbirth and to enable
quicker convalescence. There is no record of its use by white men.
Tinker's Weed (Triosteum perfoliatum L.), shown in plate XLV,
fig. 3, "tcekwakwate"' [boils quickly, or root that softens when cooked]
(M), "shikwakwoti'" [same meaning] (P P). The root is used in
"Present series, Vol. IV, pt. 1, pl. XVI, fig. 2.