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Items found on this web site are NOT Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States.
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SweetgrassSmudging supplies has to include hard-to-find Sweetgrass Braids. These smell so good. Nice fresh braids. approx. 20" long.
$5.25 or 3 for $15.00
Sweetgrass was and still is used ceremonially through burning the dried and braided grass stems for an incense or smudge. The fragrant smoke is used for purification and to carry prayers to the Great Spirit. Hierochloë literally translates from Greek as sacred (hieros) and grass (chloë) or “holy grass” (Hitchcock et al. 1973). Indian people call sweetgrass the “grass that never dies.” Even when it is cut, it retains its fragrance and spirit (Youngbuck pers. comm. 1999). Today, sweetgrass is used inter-tribally throughout the country. Sweetgrass was used ceremonially by many tribes, including the Omaha, Ponca, Kiowa, Dakota, Lakota, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Winnebago (Jordan 1965, Moerman 1986). The Cheyenne, Blackfeet, and Lakota use sweetgrass in the Sun Dance (Kindscher 1992, Hart 1976). Sweetgrass symbolizes life’s growth for the Cheyenne (Ibid.). Sweetgrass was the most popular perfumery of the Blackfeet, who braided it and kept it with their clothes like a sachet or carried it in small bags (McClintock 1909). The Cheyenne mixed sweetgrass with pineapple weed (Matricaria matricarioides) to use as a perfume (Hart 1976). The Thompson Indians used an infusion of the plant as a wash for the hair and body (Moerman 1986). The Blackfeet and the Gros Ventre used sweetgrass as a hair rinse to achieve a lustrous shine (Hart 1976). Blackfeet women made a tea from sweetgrass that was drunk to stop vaginal bleeding after birth and to expel the placenta (Hellson 1974). Women burned sweetgrass braids after their moon time to finish the cleansing. Blackfeet men drank sweetgrass tea to treat venereal infections. Both sexes drank a tea from this plant to treat coughs and sore throats. Windburn and chapping were treated through an infusion of sweetgrass stems soaked in water or a salve of sweetgrass water and grease. The sweetgrass water was also used as an eyewash. Sweetgrass was mixed with seeds of meadow rue (Thalictrum occidentale) to make a tea to clear congested nasal passages (Kindscher 1992). The Karok of northern California used an infusion of sweetgrass to treat women who had suffered a miscarriage (Strike 1994). Pregnant women drank this infusion to arrest fetus growth. The Karok also fed sweetgrass to sick dogs. Among the Chippewa, sweetgrass was used as an incense or smudge in ceremony, as a spiritual medicine, and in basketweaving (Densmore 1974). The use of incense is more characteristic of the Plains Indians than of the Algonquian tribes (Ibid.). According to Densmore, “Men would smudge before hunting to purify body and spirit. Medicine men kept sweetgrass in the bag with their medicinal roots and herbs. Strands of sweetgrass were made into coiled basketry by means of cotton thread. This took the form of bowls, oval and round, and of flat mats. Birch bark was sometimes used as the center of these baskets, with the coils of sweetgrass being sewed around it.” Sweetgrass was used in coiled baskets, primarily in the northeast. The Paiute used sweetgrass woven with willow bark in the hoods of cradleboards. The Central-Northern Algonkians, Iroquoians, and Hurons edged woodsplint basketry and vessel borders with sweetgrass (Turnbaugh et al. 1986). Central-Northern Algonkian peoples are known for their production of flexible weft-twined bags, and some created bundle-coiled baskets of sweetgrass. Northern New England basketry intermixed wood splints with twisted or braided sweetgrass in one basket (Pelletier 1982, Turnbaugh et al. 1986). In the northeast, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Winnebago, Menominee, Mohawk, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Abenaki (Tur
Grass Family (Poaceae). Sweetgrass is a fragrant, rhizomatous, perennial grass that reaches a height of 7 dm. (30 in.). The stems are hollow and hairless with open sheaths. The leaf blades are flat at maturity, usually glabrous, 10-30 cm. (3.9-11.8 in.) long. The sweetgrass inflorescence is an open panicle 4-9 cm. (1.6-3.5 in.) long; the lower branches are drooping to spreading. The spikelets are three-flowered, the two lowest florets staminate (male) and the uppermost is perfect (both female and male). Sweetgrass is an early blooming plant and flowers from May to July.
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