NativeTech: Native American Technology & Art
Uses for Sweetgrass
Sweetgrass is the hair of our Mother;
separately, each strand is not as strong as the strands are when
braided together. - Mary Ritchie
About Sweetgrass
Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) has a sweet, long-lasting aroma that
is even stronger when the grass has been harvested and dried and is
then moistened or burned. In the Great Lakes region, Sweetgrass was
historically referred to with the Latin name Torresia odorata
(Densmore 1974). There is also a western species of Sweetgrass
(Hierochloe occedentalis) that grows in redwood areas. Other common
names for Sweetgrass are Holy Grass (or Mary's Grass), Vanilla
Grass, Bluejoint, Buffalo Grass, and Zebrovka.
Sweetgrass is a circumboreal plant which is common above 40 degrees
north latitude in Asia, Europe, and North America (Walsh 1994). In
North America this fragrant grass grows regionally from Labrador to
Alaska, and south to New Jersy, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota,
Arizona and Washington (Larson 1993). Sweetgrass can be found
growing wild in wet meadows, low prairies, the edges of sloughs and
marshes, bogs, shaded streambanks, lakeshores, and cool mountain
canyons. Sweetgrass rhizomes and roots form a dense mat beneath the
soil surface (Walsh 1994).
Sweetgrass flowers from June through August and is easily identified
by the sweet vanilla-like fragrance of it's leaves, its 3-flowered
spikelets about 1/4 inch long, and its hairy lemmas. The stems of
the grass are upright and hollow, growing up to 2 feet tall, without
hairs. The leaves are elongated, narrow and flat (up to ΒΌ inch wide,
and are also hairless. The Sweetgrass flowers are borne in 3-
flowered spikelets, which are arranged in a panicle up to 4 inches
long. The spikelets themselves are about 1/4 inch long (the lower 2
flowers are male only, while the upper flower has both stamens and
pistils (USDA n.d.).
Sweetgrass usually grows among other grasses or shrubs; it is seldom
found in pure stands. Dried Sweetgrass foliage is fragrant because
of its coumarin content (Walsh 1994). Sweetgrass is traditionally
harvested in late June or early July. Sweetgrass harvested after
exposure to frost has little sent. Care should be taken to cut
Sweetgrass leaves and not to pull the grass up by its roots so it
can grow again the next year. Weeding Sweetgrass areas lessens
competition from other plants.
Uses for Sweetgrass in Medicine & Ceremony
Many Native tribes in North America use sweetgrass in prayer,
smudging or purifying ceremonies and consider it a sacred plant. It
is usually braided, dried, and burned. Sweetgrass braids smolder and
doesn't produce an open flame when burned. Just as the sweet scent
of this natural grass is attractive and pleasing to people, so is it
attractive to good spirits. Sweetgrass is often burned at the
beginning of a prayer or ceremony to attract positive energies.
Densmore (1974) describes that among the Chippewa (Ojibwa), "young
people, chiefly young men, carried a braid of sweet grass and cut
off 2 or 3 inches of it and burned it for perfume. Young men wore
two braids of sweet grass around their necks, the braids being
joined in the back and falling on either side of the neck like
braids of hair."
Sweetgrass is used to "smudge"; the smoke from burning sweetgrass is
fanned on people, objects or areas. Individuals smudge themselves
with the smoke, washing the eyes, ears, heart and body. Mi'kmaq have
long used sweetgrass as a smudging ingredient, often mixed with
other botanicals. Sweetgrass is one of the four medicines which
comprise a group of healing plants used by the people in Anishinabe,
Bode'wad mi, and Odawa societies. The other three are tobacco,
cedar, and sage (Mary Ritchie 1995).
Among the Chippewa wicko'bimucko'si (sweetgrass) is braided and used
in pipe-smoking mixtures along will red willow and bearberry, when
it is burned, prayers, thoughts and wishes rise with the smoke to
the creator who will hear them. Densmore (1974) describes the story
of "a hunting incident in which a party of men placed sweet grass on
the fire when the camp was in danger of starving and they were going
again to hunt. Medicine men kept sweet grass in the bag with their
medicinal roots and herbs".
A tea is brewed by Native Americans for coughs, sore throats,
chafing and venereal infections. It is also used by women to stop
vaginal bleeding and to expel afterbirth. It is warned that because
the roots contain coumarin, that sweetgrass tea may be considered a
carcinogenic. (Foster & Duke 1990)
Uses for Sweetgrass in Baskets & Crafts
Trudie Lamb Richmond, Schaghticoke, spoke to a Mohawk basket-maker
not long ago and asked her how she felt about weaving sweetgrass
into her baskets. Sweetgrass is used by her people in their
ceremonies and like tobacco is believed to have great power. It was
used long ago in the ceremonial baskets and continued to be
important even in those times when basket making became more
material and less spiritual. She told me she had thought about this
meaning and that was why she always talked to her baskets as she
made them. She said that she asked forgiveness for having to sell
the baskets, but that she needed the money to survive. Using the
sweetgrass would keep the baskets strong and alive, and she hoped
that the people who bought them would appreciate their significance.
The basket weaver explained that she never picked the grass without
making a tobacco offering. Her people believe that you have to give
something for everything you take; even a tobacco offering is an
acknowledgment. That is the old way, our way. (McMullen & Handsman
1987)
Ojibwe' on Manitoulin Island (among other places) make boxes from
white birch bark, which is bound on the edges with sweetgrass and
decorated with quills. My great grandfather, Chuhquat, made
sweetgrass baskets for his granddaughters (Mary Ritchie 1995).
Frances Densmore (1974) explains that Among the Chippewa
(Ojibwa), "strands of sweet grass 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 such articles, the coils of sweet grass being sewed around it."
Mi'kmaq tend to use sweetgrass as a decorative accent in basket-
work, very rarely will you find baskets made entirely of sweetgrass
and if you do, they are usually quite small (3-4" in diameter), have
a cover and are often used for small sewing notions such as buttons,
etc. (Capucine Plourde 1995).
All of the Waban'Aki or Dawnland People used sweetgrass in making
their baskets. The sweetgrass would be braided into small braids and
then woven into the ash baskets. The Waban-aki are made up of the
Abenaki, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy, all of the
northeast. An Abenaki friend of mine living in Portland Maine has a
basket that his mother made probably 70 or 80 years ago that is made
completely of sweetgrass and holds a sewing thimble like a glove
(Louis Annance 1995).
