The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

your elk. Although the white wood of larger stalks made it a useful, sought-after resource, the primary
uses of devil’s club were medicinal and ceremonial. Tea made by boiling whole chunks of the stalk was
used as a blood purifier and treatment for illness in general. Nets were rubbed with devil’s club so fish
would be drawn to enter them. Fishermen carried small carvings of fish from devil’s club for luck.
Fireweed (k’aliba)- the stems were steamed and eaten and the sweet syrupy stems were prized. Could
also be eaten raw by peeling off the silky outer covering. The sap was sucked out of the stem like a straw
and used to sweeten sour things. The fluffy cotton was mixed with other things like cottonwood fluff and
dog hair and used for weaving.
Ginger (hac’hit’adapat, “good smelling/tasting plant”)- The big leaves are used in the steam pit. Tea
from the leaves was used for depression or loss of appetite. Leaves were dried in the sun for two days before
using, but if they got too dry they lost their smell. The leaves are also used in a potpourri with moss
for baby cradleboards and mattresses.
Goat’s beard (t’lililixpat)- used as a medicine by grinding the root into pulp and smear it on open sores.
If the sore is open, drink tea made of ground plants if it won’t heal. The tea was also used as a tonic and
blood purifier.
Indian paintbrush (p’ic’habixa’a, “red flower”)- The whole plant incl. flowers but not roots was crushed
and made into a tea that cause menstruation to be regular, sometimes accompanied by rubbing the vulva
with the blood of a male kwid, “black surf duck.”
Kinnickinnick (qaboqwol, “mixture”)- leaves were mixed with other barks or the burrs of bedstraw(and
later, tobacco) and smoked by the old people in pipes. Quileute smoking involved inhaling smoke inbreathing
again and again without allowing any to smoke escape the lungs, causing dizziness and, often,
unconsciousness. The berries could be eaten, although considered tasteless, and were sometimes used to
stuff birds while cooking (adding a few salalberries that were ripe at the same time).
Labrador tea (kwaxwachiyil, “skinny leaves”)- Used for tea in treatment of chills, illness or for external
application for itches and eruptions…the Quileute did not make tea as a beverage or merely soothing
drink; they only made tea as a treatment for a particular malady.
Miner’s lettuce (p’ip’ic’hist’sip, “red on the ground”)- A pregnant woman rubbed her body with it and
yarrow to have a healthy, strong baby. Also made into a tea to cause cathartic urination. It was ground
and rubbed into the hair to treat dandruff.
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