Meacham's CJ in Oregon 1870

[Mike Cleven]

Aron Faegre wrote:
>
> Mike Cleven wrote:
>
> > Aron Faegre wrote:
> > >
> > > OK Mike,
> > >
> > > Quit making fun of me.  But I'll give it a try.  Please forward BC recipe for
> >  kinnikinick and directions for use! Wasn't making fun of you; it's just
> > kinnikinick's a fairly common thing upcountry, and more people used to smoke it
> > in the old days.  I'm trying to find my "Food Plants" book which might have some
> > recipes or mixes. MC
>
> Don't worry Mike, I'm just messing with you.  I did get some more detailed info
> from Piegeena (thanks to your web site I could also translate his name) who is on
> the List.  He said:

I'm easy to mess with these days, and not just because of....

Thanks to my own website which I haven't looked at in ages I haven't
thought to look at Piegeena's name as a Chinook one; please illuminate
this iktwit (simpleton, to coin a term).


> "Klahowya  -- here uva ursi is dried and mixed with red willow inner bark,small
> amount of dried mullien and nicotania.  The red willow (red osier dogwood)
> will cause a mild euphoria.  The term "kinnikinick" is generally used to
> describe similar smoking mixtures."
>
> I didn't know what mullien was, so Piege explained:
>
> "Mullien is a plant that grows on the valley floor up to about 5,000' elev.it has a
> long center stalk, up to about 4' closely covered with small yellow flowers when in
> bloom. The leaves are rather large and fuzzy with a pale green color. I believe its
> use in kinnikinick is to mellow out the harshness of the other ingrediants,
> although some use it alone for asthma and other lung ailments. The leaves can also
> be used like a poultice/bandaid combo for bleeding and I have heard that they make
> good wicks when dipped in tallow."

Mmmmm.  Sounds tasty.  Mmmmmm.


> And while at it I'll add my notes from last weekend's perusal on the subject of
> kinnikinnik:
>
> The Natick Dictionary (BAE Bulletin 25) p36:  "kinukkinum ... he mixes ...
> kinnikinnic and killikinnic of western tribes, - tobacco mixed with the bark of the
> red osier (Cornum sericea) or leaves of bear-berry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) ..."
>
> Baraga, Ojibway Dictionary p189:  "kiniginan ... I mix some obj. with another
> object, (dry objects;) ..."
>
> Beardy, Ojibwe Severn Dialect: p230:  "kinika ... mix"
>
> Gunther's Ethnobotany of Western Washington discusses mixing arctostaphylos leaves,
> yew needles, salal leaves, and red-osier dogwood bark as common smoking materials
> (pp16, 42, 43, 44).

The yew needles are interesting; is that the same kind of yew they make
the anti-cancer agent from, perhaps?  Dogwood's also pretty medicinal;
we used to have huge ones in our neighbourhood; the same disease that
destroyed the chestnuts did in the Dogwoods, I think; or else Dogwoods
just die when they reach a certain age/size.


> Thompson Ethnobotany p212 discusses drying and roasting arctostaphylos leaves and
> using alone, or mixed with tobacco (originally Nicotiana attenuata, later N.
> tabacum "Whiteman's tobacco" ... for smoking in a pipe ... too much kinnikinnick
> smoking was said to make one dizzy.

Ya-hoo.  That's about all it was good for, from what I heard.  I never
smoked enough to know.

> Now, with all this knowledge it's too bad I don't enjoy smoking.  But it is very
> interesting that kinnikinnik refers really to the *mixing* of things, rather than
> to a specific *thing*.

Aren't there examples in candy and nuts and stuff where one component
has become the generic name for the whole; or rather one component has
come to be known by the name applied to the whole, the mix, as in this
case?

MC