Sunroot use among First Nations

[SHEA KATHLEEN DORETTE]

Melvin R Gilmore's _Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River
Region_ (University of Nebraska Press, 1991; paperback ISBN 0-8032-7034-8)
contains about a paragraph on Helianthus tuberosus (p. 79) and gives the
common English, Dakota, Omaha, Winnebago, and Pawnee names.  This book,
with which you're probably familiar, is a reprint of the 1919 original,
the 3rd Annual Report of the BAE.  A more recent book, _Edible Wild Plants
of the Prairie_ (University Press of Kansas, 1987; paperback ISBN
0-7006-0325-5), written by a local author here in Kansas, Kelly Kindscher,
has a four-page write-up for Helianthus tuberosus, with a drawing of it on
a fifth page (pp. 129-33).  He gives the Cheyenne and Pawnee names for the
plant and several common English names in addition to the Latin scientific
name.  (You might also be interested in Kelly Kindscher's _Medicinal Wild
Plants of the Prairie_, although it doesn't mention Helianthus tuberosus.)
I hope this information helps.

Kathy Shea