Some Siouan cooking habits.

[Rankin, Robert L]

> I have seen the same thing among Ponca people, but it was many years ago. I can't recall the name of the inner bark off hand. As I recall, that had a great many uses (including this horrid tasting tea that could whip any cold known to man). 
 
Gilmore (1919) mentions it could be used as a laxative too, like Castor Oil or mineral oil can be today.  But he also says it was used by the Omahas in cooking/boiling meat.  He says they just liked the taste, but it's really interesting that the Dhegiha speakers (and maybe others) and African groups halfway around the world independently discovered that there were health advantages to using the mucosa from inner bark to counter the massive amounts of cholesterol that primarily hunting or cattle-raising peoples ingested.  Nobody knew what "cholesterol" was back then, but they certainly  figured out that you would be healthier if you used that bark with the meat grease/broth.  
 
I had a note from Ryan Red Corn who says the Osages used slippery elm bark the same way.  So we've established that the Omahas, Poncas, Kaws and Osages all used the slippery elm bark in this way.  (The Omaha term given by Gilmore is 'e-zhoN zhide gthigthide [slippery red elm] ).
 
> There was also inner bark from dogwood tree (also having medicinal qualities) and a few others. If they were boiling big tubs of meat they would often throw long twists of that bark in there.

> Grandma use to cook water lilly roots when she could get them. She claimed that they had medicinal qualities, but I never ran that one down. They were a big favorite, but hard to get (the northern variety being preferred).

The Kaws prepared those too, but Mrs. Rowe's granddaughter says she doesn't care for the taste and texture nowadays.  :-)

> There were all kinds of other things that old Ponca folks used to call "real Indian food", but it might be too long to go into here. I have a list of Ponca names for some of them if that would help you. Unfortunately, not many cook that way anymore.
 
I'd really appreciate your sharing the list.  It is fascinating the number of these traditional plant uses had some very special qualities.  The gooey inner bark of the elm, acacia and mimosa trees contain chemicals the botanists call "saponins" that have the cholesterol-reducing property.

> Also, I was somewhat amazed to find how many of the names Gilmore had collected (Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region) were/are still retained.

Tom Leonard