Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

© 2004 by CRC Press
The Ethnobotany 539
álamo (based on ala, wing, in both Spanish and
Portuguese; presumably from a resemblance of
the fluttering leaves to wings on birds)
amocholhe (Delaware)
crintheann (trembling, Gaelic)
eadha (Gaelic)
poplar (from Latin populus, spelled ‘‘popler’’ by
Turner [1548] 1965); chopo (from Latin populus,
Spanish); choupo (Portuguese); Pappel (German);
pappel [popel] (Dutch); peuple (French);
pioppo (Italian); poppel (Norwegian, Swedish)
squejóna (Onondaga)
Populus deltoides (deltoid or triangular, from the
outline of the leaf)
álamo (cottonwood, Texas); alamo cottonwood (a
redundant name)
ashumbala [shumbala] (Choctaw); hashoomala [hasho’mala,
hashoomala’, ashomala, ashoomala,
ashoomala’] (questionably from hasha, leaf, im,
its, ala /?, Chickasaw)
ba’-k’a hi (a sacred tree, used in rites, Osage); chan
ya’hu (chan, tree, ya’hu, peel off, in reference to
their use of the bark as food for horses, Dakota);
maa zhon (maa, cotton, zhon, tree, Omaha-
Ponca); wága chan (wága, take off, chan, tree,
Dakota)
[eastern, southern, yellow] cottonwood (‘‘cotton,’’
originally the wool surrounding the seeds of
Gossypium, brought into English about A.D. 1300
from French coton, which in turn came from
Arabic al-qoton, with the deletion of the article.
Lewis and Clark called the trees ‘‘Cotton Timber’’
at their winter quarters with the Mandan in
1804. Although the OED 1971 says that ‘‘cotton’’
was combined with ‘‘wood’’ about 1823 to
indicate the cottony fluff around the seeds of
these trees, ‘‘cottonwood’’ was also used in the
Lewis and Clark journal of 1804.)
ete hesha kaklahashe (noisy leaf tree; from ete, tree,
hissi, leaf, chashahachi, rattle, Choctaw)
hecélwv [hecelwv] (‘‘poplar,’’ Muskogee; apparently
not cognate with Creek tvɬ tahkv)
itti’ tohbi’ (itti’, tree, tohbi’, white, Chickasaw)
laird (from lier, to bind, related to Latin ligare;
some books specifically mention fascicles or
bundles, perhaps of wood, Quebec)
natakaaru (Pawnee)
peuplier (from Old French peuple, still in use by
some country people, from Latin populus, dated
ca. 1170, Quebec)
[Carolina-, necklace-, water-] poplar
pû’titu kayudi’ (Ofo)
tai [tay] (Atakapa)
tvɬ tahkv [tarrahkv, tartahkv, tvrtakhv, taɬ tahkv,
taɬ tv’hkv, taɬɬahkv] (Creek); taɬ tahká [taɬ ahká]
(Koasati)
ya-hee-hwai [ä’hi’ñ, ä-heeñ] (ä-heeñ, principal,
hwai, tree, Kiowa)
Populus heterophylla (variable leaves)
[black, swamp] cottonwood
downy poplar
According to Greek legend, Hercules was wearing
a crown of poplar twigs when he returned from Hades
after vanquishing Cerberus, the guardian hell-hound
(Baumann 1993). The Greek tree forming his crown
was the white poplar (Populus alba), and the twocolored
leaves symbolized respect for the Chthonian
deities. The dark side of the leaf represented the
Underworld, and the light side the living. This tree
became the arbor populi (tree of the people) to the
Romans, and it was used to decorate public places
such as the Piazza Poppolo in Rome (Hocking 1997).
Just how much that Greek association with the
Underworld affected different cultures is partly indicated
by the dominance of their word in languages
throughout Western Europe. The species is now
cultivated as far north as Norway and Sweden where
it is known as sølvpoppel (silver poplar).
In a parallel view, people of the Missouri River
region also held the cottonwood as sacred but surely
for different reasons. The Sacred Pole of the Omaha
was made from cottonwood, and the bark was used as
fuel for roasting the clays to make paints for heraldic
and symbolic paintings on their bodies (Gilmore
1919).
Many people throughout the range of Populus in
North America have eaten the inner bark (Moerman
1998). The Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and Dakota ate the
inner bark and sap, particularly in the spring (Gilmore
1919, Moerman 1998). Other people eating various
parts of P. deltoides include the Coeur d’Alene,
Flathead, Kutenai, Montana, Ojibwa, Omaha, Pawnee,
Pima, and Ponca (King 1984, Moerman 1998). In
the southwestern United States, many people ate P.
deltoides ssp. wislizeni (Moerman 1998).
At least four dye colors were obtained from P.
deltoides. The Cheyenne used the buds to make green,
brown, and red dyes, although the methods are not
given (Moerman 1998). Missouri River people also
used the buds to make yellow dyes (Gilmore 1919).
Tull (1999) indicates that yellow may be obtained with
alum, tin, or chrome as mordants. Green results from
copper or iron mordants.
Wood from Populus was an important resource
throughout its range. Swanton (1946) found the