Finding the missing ingredient in Mother’s Black Salve: A brief example of the complexities of Anishinabek ethnobotany

By Alan Ojiig Corbiere and Laurie Leclair

Effective decolonization of historical documents begins when interpreters can see beyond the piece’s original intent in order to glean information that could prove useful to Indigenous scholars. Often, the takeaway from this exercise is something completely different from the original author’s intent. For example, Indian Agent’s reports bemoaning a community’s “unsettled” habits tell us about seasonal rounds and harvesting practices. A Hudson’s Bay Company Factory’s accounts over maple sugar trading may reveal knowledge about the size and health of sugar bushes within a certain traditional area. Church records give us important genealogical information. But still, scholars who attempt to distill useful facts from settler records are met with many complicating factors, among them: the writer’s world view, language used, period in which the work was written, and the place where a document was composed. Below, a simple recipe for a healing salve, presents an excellent example of these challenges.

Allen Salt was born near Belleville Ontario in 1815. His father was English and his mother was Mississauga. After graduating from the Toronto Normal School, he taught at the Methodist’s mission school at Alderville First Nation. He was ordained as a missionary in his 39th year. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Salt preached extensively throughout northwestern and southwestern Ontario. A prodigious writer, he left behind several journals and diaries beginning in the 1850’s and continuing to 1902. These works provide an invaluable collection of genealogical data as well as socio-cultural information about the several communities that he visited. Occasionally, Salt incorporated miscellany within these journals, including at least two medicinal recipes. This one, produced in its entirety below, was called “Mother’s Black Salve For Curing Sores of all sorts” and was given to him by a Munsee Elder who inherited it from her mother. The recipe reads:

Mother’s Black Salve
For curing Sores of all sorts

Scrofula Sores, Mortification, Erysephelas, Cuts, Wounds etc.
Take the inside bark of Tammarack, White Oak, Hemlock and Balsam, equal portions
One handful of Kajikebahkuk (which is sweet fern) “It grows in around Port Huron, Sarnia & Parry Sound”
Boil the above altogether in a brass kettle that holds about 1 ½ pailfuls of water till the strength of them are infused in the boiling water.
Then strain through a linen cloth, boil it down til it looks like molasses. Then take Beeswax about the size of a hens egg, cut it up in small pieces, same quantity of Mutton Tallow ¼ of a size of hard soap, Pure gum of Tamarack about the same quantity as that of Beeswax, boil till it thickens stirring till it is thoroughly mixed.
Take the kettle off the fire keep stirring it with a stick till it cools. Spread the salve on a clean linen cloth – put it on the sore, change three times a day.
Before boiling down, take some of the liquid to keep for washing the sore part before  [interpolated: the] salve is applied.

In turn, Salt gave the recipe to his son Allan Salt Jr. who committed it to paper early in 1897. His sister Eva recorded it in the family journal in 1910. Most of the ingredients are easily recognizable: the barks of tamarack, white oak, hemlock, and balsam, beeswax, and lanolin. Curiously, although Eva chose to write the directions and ingredients out in English, she used the Anishinaabemowin word kajikebahkuk to describe a particular plant. She believed the English name to be “sweet fern” but is kajikebahkuk really sweet fern? The remainder of this article seeks to identify kajikebahkuk as it would have been identified and used by an Anishinabek person familiar with the plant in its location, near Aamjiwnaang First Nation territory or Parry Sound area.

Dr. Ian McCallum from Munsee Delaware Nation was not sure if the word kajikebahkuk was Lenape or Anishinaabemowin, whereas Dr. Alan Ojiig Corbiere, Bne doodem, from M’Chigeeng First Nation, believed it to be the latter. In his blog, Creator’s Garden, Joseph Pitawanakwat writes, “Sweet fern is traditionally called nagazhiim mshikiki, which means intestine medicine. It is used for diarrhoea, constipation, diverticulitis, IBD’s like Crohn’s and Colitis, to name a few.” Similarly, various nineteenth-century botanical guides have cited sweet fern for its digestive properties, not as a topical solution for wounds nor skin ailments.

Working on the supposition that kajikebahkuk could be gaagigebag, or a derivative of gaagigebag, such as gaagigebag, gagîge’ bûg, or gaagigebagoons, we identified several plants which may have been the Black Salve ingredient.

Here are three of the most likely matches:

Gaagigebagoons, kagigaebugohnse
English name: Pussy Toes
Latin Name: Antennaria specias plantaginifolia

This plant grows in dry soil, grasslands alongside bracken fern, dry soil grasses, blueberry shrubs, and blackberry brambles. Sometimes, you can find it growing alongside scrub oak and hazelnut trees. Gaagigebagoons has been described as a woolly-stemmed perennial plant that grows from 4 to 16 inches high and forms dense mats. The bottom leaves are spoon-shaped, and dull green in colour. The top of the leaves is hairy and their undersides have prominent veining. The leaves which grow along the stem are lance-shaped. They are smaller in size and fewer in number than the leaves clustered at the base of the plant. The plant blooms from early spring until June, showing white flowers at the very top of the plant. There are many species of pussy toes and they are very similar in appearance. Traditionally, tea was made from the plant as a gynecological aid after childbirth, other uses include relief from stomach aches and as an expectorant.

Gaagigebag, Gagîge’ bûg (1)
English Names: Lesser Cat’s Foot, Lesser Pussy Toes, Mountain Everlasting, Cudweed,
Latin Names: Antennaria neglecta

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission noted that gaagigebag or gagîge’ bûg can grow in dense patches in dry fields, prairies, or sandy woods. Because of the harsh conditions in which it grows, the lesser cat’s foot often will not grow past four inches in height. The bottom leaves form a rosette pattern and are covered with white hairs. The flowers are white or purple and like the pussy toes plant described above, begins to bloom in April, but bloom time is extended until July. Huron H. Smith’s Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe Indians (1932) recorded that the Flambeau Ojibwe of Wisconsin used gagîge’ bûg as a tea to be “given to a mother after childbirth, as a means to purge the afterbirth and heal them internally.” As a popular herbal remedy, the lesser cat’s foot plant can be made into a poultice and used on bruises, sprains, boils, and swellings. Aaron Rusak, Protected Areas Manager with Georgian Bay Land Trust, noted that he is most familiar with this species of pussy toes, which he also calls gaagige’bag, but cautions that Western science had identified at least six different species of Antennaria and each can be difficult to identify in the field.

Ga’gîge’ bûg (2), gaagigebag/oon
English Names: Prince’s Pine, Pipsissewa
Latin Name: Chimaphila umbellate

This plant was also recorded as used by both the Flambeau Ojibwa and the Menomini “namely as a tea for treating stomach troubles”. Settler herbalists also used Chimaphila as a tonic and diuretic. This tonic helps to keep the urethra, bladder, and ureters healthy. The plant in various forms can be used to treat renal dropsy, scrofulous conditions, chronic ulcers, and skin lesions. It can be taken internally or used as a liniment rubbed on the body to relieve pain from strained or sprained muscles. These qualities closely match the Black Salve’s curative properties against, “sores of all sorts, scrofula sores, mortification, erysipelas, cuts, wounds, etc.”. Other traditional uses include making an infusion from the root to be applied to sore eyes, or drinking a tea made from the plant to relieve stomach troubles. When used in its entirety, it was a beneficial treatment for certain sexually transmitted diseases. Gaagigebag/ga’gige bûg/ Gaagigebag/oon is described as a waxy-looking plant, about 4 to 12 inches tall, that is found in dry sandy woods. The leaves of this plant are spiral and shiny, with white or pinkish flowers, which also appear waxy and are clustered at the tip of the plant. The plant can be found in forests close to stands of red maple, white pine, northern pin oak, as well as aspen and birch.

As the three samples shown above illustrated, it is difficult to identify plants using only historical or academic accounts, even when we are working with Anishinaabemowin terminology. While similarities exist between Anishinabek and Settler’s uses of medicinal plants, Indigenous nomenclature, and categorization for plants differ markedly from the Linnaean taxonomy that Euro-Canadians are used to. Huron Smith wrote:

… one plant may bear several common names, according to different individuals in different sections of the country and again, one name may be given to several plants as in the case of plants used as “reviviers”. …The name is usually descriptive…The medicine name usually tells what the plant looks like, where it may be found, some peculiar taste or property, or its chief use. Often a termination is added signifying the plural of a nous or the part of the plant used, such as the wood, the leaf, the flower, the root, or the berry or fruit. 

This is the case with our three examples, all being identified by gaagige or a derivative of gaagige (everlasting/forever). In Anishinaabemowin, the final morpheme, “bag” refers to leaf shape, appearance, character, etc. Gaagigebag, “forever leaf,” is the word for wintergreen in some dialects. Or as illustrated above, adding “oons” to the end of the word describes the plant as having a leafy nature or accentuates the importance of the plant’s leaf. In the examples above, we see the same or very similar names for all three plants while a European-style classification system has catalogued them as three different plants: Chimaphila umbellata, Antennaria neglecta, and the larger Antennaria species plantaginifolia.

To identify the elusive kajikebahkuk plant, we need to go beyond written accounts and perhaps even the specifics of language and move towards land-based learning. In Iskatewizaagegan (Shoal lake) Plant Knowledge, an Anishinaabe Ethnobotany of Northwestern Ontario, Iain J. Davison-Hunt, Phyllis Jack, Edward Mandamin, and Brennan Wapioke examined Anishinabek systems of plant classification concluding that such exercises cannot be done in a vacuum. Rather, Indigenous forms of ethnobotany are holistic and Elder-led, fueled by a belief that “plant knowledge resides in the plants of a place and the relationships between persons and plants of that place.” Knowledge surrounding the harvesting of a certain plant and the associated ceremonies connected to its harvest, preparation, or the healing process is also embedded into this teaching.

Rusak noted that both the pussy toes species and Pipsissewa are found in the Aamjiwnaang territory and near Parry Sound, the former preferring pine environments and the latter growing in woodland areas alongside hemlock. He also suggested that Anaphalis margaritacea, or Pearly Everlasting, may be an option. He provided the following reference, which adds to this interesting exercise:

Painted Turtle [a Natural Resources professor at Lac Courte Oreilles Community College, Wisconsin] uses pearly everlasting for an undisclosed use…She explained that the LCO Ojibway use the word sage to refer to sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina), or pearly everlasting or prairie sage (Artemisia ludoviciana) All three of these plants are smudged, but the locally abundant sweet fern is the preferred sage. The small leaves of pearly everlasting are not fragrant, but the flower head is aromatic when dried and smoldered. It is known as basibaguk (small leaf) in Anishinaabemowin, and the flowers were steamed for rheumatism and paralysis during the early 1900…

Pearly everlasting, prairie sage, and pussytoes are all in the same family. Rusak continued:

The reference to calling sweet fern sage instead of pearly everlasting makes me think that there’s a chance that names for sweet fern and pearly everlasting could have been interchanged at some point if different groups were meeting each other. This might also be the reason the sweet fern is mentioned in the manuscript. If sweet fern and pearly everlasting had the same name depending on which group you talked to, it’s possible that the plant they’re referencing as sweet fern in the manuscript is actually pearly everlasting.

Colette Isaac, Lands Director and member of Moose Deer Point First Nation, suggests that because the recipe calls for a “handful” of kajikebahkuk, the plant was probably plentiful. Like Rusak, she also questioned whether sweet fern was indeed the correct plant and that the Salt family chose to define it as kajikebahkuk. Her history recalls that the Isaac family came through Muncey before settling at Moose Deer Point. She wonders if kajikebahkuk held a different meaning for Pottawatomie.

So is the missing ingredient gaagigebagoons or kagigaebugohnse or gaagigebag or gagîge’ bûg or basibaguk? Could it be a variation of Pussy Toes or Pipsissewa, Pearly Everlasting, or sage? Could it be sweet fern? Or none of the above? Any further attempt at identifying the missing ingredient calls for experience and context. These can only be provided through the participation of those Elders and Knowledge Keepers who have a deep connection to the land, in this case, the area where these plants are picked. While much more research is needed to prepare the Black Salve recipe, this brief foray into Anishinabek ethnobotany demonstrates the powerful and essential interconnection between knowledge and land.