A Fragrant Air

If you are lucky, you might be on the prairie and realize suddenly that the air around you is fragrant. Likely you are near a bed of sweetgrass. This grass is so eagerly sought and harvested that it disappears, but it is available commercially for gardens and now is the time to plant it. Braids, which is how the grass is managed, sell for about $4. They make excellent gifts as they are a sign of blessing and safety. I have never heard of anyone being allergic to the smell.

There are three other plants with the same sweetness. One is sweet clover, a brushy plant with small yellow flowers that horses love to eat. Another is balsam pine, or sweet pine, which is what the Sweetgrass Hills should be named, since little sweetgrass grows there, but sweet pine does. These fragrant needles are used some places to fill novelty pillows, sometimes with a little ditty on them: “I balsam when I pine fir yew.” And balsam poplar has the smell in spring when it buds. Nice ladies used to soak the buds in water and dip their handkerchiefs to make them smell sweet.

Sweetgrass will grow as far north as Zone 1. (Browning, Montana, is Zone 3.) It likes moist sandy soil and burned-over places. Some people check the margins of the railroad tracks where the train wheels are likely to have set fires and where there are often “borrow ditches” where cat tails grow because water accumulates there.

Often when walking on the prairie, one smells sweetgrass, but can’t find it. Outside of human cultivation the grass may grow as scattered strands among other grasses. It is easier to see these when the light is coming in low from close to the horizon, as at dawn or dusk. The old people say that sometimes the grass “hides” and cannot be found until the searcher has the right frame of mind. That might be an attitude of patience and gratitude, so that one becomes observant and welcoming. If one sees the grass in a renewed way, sometimes it will spring into perception on all sides.

Scientists say that sweetgrass is “feral,” meaning that it was once cultivated by humans but has returned to being wild. The evidence includes the difficulty of growing the plants from seeds (only a small percentage of the seeds will germinate) and its need to be regularly harvested to keep from choking itself out. Probably people took small plugs with them to plant in likely spots, so that when they came back by that place on their regular seasonal travels, the grass would be ready. Something similar was done with tobacco and sarvisberries.

If one looks at a world globe from the top so that the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Sea, one will see the “circumpolar” (around the pole) world. In recent times this sea has been frozen but at different times in history it has been open, at least in the warmest months. Scientists believe it may be opening again now. The area around this Arctic Sea was occupied by people who had a shared or at least traded culture. The stories and religious assumptions are similar. The indigenous peoples of the far Siberian or Scandinavian north may have similar practices and equipment. Another thing they share is sweetgrass.

Sweetgrass should dry in a dark place where air circulates. Braid strands before it is dried or after it has dried a little bit, but not after it is dried enough to be stiff. Without any further treatment this sweetgrass will smell pleasant. Put it with linen or clothing as a sachet in the same way that lavendar is used.

As a smudge, sweetgrass is crumbled onto hot coals in the ceremonial setting. It might be combined with some other substance, like sweet pine. The ritual leader will provide directions. As a smudge in a home, it is easy to keep a braid near the stove and cut a bit onto the still-warm burner. When I make my morning coffee, I use the hot burner to smudge a little sweetgrass while I make my morning prayer. When much sweetgrass is available, it might be strewn on the floor of a tent or as in Russia on all Saint’s Day, strewn on the steps of the church.

SOURCES:
(Use Google to find)
Wakeda Trading Post: dried braids of grass
The Sweetgrass Company: soaps and baskets
The Wandering Bull, Inc. dried braids 1-800-206-6544
Canadian Sweetgrass: 1-204-525-4552
Chicester, Inc. braids 1-800-206-6544
Primitive Originals: braids
Grasslands, Inc. starter plugs
Redwood City Seed Company: plugs. Box 361, Redwood City, CA 94064 Phone: (650-325-7333) Fax (650) 325-4056
Plants of the Southwest 1-800-788-7333

Learning about sweetgrass reveals two things about the Old People of the prairie. The first is their pride in their homes and their determination to make them beautiful and pleasant shelters. The work of women included a constant airing and scenting of the contents of the lodge. The strong summer sun was an excellent agent for bleaching and disinfecting and the wind could give materials a good thrashing.

The other is that women spent their lives in close examination of the ground because they constantly gathered edible parts of plants. They knew the plants even when the leaves weren’t calling attention to themselves by flowering, and understood the cycle of plant lives. With their digging sticks always handy, they constantly tested the skin of the earth for what was just under the surface. Many times the buffalo were scarce so that it was not the mighty hunter on horseback who fed the people, but rather the old granny with her familar bit of strong worn wood.

We can easily plant sweetgrass in our yards, so that this source of blessing and pleasure is always close at hand.