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The Nez Perce and 

Use of the Common Camas

Bryan Peterson

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What is a Camas?
The Harvest
Preparation and Cooking
Preservation of the Camas
Where Are All the Camas?
How to Identify a Camas Prairie
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

There is no doubt that Native Americans utilized the environment in which they lived. The many uses of forest products as well as the multiple uses of land topography contributed to the survival of many great tribes. The utilization of fire, for instance, to clear brush and other impediments from the forest floors so as to more easily gather acorns, is a good example. Burning also prepared a seedbed that was rich in nutrients for plant uptake. This made natural regeneration as well as propagation of other plants very easy. Native Americans utilized the new growth of forbs and nutritious greens, which followed a burn, to attract game such as deer and elk that was hunted for food. The open savanna terrain that fire created was also more suitable for hunting because of the increased visibility. Fire helped many different tribes stimulate the natural production of food. However, the purpose of this paper is to educate on the Nez Perce usage of Camas.

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What is a Camas?

Common Camas, or (Camassia Quamash), is a plant that grows in open savannas or in open wet prairie lands distributed throughout the United States. It is a native plant in the states and appears to be a flower with a two to three inch edible bulb. Many different tribes utilized this plant, such as the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce are a tribe based in Idaho and depended on the camas as a food source as well as a form of currency. Currently, the Nez Perce reservation is located in north central Idaho.

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The Harvest

The following are early agricultural practices of the Nez Perce tribe, taken from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service:

The bulbs were usually dug after flowering, in summer, although some peoples dug them in spring. Harvesting the bulbs traditionally took weeks or months among the Nez Perce. Each family group “owned” its own camping spot and harvesting spot. These were passed down in families from generation to generation. Turf was lifted out systematically in small sections and then replaced after only larger bulbs had been removed. The bulbs were dug with a pointed digging stick. Bulbs were broken up and replanted. Annual controlled burning was used to maintain an open prairie-like habitat for optimum camas production. Areas were harvested only every few years. (USDA, NRCS)

Camas provided a generous source of food for the Nez Perce. Their use patterns indicate a level of domestication of the crop than is higher than is generally reported for this species. The author believes that the management of the camas prairies qualifies as agriculture and that the species deserves some attention as a potential agricultural crop. Additionally, the fact that it suggested that the Nez Perce tribe showed ownership of land was another interesting implication. Notice that the word “owned” is in quotes, so actual ownership like we would think of it today was not the case. The fact that certain family groups had different plots of land that was passed on through generations definitely shows a certain possession of the land even if it is territorial. The ownership of land that is talked about in this quote is basically a right of use, not much different that a mineral right.

The Nez Perce managed a vast area of prairie and open savannas as camas beds. Typically, the harvesting of the camas was done by the women of the tribe, as the men were out hunting and fishing. Harvesting camas was not an easy process. Much like harvesting potatoes the camas had to be dug up to acquire the bulb. A digging stick was typically used to do this. Only the large camas bulbs were taken, if the bulbs were too small they were left for seed, unless they were trying to expand their camas field by breaking up larger bulbs and replanting for seed.

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Preparing and Cooking

One had to be very cautious when picking camas because of a similar camas, Zygadenus nuttallii or death camas, that was poisonous. The only difference in the appearance of the death camas was that instead of blue flowers it had white. The harvesting of camas typically took place after the flowers have already fallen off so one had to know, remember that is, which plants were good and which plants were bad. In my opinion, the death camas were more than likely weeded out of the fields where harvesting took place when the flowers were still on the plants so distinguishing one from another was still easily possible. Once the camas were harvested they could either be eaten raw or they could be pit cooked, which is by far the more popular way of eating the camas. One typical method of pit cooking is as follows, described in a memoir by Herbert Joseph Spinden:

A pit from six to ten feet in diameter and about three feet deep was lined with split dry wood to the depth of almost one foot. Upon this wood was placed a layer of smooth stones averaging about five inches in diameter. The wood was set on fire and the stones allowed to become red hot. When the fire had burned down the stones were leveled and some earth and a layer of coarse grasses were spread over them. Then twenty or thirty bushels of camas bulbs, which had been previously cleaned and the black outer layers of the bulbs removed with the fingers, were thrown into the pits and arranged in a conical heap. The white bulbs were then covered with a layer of grass, some two or three inches thick. After this, water was poured on till the steam began to rise, and then the entire heap was covered with several inches of dry earth. Sometimes a fire was kindled around the base of the heap. The bulbs were allowed to steam for from twelve hours to three days. If cooked for the shorter period the grass was removed and the roots permitted to steam themselves dry, like boiled potatoes, and were then commonly placed on scaffolds and further dried in the sun. After having been cooked the roots were no longer white, but brown or black, and had a much sweeter taste than when in the natural state. They were fit for use immediately after being taken from the pit, but soon spoiled if not subjected to further treatment. (Spinden 201-201)

Another method of outdoor cooking for regions high in clay content is to dig out a box or stove like hole in the side of a clay rich hill and start a fire inside of it. The fire will dry out the clay and harden it while it is being heated. When the fire goes out or desired temperature is reached you remove the ashes and put what ever is to be cooked into your makeshift oven and seal off the opening (Peterson). Essentially the above pit method is the same. Like any other cooking, spices or herbs could have been added into the pit to flavor the camas. When cooking the camas for an extended period of time (three days was common), more than likely a fire was made around or on top of the pit to reheat the stones. Water would also have to be re-added in order to create more steam to cook the camas. Overall it was a very time intensive process.

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Preservation of the Camas

Further treatment of the camas that would help to preserve them is described below:

Further treatment usually consisted in pounding up the soft roots into a sort of dough and forming them into loaves which were rolled in grass and again subjected to steaming. Fresh bulbs were placed in the pit along with these loaves to permit the free passage of the steam. When taken out a second time, the loaves were made over into smaller cakes and dried in the sun or over the camp fire. These cakes were irregular in shape and from one-half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness. When kept out of the moisture they remained fresh for a long time. They resembled plug tobacco in color and pliancy. When the initial steaming extended over a period of two or three days, the roots when uncovered were found to be converted into a dark-brown glue-like mass. From this, gruel was made for immediate consumption and sun-dried loaves for future use.

Camas was also sometimes simply boiled in water and in this condition resembled mealy potatoes. It was occasionally reduced by boiling to a sort of syrup or molasses. (Spinden 202)

Preserving the camas took a little more effort than the initial steaming of the roots as explained in the previous paragraphs. However, a lot of the time the extra effort was required to store the camas for the winter months and even for the summer. Naturally, food that keeps longer is going to be more valuable than food that will spoil in a week. Drying is a standard method for preserving food.

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Where Are All the Camas?

Today, camas are not so easily found because a lot of the natural prairies where they used to grow have now been converted into agriculture. Not to blame the massive loss of camas habitat on farmers, who more than likely were oblivious to the fact. It seems to me that the places where camas grew were ideally located where agriculture would also thrive. The camas grew in wet moist loamy soils that were very rich in nutrients. These prairies were very large and probably flat for the most part which, would make it ideal for converting into “modern” agriculture. In simple terms the most work needed to turn a camas prairie into a modern agricultural field would have been to dig drainage ditches to regulate the water in your new field. There were no trees to have to cut down or brush to clear.

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How to Identify a Camas Prairie

The scale of the camas culture seems quite large from historic accounts. The average size camas patch needed to feed a five person family was 2.7 ha (Thoms 1989). That is a substantial area for just one family. To have enough camas to support a whole tribe would have amounted to thousands of hectares. According to the journal of Meriwether Lewis on June 12, 1806,

…the quawmash in now in blume and from the colour of its bloom at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deception than on first sight I could have swarn it was water.

This indicates fairly large-scale plantings of this species. Camas prairies served an additional purpose of acting as a natural game attractant. The food resource provided by the camas as well as other food sources in the area, such as deer, fish and edible greens, would have been a very nutritious diet.

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Conclusion

Camas provided one of the food bases for the Nez Perce. The production system used has the resemblance of low-impact agriculture. While much of the camas prairies have been destroyed after agricultural and other development in the area, this species deserves additional attention as a potential new agricultural crop.

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Works Cited

Lewis, Meriwether. 1806. From PBS Online-Lewis and Clark: The Archive, The Journals. <www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/archive/intro.html>.

Thoms, A. 1989. The northern roots of hunter-gatherer intensification: Camas and the Pacific Northwest. PhD dissertation. Dept. of Anthropology, Washington State University. Pullman, WA. 521 pp.

US Dept. of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. 2007 Technical Notes, Plant Materials No. 25. June 2000 <http://www.NRCS.USDA.gov>

US Dept. of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. 2007 Plant Guide 13 March 2007 <http://www.NRCS.USDA.gov>

Kindscher, Kelly. Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie. University Press of Kansas, 1987.

Spinden, Herbert J. The Nez Perce Indians. American Anthropological Association Volume 2, 1907-1915.

Bjorklund, Laura. Personal interview. 12 March 2007.

Peterson, Bryan. Personal interview. 3 April 2007.

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