For clarity of presentation, the tribal groups germane to the theme of this chapter are organized in terms of the Culture Areas typically employed for Native North American ethnological discussion: Southeast, Northeast, Plains, Southwest, California, Great Basin, Columbia-Fraser Plateau, Northwest, Subarctic, Aleutian Islands, and Arctic.
The Northeast
The eastern boundary of the Northeastern Culture Area runs from Maryland, through New England, to Newfoundland and the southeast corner of Canada, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the lower Great Lakes. Major tribes of the area include the Iroquois Confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk) and the Huron, Algonquin, Penobscot, Micmac, Erie, Abnaki, Naskapi, Montagnais, Menominee, and Delaware.
One of the earliest references to arrow poisoning in the Northeast comes from Jesuit Relations: 1653—1654, which notes that the Erie used poisoned arrows during their wars with the Iroquois in 1653—54.1 The formula for the poison was not recorded though the assumption is that the arrows were infected with rattlesnake venom like those of the Indians in the West. French observers wrote that the Erie could fire eight to ten arrows before a musket could be loaded and that they could discharge a hail of poison arrows.2 On July 20, 1654, the Iroquois charged an Erie fort, but the Erie’s poisoned arrows kept them at bay.
The Seneca had poison arrows3 as did the Micmac, whose arrows were tainted with a preparation of bark, root, and a bush, the identity of which is not known (or was not revealed).4 And of the Oneida, an observer wrote that they killed poisonous blue otters and carefully preserved the meat.
A famous legend recounted by the Illini Indians describes an encounter between the tribe and a monstrous, dragon-like bird, which they called the Piasau, “the bird that devours men.” In 1673 Father Jacques Marquette saw a cliff painting of the creature outside present-day Alton, Illinois, during his descent of the Mississippi River and described it in his journal. According to the legend, after his village was savagely attacked by the Piasau, a famous chief named Ouatoga secluded himself to pray for guidance. The Great Spirit instructed him to arm a hundred warriors with arrows that had been dipped in copperhead venom, and the hideous monster was destroyed. For generations thereafter, when Indians passed the cliffwhere the battle had taken place, they fired arrows or guns in commemoration of the great victory.
The Southeast
The Southeast Culture Area stretches from Florida to Maryland and from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Powhatan, Catawba, and Rappahannock occupied this territory.
Many early explorers and settlers in the Southeast had something to say about local Indians poisoning arrows. French planter Antoine Le Page Du Pratz, who lived in the immediate vicinity of the Natchez in the early 1700s, wrote in Histoire de La Louisiana, “Another creeper is called by the native doctors ‘the medicine for poisoned arrows.’ It is large and beautiful. Its leaves are quite long and the pods which it bears are thin, about one inch wide and eight to ten inches long.”5
Another early 1700s writer commented that the North Carolina Indians had “a certain method in poisoning their arrows, and they will temper them so as to work slow or swift as they place; they can make it so strong that no art can save the person or beast that is wounded with them, except it be their kings and conjurers, their young men being ignorant of it.” 6
Almost a century earlier, Gabriel Archer wrote that Indians he met in the vicinity of what is now Richmond, Virginia, “gave me a root wherewith they poison their arrows.” They also showed him an herb, which they called wisacan, which was an antidote for the arrow poison. In 1687 Reverend John Clay, traveling among the Indians of Virginia, wrote a friend, “There are traditions of their having an art to poison their darts, but I could never find any solid ground for that report.” 7
Frank G. Speck, in his authoritative Chapters on the Ethnology of the Powhatan Tribes of Virginia, notes, “A tradition is related by the Mat-taponi concerning the poisoning of arrowheads by their ancestors. It is said by a Powhatan Major there that the stone arrowheads with a flat side, and especially those with corrugated edges, were intended to carry a poison made from rattlesnake venom glands mixed into a paste.” 8 One of the tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, the Chickahominy, developed an arrow-poisoning tradition that spanned even into modern times. O. Oliver Adkins, Chickahominy chief in the mid-1900s, had this to say in a letter to Frank Speck in February 1943:
First would kill deer, take liver. Then would capture a dangerous snake, like a copper head. Hold him with a forked stick so he could strike liver. Held up before until he was exhausted. Then if that wasn’t enough poison in liver, another was captured. When enough poison was in liver, then the liver was beat up in a pulp or glue form, and the arrow would be dipped in that glue, and any animal that was hit by this arrow and it crack the skin he would die. This was practiced up to the middle 1800s by the Adkins, Bradby, and Jefferson families. It was told to me by one of my older councilmen who is almost 70 years old, and it was told to him by his father.9
The Chickahominy and Rappahannock’s method of arrow poisoning was perhaps the most widespread in North America. Minor variations existed from one group to another—as seen in those of the Chickahominy and Rappahannock—but two ingredients always appeared: snake venom and rotten organic matter. The Seminole of south Florida were observed employing this technique.10
The Big Cove Band of the Cherokee in Swain County, North Carolina, poisoned their arrows by chewing a root and applying the juice. While captive of the Catawba in South Carolina in 1755, Colonel James Smith witnessed their arrow poison,11 and Danila Padilla, an early Creek observer, wrote that the Georgia Creek dipped their arrows into “some very poisonous and deadly substance.”12
Indians from Florida to Quebec, west to California, and throughout the Rocky Mountains used a paste of the partially developed seeds of Co-nium maculatum (Poison Hemlock) to poison arrows.13 The Koasati of Alabama, members of the Creek confederacy, believed strongly in the power of Eryngium virginianum (Bear Grass), and both they and the Alabama tribes thought that merely striking an enemy with this plant would kill them.14 The Mikasuki Seminole of southeast Florida believed that they could poison their arrows with special songs.15
The Southwest
The Southwest Culture Area covers most of New Mexico and Arizona, northern Mexico, and the southern half of Utah and Colorado, where a number of cultural traditions thrive. The Navaho occupy the north-central part, and to their south their linguistic relatives, the various Apache groups, hold sway. The Pueblo tribes (the Zuni, Hopi, and Laguna) inhabit the central regions, and to the west and southwest live a variety of smaller horticultural groups (the Pomo, Pima, Mohave, and Havasupai).
Navaho and Apache arrow-poison traditions have been thoroughly documented probably because hostile contact with them, beginning with the Spanish incursion into their area in the early to mid-i400s and continuing into relatively modern times, brought their weaponry to the attention of soldiers and military medical practitioners.
The Navaho prepared several variations of the snake-venom—rotten-meat poison. In Ethnobotany of the Navaho, Francis H. Elmore wrote, “A rattlesnake was first caught and killed on a rock. Next a yucca (Yucca spp.) leaf was heated over a fire and the juice squeezed onto the blood of the snake. Finally charcoal made from the pith of this cactus was added. The arrows were then painted from the point to about six inches back up the shaft.”16 Usnea barbarta (Alpine Lichen) provided the base for another Navaho arrow poison. They mixed a hot infusion of this plant with decayed sheep, cow, or antelope spleen and buried it near a fireplace until it thoroughly decayed, then applied it to the arrowheads.17
A mixture of Rhus toxicodendron (Poison Oak), Phacelia crenulata (Wild Heliotrope), var. ambigua (Northern Red Oak), charcoal from a lighting-struck tree, and deer blood was recorded,18 as was a compound of Op-untiapolyacantha (Plains Pricklepear), Yuccaglauca (Small Soapweed), and Toxidodenron radicans (Eastern Poison Ivy).19 The Navaho created an antidote with Eupatorium purpureum (Joe Pye Weed).20
A Hopi story about a raid on a Navaho dance mentions Navaho poison making, as well as the relationship between armor wearing and poison arrows.21 The story claims that the Navaho prepared poison by suspending a dead rattlesnake over a vessel, into which the putrid matter from the decaying snake dropped. They mixed this with poison extracted from the fangs of the snake and applied it to their arrows. The story continues with the Hopi reshooting the arrows that the Navaho had shot at them. The Hopi wore wrappings of buckskin, a kind of soft-armor, and were little affected by the arrows, but many of the Navaho wore no armor and died.22
An Apache arrow analyzed in 1871 showed evidence of rattlesnake blood corpuscles and a crystalline substance identical with viperine or crotaline, the active ingredient of its venom. In some instances their arrow poison included crushed red ants, centipedes, and scorpions. The Lipan Apache dipped their arrows in the sap of the Y angustifolia,23 and the Chiricahua Apache combined rotting animal blood and prickly pear spines. One researcher felt that the latter concoction had no inherent potency; rather, it originated from the incantations of the shaman preparing it. The western Apache had eh-ehstlus, a mixture of spit, deer spleen, and nettles left to rot before being painted onto arrow points.
A number of Apache elders offered the following information concerning arrow poisons:
Our people used to use poison on their arrows, both in war and in hunting. This poison was made from a deer’s spleen. This was dried first, then ground up fine and mixed in with the ground roots or stalks of nettles and also some plant that has a burning taste, like chili. The mixture is put in a little sack made from a part of the deer’s big intestine.
Then when all is ready, the maker spits into the bag and ties it up tightly and quickly so that none of the bad air will escape. The bag is hung from a tree for about three days till good and rotten and in liquid form.
If the poison gets dry and hard it can be ground up and mixed on a stone with spit, just as paint is. This is bad poison and if you just have a scratch and get this in it, you will swell up all over. When a poison arrow is shot into a deer, no matter if it merely scratches him, he will die in about eighty yards.24
Another informant added that sometimes they added a species of lichen which grew on particularly heavy rocks, the purpose being to magically mimic the sensation of large stones within the victim’s body. And another contributed that while preparing this poison, a man must ensure that children and dogs do not come near it. He added that he included sand in his version.25
An Apache informant told of an arrow poison that they previously made from a kind of insect. This is novel, though the Bushmen’s use of a particular bug for poison might be considered, as well as the not-uncommon variety of scorpions, spiders, ants, and centipedes in many arrow poisons worldwide. Even the bug-based poison, however, was buried for several days.26
The Laguna Pueblo concocted an arrow poison from “snake venom and mud” so dangerous that even a scratch from a point treated with it could kill.27 Other Pueblo peoples were also cited for arrow poisons. In 1862, physician J. B. Hill gave a Hopi recipe, yet another variation on the venom-putrid meat theme.
They exposed the liver of a small animal to the fangs of a rattlesnake. After the venom had been infused, the organ was removed, wrapped in the animal’s skin and buried for about a week. It was then resurrected, and the points were dipped in the rotting mess. When the projectiles were dry, they were dipped in blood, and again dried, and preserved for use.28
The Isleta Pueblo people made arrow poison from Chrysothamnus nauseosus (Rabbitbush) and arrow shafts from the fragile Atriplex canescens (Fourwing Saltbush), which always broke off inside the body.29
Acoma Pueblo warriors used Ranunculus spp. (Buttercups) for arrow poison.30 Some of the Pueblo Indians attached arrow points dipped in blood to the bodies of their stone fetishes, a magical practice which they called “the Lightning.”
In The Journey of Coronado, we find reference to early Pueblo Indian poison. Diego de Alcaraz, though directed to capture a Pueblo chief and his entourage, released them for ransom of cloth and other items needed by the Spanish troops. “Finding themselves free, the Indians renewed the war, and as they were strong and had poison killed several Spaniards and wounded others so that they died on the way back.” 31
The arrow poison of the Moqui of Utah came from an animal liver bitten by a rattlesnake and left to putrefy.32 They buried the liver in the skin of the animal from which it was taken for seven or eight days, then the Moqui applied the poison to the arrow and allowed it to dry. Finally, they coated the arrow in animal blood and again dried it before it was considered ready for use.33
The Havasupai, who farmed along the floor of the Grand Canyon, created a number of arrow poisons. For one they boiled the leaves of Pte-lea trifoliate (Common Hop Tree).34 One of their most complex recipes follows:
The poison (paisa’ha) was of a black substance in the big scorpions, centipedes, red ants. Matginyue (a small back biting bug), jimson weed, and quagamuna (a weed growing on the canyon bench).
These are mashed, dried, and stored. Soapweed leaves are thrown into the fire to get hot, and wrung to expel the juice. The little finger is wet with this glue, dipped in the powder, and a little is put on arrowhead and fore shaft. A mere scratch is sufficient to kill.35
Regarding warfare between the Lower Pima of Sonora and the Apache, David M. Brugge, a specialist in Pima ethnography, wrote, “A poison was prepared from the juice of a plant [possibly Euphorbia spp.] mixed with the pulp of prickly pear stem segments. The wooden arrow points were soaked in this long enough for the wood to absorb the poison and remain deadly for a considerable period.”36 Another source adds, “When going on a scout against the Apache Indians, their bitter foes, the Pimas frequently dip the points of their arrows in putrid meat, and it is said that a wound caused by such an arrow will never heal, but fester for some days and finally produce death.” 37
Use of poisoned arrows by the Opata of Sonora has been documented. A soldier in Coronado’s expedition received a slight scratch on his hand from one of them and was dead two days later. Coronado lost seventeen men in Sonora because of them. Pedro de Castaneda de Nagera, traveling with Coronado in 1540, commented that the men would die in agony from only a small wound. He described one case in which the skin of the soldier struck by the poisoned arrow “rotted and fell off until it left the bones and sinews bare, with a horrible smell.”38 Along the southern borders of the Southwest Culture Area, the
Cahita had poisoned arrows.39 The Spanish military and mission documents often mentioned Seri poisons. They employed a variety of plant ingredients, including Marsdenia spp., Jatropha cinerea, J. cuneata, and Eu-phorbiaceae spp. The major ingredient in all of their arrow poisons was Sapium biloculare (Mexican jumping bean).40
The tribes of the lower Colorado River preferred the following methods:
Some of the tribes poisoned the arrow tips and claimed that they could kill people from the effects of the poison alone. Yavapais pulverized a mixture of rattlesnake venom, spiders, centipedes, a variety of long-winged bee, and walnut leaves. They bagged this mixture in deerskin and buried it in hot ashes for a day, thus rotting some of the ingredients. They hung the mixture up to dry until it was smeared on the arrow points.41
All Western Apaches used arrow poison in warfare. Its presence is noted for the Northern Tonto, San Carlos, Southern Tonto, Cibecue, and White Mountain. An Apache from Canyon Creek described the process for making arrow poison that had been passed down in his family:
A small internal organ “like a stocking” from the top of a cow’s stomach was hung until it rotted. Wasps were caught and held against this rotted organ until they stung it. Then pigeon blood was added. The material was kept for about two weeks, then mixed with burnt cactus spines. The substance was then placed on arrows and spears, both point and shaft to a total length of four to five inches. A mere scratch by an arrow so treated was reputed to cause a deer to swell up and die.42
The California Area
The California Culture Area corresponds to the present-day state with the exception ofparts ofthe south, which more efficiently fit the Southwest Area culturally, and zones in the northwest, which better match Northwest Coast cultural patterns. Tribes in the western regions shared many cultural traits with those of the adjacent Great Basin area. Major tribal groupings in the northern parts comprised the Shasta, Karok,
Achumawi, Konkow, Pomo, Yurok, Hupa, and Yuki. The central region was occupied by the Miwok, Yokuts, and Esselen Costanoan while the Chumash, Gabrielino, Serrano, Cahuilla, Luiseno, and Ipai were found in the south.
In southern California, poisoned arrows were reported for the Gabrielino,43 the Cahuilla,44 and the Chumash;45 however, most references come from the crowded north. An interesting case involves the Pomo, who concocted an arrow poison, not for tactical advantage, but for magical attacks against their enemies. To the blood of four rattlesnakes, they added pulped spiders, bees, ants, and scorpions and either dripped the resulting liquid over an image of the enemy or painted it on an arrow, which they shot over his house. They rubbed the snake’s eyes, which were removed prior to shedding while it was blind, on an abalone shell that they manipulated to flash light into their enemies’ eyes, causing blindness.46 In a fight with the Yokuts, the Kawaiisu treated their arrows with an unidentified weed they called muguruva, which effected nosebleeds.47
Arrow poisons are cited for the Maidu and Konkow.48 The Southern Maidu would tease a rattlesnake with an animal until it struck several times. After the mashed liver decomposed, they painted it on arrow points, fore shafts, and sometimes spears.49 Only village chiefs prepared the poison, which was not applied until immediately before use. The Maidu also embedded stone arrow points in wet Evernia spp. (Oak Moss Lichen) for as long as a year to poison them. Sometimes they added rattlesnake venom.50
Tolowa and Karok informants described smearing the juice of Toxicodendron diversilobum (Pacific Poison Oak) on arrow tips when hunting.51 The same ingredient and application was recorded for the Yurok of Trinidad Bay.52 In the summer of 1939, Karok informants related the tale of traditional Karoks dipping their arrows in rattlesnake brains before a fight.53
The Hupa did not poison their arrow points but constructed them from what they felt to be highly toxic flint collected from a quarry on the Mad River. This flint, when broken in a wound, would lead to a deadly infection.54 They preferred to tip their war arrows with old points found around Howunkut village, which they thought to be extremely dangerous.55
Claiming that a light scratch from such an arrow would cause death, the Yuki of Round Valley in Northern California poisoned their arrows with Equisetum telmateia (Giant Horsetail Fern).56 In Northern California, arrow poisons are reported for the Achumawi,57 Klamath, and Modoc.58 California Indians used Piperacea (American pepper plant), which “was gathered, dried and then ground in the rock mortar to a very fine powder, for use when our people exchanged poisoned arrows for bullets on the field of battle. Our positioned arrows were more effective than bullets, as a scratch would send an enemy to eternal rest.” 59
Some California Indians poisoned their arrows with Evernia spp.,60 whereas others obtained poison from Eremocarpus setigerus (Turkey Mullen).61 The Spanish referred to this plant as yerba delpescado (herb of the fish) because it was also used to stun fish. Several authors wrote that the Pit River Indians mixed dog’s saliva with wild parsnip juice for arrow poison.62
The most common arrow poison of the Western Mono came from rotted deer liver that had been bitten by rattlesnakes and dried in the sun. They rubbed a small lump of the poison on a stone and smeared the powder on the arrow point. The arrows were kept in a special quiver beyond the reach of children. The poison worked slowly over a twenty-four-hour period, so deer injured by one of these arrows were trailed to where they eventually expired. The Western Mono made another arrow poison from plants that the informants could not identify.
The Southeastern Yavapai used poison arrows in warfare but not for hunting. To poison the arrows, they stuffed a piece of deer’s liver with spiders, tarantulas, and a rattlesnake’s head, wrapped it with yucca fiber, buried it, and maintained a fire over it. When rotten, it was exhumed, tied with string, and, because of its stench, hung from a tree far from camp. There it dried for several days and shrunk to only a fraction of its original size. Next, they rubbed a piece with a stone on a flat rock, adding a little water to form a paste. They rehung the unused portion, taking care to keep the paste from under their nails, lest they be poisoned.
A Yavapai elder recalled the case of a soldier who had been but scratched by a poisoned Havapai arrow that had passed through the sleeve of his heavy coat. He paid no attention to the scratch, but in two days his arm swelled, then the same side of his body. He eventually died.63
The Atsugewi thought that the flint points with which they tipped their arrows was poison in itself. For warfare, however, they applied concocted poisons to their arrows. The simplest poison involved burying a deer liver or pancreas, allowing it to rot, and then applying the putrefied results to the arrow. A more complex arrow poison was made from a deer pancreas, the gall of a coyote, the air bladder of a fish, red paint, and rattlesnake teeth. The concoction was then mixed in a mortar and permitted to rot before being applied to the arrow or spear points. Another Atsugewi informant told of a method of creating poison in which rattlesnake heads and chopped-up roots of wild parsnip were put in a skin with a handful of arrow points, and allowed to rot before attaching the treated arrows.64
A poison of unknown source, called pohil by the Tubatulabal, was applied to both war and hunting arrows.65
Ishi, the last of the Yana of California, recounted that his people made arrow poisons, as so many North American Indians did, by infusing a deer liver with rattlesnake venom. They decocted the leaves of Berthol-letia spp. (American Arrow Wood) to counteract poisoned wounds suffered in battle.66
The Great Basin
The Great Basin Culture Area lies within the state of Nevada and parts of Idaho and southeastern California. The major cultural entities were the Ute, Paiute, Paviotso (Northern Paiute), Panamint, Washo, Gosiute, Shoshone, and Bannock.
When Lewis and Clark encountered the Shoshone, they were told of two types of arrow poisons. In the first case, the Shoshone simply applied rattlesnake venom to their arrowheads. In the second, they incorporated crushed ants into a paste with an animal’s spleen and set the compound in the sun to decay. When thoroughly putrefied, it was applied to arrows for war and hunting. They assured Lewis and Clark that, if an arrow so treated merely broke the skin, it would cause certain death.
The arrow poisons of the Gosiute, who ranged in modern-day Utah and Nevada, were from Erigeron grandiflorus (Large Flower Fleabane), Valeriana dioica (Marsh Valerian),67 and V. sylvatica (Woods Valerian).68 They also were aware of the very poisonous Cicuta douglasii.
The Northern Paiute frequently poisoned arrows for warfare and big-game hunting. Their akwatsi was said to take effect immediately, causing swelling around the wound.69 Game thus killed was edible without excising areas adjacent to the puncture, as was the case with many other hunting poisons. The preparation of akwatsi is described in the following account by a Northern Paiute:70
Our poison is made from the deer’s akwatsi, a black looking stuff on the intestines which looks like the liver but is smaller. Cook it in the ashes and let it dry. It smells bad. Stick the arrow point in, let it dry, or rub the poison with the finger. There is no cure, so you have to be careful, especially if your finger is cut.
For a second Northern Paiute arrow poison, they mashed Cicuta spp. and simply pushed the root-paste until the tip was damp and then dried it.71 This poison was considered so deadly that they used it against enemies but never when hunting game that they planned to eat.72
The Columbia-Fraser Plateau
The Columbia-Fraser Plateau Culture Area stretches north of the Great Basin into the southern edges of British Columbia. It is roughly bound on the east by the Rocky Mountains and on the west by the Sierra Mountains. The western reaches are influenced by Northwest Coast and California cultures, and the east by the Plains culture. Important tribes include the Nez Perce, Cayuse, Yakima, Klamath, Cowlitz, Thompson, Okanagan-Colville, Spokane, and Salish.
The Interior Salish 73 and the Nez Perce rubbed rattlesnake venom on their arrows, and the Nez Perce also applied simple venom.74 In some cases, the Interior Salish mixed rattlesnake venom with the crushed flowers of Ranunculus spp.75 The Salish considered obsidian projectile points to be “poisonous.”76
Moerman notes that the Thompson Indians of British Columbia created arrow poison with Artemisia dracunculus (Wormwood), Cornus seri-cea (Red Osier Dogwood), and Ranunculus sceleratus (Celery Leaf Buttercup).77 The latter was thought to be so poisonous that sometimes the arrow was considered sufficiently poisoned after having been rubbed with the plant, but the crushed flowers were also mixed with rattlesnake venom.
The Klamath stirred the mashed roots of C. masculatum with rattlesnake venom and decomposed deer liver. After the mixture rotted, they dipped arrows into it and dried them over a low fire. During the last step they offered prayers, which were believed to augment the efficacy of the poison.78
The Okanagan-Colville coated their arrowheads with pulverized Zi-gadenus venenosus (Death Camas) roots or dipped them into the powdered roots of C. douglasii. During her fieldwork, Nancy Turner, an eth-nobotanist investigating the use of poisons by Native Americans, handled the root without gloves and suffered a violent reaction in which her face and hands became inflamed and swollen.79 In addition, David Moerman has stated that the Okanagan-Colville poisoned arrows with Ranunculus glaberrimus (Sagebrush Buttercup).80 The arrowheads were sometimes dipped into a pulp of mashed flowers and other times simply rubbed with the plant. They also soaked arrowheads overnight in a solution of mashed berry-laden juniper branches (Juniperus communis) in both hunting and warfare.81
The Upper Lillooet poisoned their war arrows with rattlesnake venom but did not add the Ranunculus flower, as did their Thompson neighbors. The Lower Lillooet did not use any form of poison on their
82
The Great Plains
The Great Plains Culture Area is defined on the west by the Rocky Mountains, on the north by the gradual transition ofshort-grass plains to subarctic forest, on the south by the northern desert ofMexico, and on the east by the tall grass prairie. More simply put, it is the range of the American bison. The Blackfeet (a confederation made up of the Siksika, Kainah, and Piegan), Teton Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Sarsi, Plains Cree, Assinboine, Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, Plains Apache, and Gros Ventre lived there; and all, to a greater or lesser extent, depended on the bison and the horse for their way oflife.
The Blackfeet chewed Cornus sericea berries and spit the juice on the points of their war arrows, which they believed would lead to infection of arrow wounds.83 The Gros Ventre, living on the northeast border of the Blackfeet, poisoned arrows by placing a small piece of Cicuta spp. on the shaft just behind the arrow point.84
The Sisseton Sioux combined the small spines of Opuntia missouriense (Prickly Pear) with grease and applied the thorny paste to their weapons.85 They, like the Lipan Apache, who dipped their arrows into the sap of Y. angustifolia, believed that the spines had a mystic power to affect their enemies. The Teton Sioux, as well as the Siksika, Kainah, and Piegan, employed the widespread method of enticing a rattlesnake to attack a deer liver, buried the result until it putrefied, and coated their war arrows with it.86
The Cheyenne created with the leaves of Potentilla fruticosa (Shrubby Cinquefoil) what they considered their most potent arrow poison. They claimed that it went directly to the heart, thereby stopping it. When the Cheyenne and Sioux fought Custer on the Greasy Grass River, a Cheyenne priest, the Keeper of the Sacred Hat, wanted to use the poison against Custer, but none could be found growing in the area.87 They included the same plant in rituals to attack their enemies magically. In the same fashion, Actaea rubra (Red Baneberry) was intended to blind their enemies. The root of this plant, called “sweet medicine” by the Cheyenne, was chewed and blown, first in the four directions, then toward the enemy.
Omaha arrow poison came from the root of an unidentified vine, to which was added the decaying flesh of a lizard and a “bug that swims on the surface of the water.”88 Arrows tainted with this poison were not for warfare or hunting, however, but for a legal trial, where an arrow was shot into a ritual effigy as one of the final acts.
The Plains Cree did not use poison arrows though “magical concoctions” were applied to arrowheads to make them more efficacious.89 Finally, the Tonkawa in southern Texas believed that the juice of the mistletoe leaf was an effective arrow poison.
The Northwest Coast
The Northwest Coast Culture Area extends north from the border of modern-day Oregon and California to the southwest coast of Alaska and encompasses Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. The western boundary is the Pacific Ocean and the eastern, the coastal ranges. Major tribes, whose staple of life is the salmon, are the Makah, Quinault, Nootka, Kwakiutl, Haida, Timshian, Bella Coola, and others. David Thompson, who explored the far West in the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, wrote the following about the Indians of the Columbia:
The only natives that use poisoned weapons, are the scoundrels that possess this river from its mouth up to the first falls; to collect the poison, aged widows are employed. In each hand they have a small forked stick of about five feet in length, and with these the head and tail of the snake is pinned fast down to the ground. Then with a rude pair of pincers the fang teeth are gently extracted so as to bring the bladders of poison with them. The bladders are carefully placed in a mussel shell brought for this purpose.90
Thompson observed that these arrows looked as if they had been painted with a dark brown varnish. He agreed with the Indians about their potency. In one case, a man of his acquaintance was shot in the shoulder by an arrow that had not been recoated in poison in over five years. Still, “it affected his health,” wrote Thompson, “and was supposed to have hastened his death.”91
The Clallam of Puget Sound fashioned arrow points from copper obtained through barter with both Indian traders, whose sources ultimately reached north of the Great Lakes, and Europeans, who traded sheets of the material. In some cases, the copper that sheathed longdistance sailing vessels was scavenged from shipwrecks. The Clallam soaked their points in salt water until they corroded, knowing that arrow tips of this nature would leave very dangerous wounds.92
The Kwakiutl poisoned their arrows with C. douglasii,93 while their neighbors, the Nootka, employed the root of Veratrum viride.94 The Upper Stalo Indians of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia dipped their arrows in decayed human brains. In addition to poisoning arrows with C. douglasii, the Haisla and the Hanaksiala manipulated arrow poison magically. In the mid-1900s, when the tribes witnessed smallpox spreading in their direction, a shaman had a vision of four canoes filled with diseased spirits approaching. To counter them, he covered an arrow with hellebore roots and shot it toward them. The Haisla and Hanaksiala did not contract smallpox.95
The Far North
The Far North Culture Area comprises the subarctic forests of Canada, the Aleutian Islands, Kodiak Island, and the northern coastal realms of the Inuit of Canada and Alaska. Imperatives of aboriginal life were adaptation to extreme cold and expertise at hunting both sea and forest animals and fishing. No poisonous mushrooms, roots, or berries grew north of the timber line, and most plant products could be safely eaten. In the forests south of the treeline, however, a number of poisonous plants existed: Cicuta spp., locally known as Musquash Root; A. rubra; Amanitaphalloides (Death-Cup Toadstool); and A. muscaria (Fly Amanita Mushroom).96 The Tutchone, Koyukon, Tanana, Chipewyan, Kaska, Slave, numerous Aleut groups, and a variety of Cree-speaking peoples inhabited this area. Many small Inuit bands lived along the western and northern coasts of Alaska, and tribesmen were found on Kodiak Island and contiguous islands.
In 1785, Catherine The Second, Empress of All the Russias, commissioned Commodore Joseph Billings to explore the “northern parts of Russia” to the American coast. He reached Kodiak Island and investigated around Cook Inlet. The expedition secretary, Martin Sauer, not only kept records mainly of a scientific, astronomical, and geographical nature, but also penned some interesting accounts ofthe indigenous peoples they encountered. While in the vicinity ofKodiak Island, he wrote,
They also use poison to their arrows, and the Aconite is the drug adopted for this purpose. Selecting the roots of such plants as grow alone, these roots are dried and pounded, or grated; water is then poured upon them, and they are kept in a warm place till fermented; when in this state, the men anoint the points of their arrows or lances, which makes the wound that may be inflicted mortal.97
The Kanagmiut Inuit and Aleut dried and pulverized Aconitum spp. root, mixed it with a little water, and allowed it to ferment before applying it to their weapons.98 The Aleut devised a unique version of a plant poison and decaying organic matter. Although not known in historic times, elders remember Aconitum spp., as well as a poisonous amalgam of rancid human fat (sometimes brains were specified) and crushed bodies of small, poisonous worms from local freshwater lakes.99
The Aleut poisoned the “war darts” of their atlatls, or “spear throwers.” 100 Russian explorer Ivan Evsieevich Popov Veniaminov observed their javelins in the early 1800s:
Sometimes these were dipped in poison which was known only to a very few. When a javelin was flung at a man, it did not enter his flesh entirely but only the head with the point. The javelin head could be forcibly withdrawn from the man but the point always remained in him and consequently always brought a slow but certain death.101
In the forests south of Hudson Bay, the Cree poisoned arrows with the root of Heracleum maximum.10'2 In fact, almost all North American Indian populations utilized biochemical poisons at the time of contact and well into the modern era. Cicuta spp., Ranunculus spp., Veratrum vi-ride, and Aconitum spp. proved to be highly significant in the making of poison arrows, but a number of other plants and plant parts were also employed. Again, though a variety of preparation methods existed, the infusion of a liver by the repeated strikes of a rattlesnake and the subsequent putrification of the result prior to use was the most typical method.
World History
