Description
One of the Four Sacred Medicines, sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) can be used and consumed in several ways. Sweetgrass is often incorporated into ceremony. It can also be made into a tea and used as an immune booster and internal cleanser. Sweetgrass can also be incorporated into art and jewelry, representing the gift of good medicine to recipients for healing. The plant is harvested and stored braided to hold the grass together and retain its scent. The braid can then be burned as a smudging stick to draw good energy, and it gives off a pleasant aroma.
Audio Transcript
Sweetgrass – You can make a tea from sweetgrass to drink and consume. It was used as kind of an internal cleanser, as an immune booster, so it was taken internally as a tea, but it often shows up more significantly in our art forms. And the reason why you would incorporate a traditional medicine into art is it’s literally gifting somebody good medicine. You are handing them something created from the medicine that can heal them physically. So sweetgrass, not being a very strong material, was often woven into things like baskets that would hold your other medicines or things that were very special to you. We often use it contemporarily in jewelry that we wear and artists create. So when you gift those earrings or those bracelets to family members, it’s like you’re handing them good medicine. So, sweetgrass as a medicine: when it is harvested, it is stored braided. You take it from the earth, there is a lot of care and prayer and good vibes, I would say, that go into the collection of that. It’s often communally done. So you are taking your time to go and be in that environment, with that plant, in its natural setting, with others that you love. And there are prayers, there are songs, there’s storytelling. It’s just a good time of gathering together for that harvest.
You should be in a good way when you are going to collect medicines, because you want them to always be held with good feelings around them. So being physically well when you collect is important, being mentally well when you collect is important. So doing that as a community, as a celebration, as a warm, welcoming gathering, is the best way to harvest. When that is collected, it is stored braided.
The reason that it’s stored braided is really practical, but also aligns with a lot of traditional stories around it. When it’s braided, it’s less likely to get all over the place, because as it dries it, it can break. It’s weaker material, being a grass so it’s a little harder to control. If you ever want to be able to bring it back together, you’ll have to rehydrate it. So, the best thing to do is, while it’s still green, to put it into a braid. That braid will hold it tight, together strong. And as it dries in that braid, you can actually burn the braid itself, and it becomes like a smudging stick all on its own. When you burn that, it’s asking for good things to come to you. So, it’s meant to draw in good things. It has a very pleasant, lovely smell.
There’s lots of different stories around it in different tribal communities. Some of the stories that were shared with me, one coming from a White Earth Ojibwe that it was Grandmother Moon who cut her braids and laid them on the earth for the women as a women’s medicine to give them healing. This was shared from a counselor that I worked with in vocational rehabilitation, and that was some of the teachings that she grew up with.
In our community, there are stories about the first woman who gave herself to the earth and from her all things grew, and from her hair grew the sweetgrass, and so that is why those things are stored braided. It’s kind of that memory of story that attaches to teaching. But there’s also practical teaching in that: you know, storing it braided is the best practice. It holds the scent longer when you store it, keeping it in a dark, dry place, will help to keep that scent longer. If you keep it exposed to sunlight, it dries out very quickly, it’ll lose its scent quicker. So keeping that wrapped and in an enclosed space until you’re ready to use it holds that scent longer. So there’s many different ways of using sweet grass, and it’s often incorporated into so much ceremony as a very pleasant thing to bring in.
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