Lagenaria siceraria -(Molina) Standl.-
bottle gourd


Entry Type: Species

Species Name: Lagenaria siceraria -(Molina) Standl.-

Common Name: bottle gourd

Myaamia Name: šiihšiikwani

Description:

Harvest Seasons: Summer, Fall

Harvest Comments:

Habitats: Human-Disturbed Areas

Uses: Medicinal, Customs, Technology

Locations: Undetermined

Sources

Blair, E 1912

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

Used for pre-war dancing, drumming and gourd rattling.

Comments: N/A

Thwaites, R.G. (ed.) 1903

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

"They have abundance of water-melons, citruls, and gourds".

Comments: N/A

Aatotankiki myaamiaki 1998-2006

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

The dried skins of gourd fruits were used to make rattles. "In the reservation period, it was hard to get gourds. So they used the condensed milk cans which were part of the government rations. They became popular. So we use a lot of metal rattles today, but we still have many gourd rattles".

Comments: N/A

Pease, T. C. and R. C. Werner 1934

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

A gourd rattle was is used for honoring another nation. "they take him up on this scaffold and all place themselves beside him and beat drums and shake their chichicoya and sing all day long" ("et le montent sur cet Echaffaut, ils se mettent tous a Coste de Luy, Battent du Tambour, secouent Leur Chichicoya Et chantent toute La Journee").

Comments: N/A

Pease, T. C. and R. C. Werner 1934

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

A gourd rattle is used in pre-war singing. "they invite them to a feast and tell them that the time is approaching to go in search of men; so it is well to pay homage, according to their custom, to their birds so that these may be favorable. They all answer with a loud Ho! And after eating with great appetite they all go get their mats and spread out their birds on a skin stretched in the midle of the cabin and with the chichicoyas they sing a whole night" ("ils les invitent dans un festin Et leur disent comme Voila Le temps qui approche pour aller chercher des hommes il est bon de rendre les devoirs selon leur Coutume a leurs oyseaux afin qu'ils leurs soient favorables, Ils repondent tous par un grand ho, Et apres avoir mange d'un grand appetit, ils Vont querir chacun Leur nattes etendent tous Leurs oyseaux dessus une peau qui est estendue au milieu de la Cabane Et avec des Chichicoya chante une nuit entiere").

Comments: N/A

Pease, T. C. and R. C. Werner 1934

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

A gourd rattle is used for pre-war singing.

Comments: N/A

Pease, T. C. and R. C. Werner 1934

Reference Type: Use - Medicinal

Archival Data:

Used in a ceremony to instill faith in healing powers of medicine man, uses chichicoya to wave while addressing village assembly, "My friends, today you must manifest to men the power of our medicine so as to make them understand that they live only as long as we wish" and then shaking the chichicoya while chanting "This buffalo has told me this, the bear, the wolf, the buck, the big tail" then they show men who have been healed by them" ("mes amis c'est aujourd'huy qu'il faut faire Voir, aux hommes le pouvoir de nostre medecine, affin de leur faire connoitre qls. ne vivent qu'autant que nous Voulons, La dessus ils se levent tous et en remuant le Chichicoya, disent en chantant ce Boeuf me la dit, L'ours, Le Loup, Le Chevreuil, Kinousaoueia").

Comments: N/A

Pease, T. C. and R. C. Werner 1934

Reference Type: Use - Medicinal

Archival Data:

Used for the gourd rattle of medicine men. "After thorough inspection [of the ailing person], he returns home to get some of his medicine and his chichicoya, a little gourd from which the inside has been removed and into which they put some grains of little glass pearl, and they run a stick through it from the top to the bottom, letting one end project a foot to hold it by. This, when shaken, makes a loud noise. From a little bag in which he has a quantity of small packages, he takes out some pieces of tanned skin in which are his medicaments. After spreading them out, he takes up his gourd and shakes it, intoning at the top of his voice a son in which he says: "The buffalo (or the buck, according to his manitou) has revealed this remedy to me and has told me that it was good for such and such a malady"--and he names the one by which the sick man is attacked--"whoever has it administered to him will be healed." He reiterates this sometimes for half an hour, though often the patient has not slept for a whole week.  . . . When he perceives any improvement, he brings his ourd and sings louder than the first time, asserting in his song that his manitou is the true manitou, who has never lied to him . . . [after more of the medicine man's procedure] . . . Then in a long song he thanks his manitou with his chichicoya for making it possible for him frequently to obtain merchandise through his favor." ("apres l'avoir bien regarde il s'en va chez luy prendre de sa medecine et son chichicoya, c'est une gourde don’t l'on a oste le dedans et dans laquelle on met des grains de petite Rasade et on passe un Baston qui travers de la teste a la queue de qui on laisse passer un bout d'un pied qui sort pour la tenir, Laquelle en la secouant fait beaucomp de Bruit, il tire d'un petit sac ou Il a quantite de petit paquets de morceaux de peaux passees dans lesquels sont ses medicines, apres les avoir estallees il prend la Gourde qu'il secoue et antonne une Chanson a gorge deployee, dans laquelle il dit le Boeuf ou le Chevreuil selon son manitoua, ma montre cette medecine, et ma dit quelle etoit bonne pour un tel mal Et nomme celuy dont le malade est attaque celuy qui en sera pance sera guery, et dit cela quelquefois pendant une demyheure que bien souvent le malade n'a dormy de huit jours . . . Quand il connoist qu'il y a de lamandement, il aporte sa Gourde et chante plus fort que la premiere fois, dans lequel Chant il dit que son Manitoua est le Veritable Manitoua qui ne luy a jamais manty . . . Ensuite il Remercie par une Longue chanson son Manetoua avec son chichicoya de ce qu'il luy procure d'avoir souvent par son moyen des marchandises").

Comments: N/A

Aatotankiki myaamiaki 1998-2006

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

Gourd rattles made for the Gourd Dance.

Comments: N/A

Gatschet, A.S. ca. 1895

Reference Type: Use - Technology

Archival Data:

Gourds used to make dipping utensils: "shishikwáni minákani, gourd dipper".

Comments: N/A

Kellogg, L.P. 1923

Reference Type: Horticultural Info

Archival Data:

Gourds, watermelons and sunflowers are first sprouted in a hot-bed, then transplanted into a crop field.

Comments: N/A

Baldwin, D 1997

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

Tribal members often owned a small gourd and/or drum. "Oh yes [they had gourd rattles]. Everybody, just about, had a little drum . . . men and women".

Comments: N/A

Anonymous 1837

Reference Type: Use - Customs

Archival Data:

"rereqυne"; used for gourd rattles.

Comments: N/A

Steyermark, J.A. 1963

Reference Type: Habitat

Archival Data :

Occurs as a cultivated species or an escape along roadsides, throughout eastern and western Myaamia lands.

Comments: N/A

Blair, E 1911

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

In the general Algonquian beliefs, the deceased travel to a beautiful country. In their travels there, after death, they arrive at a place where the drumbeat and gourd sounds mark time for the dead, gives them pleasure, and urges them on their way to the place of resting.  "The short remaining distance which they must traverse before arriving in the place where the sound of the drum and the gourds--marking time for [the steps of] the dead, to give them pleasure--falls agreeably on their ears, urges them on to hasten directly thither with great earnestness. The nearer they approach it, always the louder becomes this sound".

Comments: N/A

Blair, E 1911

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

Algonquians use a gourd rattle, filled with small pebbles, as part of a funeral custom. "Immediately they [all members of the village of the deceased, including invited guests from other villages] begin to dance to the noise of a drum and of a gourd which contains small pebbles, both keeping the same time".

Comments: N/A

Lamb, E.W. and Shultz, L.W 1964

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

Tea from any yellow flowered plant was used for aches and sluggishness.

Comments: N/A

Bush, L. L 1996

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

Human-charred rind fragments, resembling the thin, hard walls of the bottle gourd, were recoverd from an early 19th century Myaamia village site at the forks of the Wabash River (Fort Wayne), 1975-1812 (Ehler Site).

Comments: N/A

Kellogg, L.P. 1923

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

Great Lakes tribes, in general, used cupping-glasses made of gourds, and filled with combustible matters which they set on fire to treat some disease of the body.

Comments: N/A

Kohn, R.W, Lynwood, M.R, Edmunds, D. Mannering, M. 1997

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

The Delaware use rattles made of bell-gourds, although turtle shell rattles are still popular and in common use,

Comments: N/A

Gleason, H.A. and Cronquist, A. 1991

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

The species name used here is listed as Lagenaria lagenaria in Small's flora of the southeastern U.S., and L. vulgaris or L. leucantha by Steyermark. There is no species with the common name of gourd listed in Gleason and Cronquist's flora -- the closest relative listed is Cucurbita foetidissima, wild pumpkin.

Comments: N/A

Steyermark, J.A. 1963

Reference Type: Related Info

Archival Data:

This species is used for making drinking receptacles, utensils, decoration, and bird-houses, and that the small, young fruits may be cooked and eaten.

Comments: N/A

Legends

  • L.: L. stands for Carl Linneaus, a Swedish botanist and zoologist living from 1707 - 1778, who formed the binomial nomenclature system for scientific naming of species (the two part name). His initial after a scientific name indicates he was the authority for that species name.
  • sp.: Indicates the actual species name cannot or need not be specified. Example: Lilium sp. indicates a single species in the genus Lilium that is not known or does not need to be specified.
  • spp.: (plural) indicates "several species", two or more species of the given genus. Example: Lilium spp. indicates 2 or more species in the genus that cannot or do not need to be distinguished.
  • Use - Unknown: A record for this plant exists but does not include explicit information about the plant's cultural use. It is probable the Myaamia used the plant.
  • Botanical Sources: Sources of any botanical data for this plant species that is not related to its cultural use or significance.
  • Related Sources: Data indirectly related to Myaamia ethnobotany, including non-Myaamia uses of the plant in contemporary and historic times.
  • Myaamia Archival Sources: All records of plant use obtained directly from a Myaamia tribal member in an interview, recorded by a second party or by self-recording.
  • Undetermined (Plant Use): There exists use or other information about a certain, unknown plant species, but the specific species has not yet been determined.
  • Medicinal: For the purposes of this database, medicinal uses of plants and medicinal knowledge are defined as: Commonly held communal knowledge regarding the use of plant-based substances that aid in maintaining a healthy mind, body or spirit, including tonics and teas.
  • Technology: For the purposes of this database, technological uses of plants are defined as: Plants used in the making of food processing, canoes, rafts, dyes, tools, utensils, weapons, hunting and fishing gear (i.e. net, weir, etc.), cordage, string, rope, fodder plant species, firewood, any plants used in trade, etc.
  • Material: For the purposes of this database, material uses of plants are defined as: Plants used in construction of dwellings (floor mats, roofing, side walls), furniture, baskets, storage items, musical instruments, games, crafts, jewelry, cordage used in crafts, etc.
  • Food: For the purposes of this database, food uses of plants are defined as: Plants used as consumed food, spices and seasonings, but not teas or tonics.
  • Customs: For the purposes of this database, customary uses of plants are defined as: Plants involved in a customary ceremony, ritual or traditional event, including ritual smoking, chewing tobacco, war rituals, special mats used to sit on during ceremonies. Customary uses of plants, in this database, does not including plants used for recreation (material), structures where ceremonies take place (material) or medicinal smoking (medicinal).
  • Eastern Myaamia Lands: Eastern Myaamia lands (eastern myaamionki) are centered around northern Indiana, and including western Ohio, eastern Illinois, southern Michigan, and the northernmost portions of Kentucky.
  • Western Myaamia Lands: Western Myaamia lands (western myaamionki) include western Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma.