bottle gourd

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

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

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".

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").

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").

A gourd rattle is used for pre-war singing.

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").

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").

Gourd rattles made for the Gourd Dance.

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

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

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".

"rereqυne"; used for gourd rattles.

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

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".

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".

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

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).

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.

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

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.

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