Tiliaceae Tilia americana L.

American Basswood

Ojibwa - Fiber, Cordage

Use documented by:
Smith, Huron H., 1932, Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe Indians, Bulletin of the Public Museum of Milwaukee 4:327-525, page 422

View all documented uses for Tilia americana L.

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Scientific name: Tilia americana L.
USDA symbol: TIAMA (View details at USDA PLANTS site)
Common names: American Basswood
Family: Tiliaceae
Family (APG): Malvaceae
Native American Tribe: Ojibwa
Use category: Fiber
Use sub-category: Cordage
Notes: Tough, fibrous bark of young trees furnished ready cordage and string. The women stripped the bark and peeled the outer edge from the inner fiber with their teeth. The rolls were then kept in coils or were boiled and kept as coils until needed, being soaked again when used, to make them pliable. While there were countless uses for this cordage, perhaps the most important was in tying the poles together for the framework of the wigwam or medicine lodge. When these crossings of poles were lashed together with wet bark fiber, it was easy to get a tight knot which shrank when dry and made an even tighter joint. The bark of an elm or a balsam, cut into broad strips was then sewed into place on the framework with basswood string. An oak wood awl was used to punch holes in the bark, but Smith notes that, when they made his wigwam, they used an old file end for an awl. He reports that he lived in this new wigwam all the time he was among the Pillager Ojibwe and scarcely a night passed without a group of them visiting him and sitting around the campfire, telling old time stories.

RECRD: 202 id: 40374

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