Uses of Blackberries by aborginals?

Can anyone suggest a sorce for the uses of blackberries by West coast aborginals. I'm looking for both food and medicinal?

NickG

 

Start with this:

http://www.lonepinepublishing.com/cat/1-55105-530-9

 

there are several good books out there by Nancy J Turner from the University of Victoria

she is an authority on the first nations peoples and their use of plants.

You may also want to contact Dr. Brian Compton or Eduardo Jovel at the First nations House of Learning at UBC


This link will get you to chapters info on Nancy Turners books

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/item....ancy+turner&N=35&Lang=en&Section=books&zxac=1

Pierrot

 

Another option is to use Google's Book Search (if you don't have a Google account, you can create one): http://books.google.com/

I searched for Nancy Turner, then selected the book I wanted to look through, then searched within the book for Rubus.

For example, from "Plant Technology of First Peoples in British Columbia", I came up with the following for Rubus ursinus:

 

I expected an entry in the "Plants of Coastal British Columbia including Washington, Oregon & Alaska" (as suggested by Ron B) but was surprised not to find anything regarding use by native Indians for this entry. Maybe my copy is old and the new version has some info?

 

The upright growing Blackberries are an introduced species. The native peoples, recognized the food values early. Many of their uses, also have much in common with the early settlers uses. Typo in thread title "Aboriginals"

 

Under TRAILING BLACKBERRY (Rubus ursinus), page 78:

"NOTES: The Stl' atl' imx and some Coast Salish have an origin myth for trailing blackberry" and so on.

 

Thanks RonB. I initially looked at the entry for Himilayan Blackberry at the top of pg78. Always interesting reading the NOTES section of this book.