“RockyMountainJunipers growall over ourhills west ofBillings and

Laurel. This iswhat my mom wanted for our Christmas tree. Momloved the smell of juniper in the house. Each year,dad took me and my brothers and sisters to thosehills to choose and cut a tree.” —Elnora

~ INDIAN NAMES ~Cree: Si-tah-pi-kwah-nahk

(Rocky Mountain Juniper)Kah-kah-ki-wah-tik

(Common & Horizontal Juniper)Crow: Búluxpee (“Holy or medicine wood”)

Awákochilua (“Creeping cedar, juniper”)Buluxbaawácua (“Has green berries”)

Northern Cheyenne: WI’ IV TSIS TOTO

There are four kinds of evergreen junipers thatgrow in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plainsregions: the Rocky Mountain Juniper, the

Common Juniper, the Utah Juniper, and the

Horizontal or Creeping Juniper. This is a small tree,or more frequently a shrub, with a berry-like fruitthat is bitter in taste and smell, astringent and aro-matic, with a flavor specific to juniper. Tasted once,you will not forget the juniper-berry flavor.

The names “cedar,” “red-cedar,” or “western redcedar” are often used for this tree/shrub, probablybecause of the similarity of the wood to real cedars.However cedar (genus Thuja) is here separated fromjuniper on the basis of the leaves and fruits. Juniperhas rounded or thickened overlapping scale-likeleaves; in cedar the scale-like leaves are very flat-tened, as if ironed. Juniper’s berry-like fruit is dis-tinct from cedar’s true cone-like fruit with scales,though the cones on cedar are smaller than those ofpines, spruces or firs.

~ FOLKLORE ~

As food, junipers have limited, but rather excit-ing uses. As lumber, the very durability of the

wood for use as posts that do not decay, no matterwhat the soil or weather conditions, is important—and picturesque, for juniper posts are often twistedand artistic in appear-ance. By far, the great-est uses among Indiansand early pioneers have

Elnora A. Old Coyote

Búluxpee—holy or medicinewood, stubbornly growing at the feet of the yellow pine,burned by Crow peopleas ceremonial incense.

They send their prayers to the Great Maker as the sacred smoke rises.

Junipers of the Ro c k i e sE a r ly American Fo lk lo re, Food & Medicine

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Rocky Mountain Juniper has a shrub-like, short, stout trunk with many

branches from ground to treetop. Thecrown is irregular, with an asymmetricalsilhouette. The leaves are gray-green toblue, pointed, oppressed, with overlap-ping scales, 1/8 inch long.

This juniper is dioecious; the maleflowers in male-pollen cones are on onetree; females on another. The fruit is around berry, clear blue or white, 1/4"–

1/3" in diameter, with sweet, resinous flesh and thin skin, maturing in twoyears. The seeds (1, 2 or 3 in each cone) have a hard, bony, outer coat.

Twigs are 4-angled, slender andleafy when young, but become smooth,round and pale-brown later. Bark is thin,soft and shreddy. The heartwood is red streaked with white; sap-wood is thick and white. The wood is durable, light and soft.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN JUNIPERJuniperus scopulorum Sarg. • Cupressaceae Cypress Family

been medicinal, due to the special characteristics ofjuniper’s stems, bark, leaves and berries. Birds andsmall animals eat quantities of juniper seeds.

Juniper is possibly one of the plants most harvested by all of the Plains Indian tribes for use inteas, and for many medicinal treatments, along withcedar. Both plants are most sacred for burning asincense in spiritual ceremony and for purification insweat lodges, the daily time for cleansing and prayer.

~ FOOD ~

Raw Juniper—All species have the fleshy, berry-likecones that are edible. Berries can be eaten raw, just

taking a berry in the mouth and chewing it for its bit-ter, puckery, but clean and fresh taste. Utah Juniper isbest for eating, for it is drier and sweeter than theother junipers. Chewing the berries before eating willstimulate digestive stomach secretions, such ashydrochloric acid and pepsin, to help food digestion.

Juniper Cakes—Perhaps the best way to eat theberries is to dry them, grind them into a flour or roughmeal, and either make cakes of them, moistening themwith water and patting them into biscuit-like patties tocook over coals. They can be boiled as oatmeal is.Some sweetener (the inner bark of cottonwood trees,honey, or maple sap) can be used to offset the juniper’sbitterness.

Teas—Teas from leaves, berries and bark are con-sidered to be refreshing tonics.

Seasoning and Flavor—Add a small handful ofjuniper berries to sauerkrautfor a pleasant aroma and taste.Crushing a few berries andadding them to potato saladmakes it more exciting.

Juniper berries have comeinto use as flavoring for gin

On the sunny side, at the feet of douglas fir and spruce, an uncommon juniper grows.

Yes, berries blue, but curved and pointed needles for leaves—un-juniper-like.

COMMON JUNIPERJuniperus communis L.

Cupressaceae Cypress Family

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Common or Dwarf Juniper is a low shrub growing in turf-likepatches, has awl-shaped, keeled, needle-like leaves in whorls

of three, 1/3" to 1/2" long, dark green on lower side, white onupper. The flowers are axillary. Yellow staminate aments aresolitary with several pollen sacs under each scale. The pistillateament has 2–3 series of fleshy scales.The berry-like fruit is 1/4"–1/3" in diameter, formed from coalescence of flower scales, darkblue, 1–3 seeded. Seeds are egg-shaped, pointed, very small andwingless.

Buds are usually small and scaly. Bark is thin, soft and shreddy. The wood is durable, weak, close-grained and aromatic.Heartwood is red-purple to brown. Sapwood is whitish.

Only the shrubby form grows in the Northern RockyMountain and Great Plains areas, at usually 3000 to 5000 feet altitude, usually in drier locations at the feet of douglas fir, pinesand spruce. In more open areas, it is often found where lodgepolepines or limber pines grow. This juniper is often planted as partof landscaping in parks or yards.

Berries of this juniper were used as often as berries fromother junipers; however, the needle-like leaves were not oftenused, as the other, scale-like leaves were preferred.

and as spicing for meats. Oftenpeople did not like meat with acertain taste or smell, as thesagebrush taste of antelope orgrouse, or the dandelion taste inspring when game animals ateearly dandelions, or meat taintedfrom harvesting or handling. Sothe hunter-gatherers found waysto offset these offensive tastesand odors with the juniper.Tough and/or bland foods can beturned into aromatic and tendermorsels with simple marinating.The seasoned liquid used insteeping meats has two results: itadds or enhances flavor and itmakes an effective tenderizer formore lean and tougher cuts ofmeat.

~ MEDICINE ~

From the earliest times all overthe world, people used

juniper as a tea for a variety ofailments, stimulants, tonics,solutions and decoctions in varying strengths, often com-bined with other plants. In theWest, pioneers and settlerslearned of its many uses from thenative tribes. The Cheyennesteeped the leaves in tea torelieve a persistent cough or tickling in the throat. Blackfeetdrank the tea to stop vomiting.

Cheyenne women drank junipertea to hasten childbirth. Theyalso found juniper tea to reduceirritable behavior, which we callhyperactivity, as others usechamomile to calm down, and tohelp with bad dreams.

Cheyennes, Flatheads, Sioux,Nez Perce and Kutenai made teafrom leaves, boughs and berriesto drink for fevers, tonsillitis andpneumonia. Gros Ventres atewhole berries or made a tea todrink as a cure for asthma. Theymade a mixture of juniper leavesand roots externally applied tostop nosebleeds.

Crow people drank the tea tocheck diarrhea and to stop nasaland lung hemorrhage. Crowwomen used it after childbirth tostop bleeding and to cleanse andaid healing. The berries crushedand steeped into a tea were effec-tive as a urinary tract herb andwere frequently used for cystitisand urethritis. The Sioux boiledthe berries and leaves together ina tea used for coughs. Manytribes learned to use the liquidfor their horses when they hadcoughs.

For colds, the twigs wereburned and the smoke wasinhaled, much as today’s coldvaporizers. Putting a blanket over the head and leaning overthe smoke intensified the effect.Putting these in a kettle ofwater and boiling until steamemerges and inhaling the steamwas comforting for head andchest congestion.

Historically the Oglala chiefRed Cloud made a tea ofjuniper leaves which helped his

Half tree, half shrub—not high, not low. An in-between plant,

the Utah juniper.It can be 300 years old,

and still an in-between plant.

UTAH JUNIPERJuniperus utahensis (Engelm.) Lemm.

Cupressaceae Cypress Family

Utah Jupiter is a spreading shrub/smalltree rarely over 20 feet tall. The trunk is

rarely over 12" in diameter and is usually ofmany branches from just above the ground.The crown is rounded. The leaves are scale-like, 1/8" long, acute and pale yellow-green.The flowers are usually monoecious; maleflowers with 18–24 stamens; female withacute spreading scales.

The fruit is red-brown, berry-like, round,and 1/4"–1/3" long, with thin, dry, sweet fleshwith smooth, tough skin, maturing in 2 years.The seed is usually single in each fruit,ovoid, sharply angled, marked in the mid-dle by a conspicuous scar (hilum), with ahard and bony outer cone.

The twigs are slender, rounded, stiffand yellow-green, with thin, rich-brownscales. Winter buds are naked and leaf-covered.

The bark is thin (1/2"–1/4"), ash-grayor gray-white, divided into thin, fibrousscales that remain attached.The heartwood is light yellow-brown.The Sap-wood is thick, white and verydurable.

38 w w w. n a t u r a l l i fe n ew s . c o m • Natural Life News & D i re c t o ry

people in a cholera epidemic(1840–50). Cree people used theneedles to make a small sweatbath for treating arthritis andrheumatism. The boiled rootswere placed on hot coals to giveoff steam to waft over hurtingjoints and other sore areas.

Blackfeet people used the teato relieve rheumatic and arthriticpain in the following way: Take 3teaspoons of juniper leaves, 1/2teaspoon of turpentine, steep in 1cup of water, cool and rub onhurting joints. Adding cotton-wood leaves to the tea, they usedthe concoction as a liniment forsore, aching, stiff backs. Blackfeetalso treated lung and kidney prob-lems with juniper steam and teas,and believed it helpful in treatingvenereal disease.

The Kiowas chewed theberries for canker sores. Somepeople used juniper teas as a con-valescent medicine to counteractweakness after an illness. Oftencrushed juniper leaves, berries,roots and stems were added toother teas and concoctions forimproving flavor and smell.

The Indian people made asalve by pounding the roots withother medicines and adding ani-mal fats or lard. They applied thisto external skin disorders andwounds. The elements of juniperfound to be effective were thevolatile oils and resins, gum, wax,lignin and salines.

Juniper thus provided all earlypeoples, Indian and white, withmany cures for common ailments,respiratory, digestive and excreto-ry. The effect possibly is a result ofstimulation, or even irritation, ofthe body to function, thus aidingin relief and healing. Oil ofjuniper is presently used in manypatent medicines, considered forhealing as well as for aromaticqualities.

~ CEREMONIAL USES ~

As with many plants that gaveoff volatile substances when

placed over hot coals or boiled inwater, juniper became greatlydesired for use in spiritual andother ceremonial rituals and prac-tices. People came to believe thesmoke had sacred, mystic powers.

To the Osage Indians, cedar(juniper) was “the tree of life,”connected to the beginning of thehuman race. To Cheyenne people,it represented“continuingyouth” becauseit remainedever green. The Omahasoffered prayersto the thunderand believedthe thun-derbirdslived in aforest ofjunipers.

CREEPING OR HORIZONTAL JUNIPER

Juniperus horizontalis Moench.Cupressaceae Cypress Family

Acreeping, low-growing shrub, horizontaljuniper, less than 2 feet high, growing at

forest edges, is sometimes called shrubbyred cedar. Almost prostrate in the Northern

Rocky Mountain-Great Plainsarea, the stems touching theground, root down where theytouch.

The leaves are short (1/8"–1/4"long), scale-like, 4-ranked and onyoung plants, pointed, taperingfrom a broader tricker base to avery sharp-spiny tip. The fruit is aberry, blue (light or dark) hairless,

1–3 seeded, bornon short pedun-cle-like branchlets.Buds are indistinctand naked; flow-ers are terminal.

DR. ELNORA (STENERSEN) OLD COYOTE, age 89, grew up inEastern Montana and married John M. Old Coyote,

a full-blooded Crow Indian. With the help of manytribal people, she has been researching andteaching the use of native plants for many years.She has studied and written about over 300Montana plants. Included here are her originalnotes on ecology, folklore, etc. and her poems.Elnora lives in Huntley, Montana. She can bereached at (406) 348-2181.

39November–December 2011

Creeping over the ground, over bare, rocky soil on hills,

Wherever a stemtouches the soil roots grow,

Stitching the plant down, tacking the soil in place—

A dark-green tapestry.