Life and Death

Imagine living in the unspoiled Pacific Northwest before the European Americans arrived; before there were roads and cities along the rivers. The views, sounds, and natural state of the area was vastly different. And imagine you are a Nez Perce native American in the year 1800. You would be living in one of about 100 villages throughout the Northwest, many along the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater rivers. Your life would be structured around seasonal encampments to take advantage of important food sources: salmon, berries, nuts, and camas bulbs.

No need to expound on the delights of eating salmon - most of us continue to enjoy this wonderful staple of river living to this day. The Nez Perce knew the best spots for spearing the salmon and learned to smoke and preserve it as well. Thankfully, today, we don't have to reel in our own fish when we feel like having a salmon dinner, but many still choose to do so.

But what about those camas bulbs? You probably don't have a bag of them in your pantry. The Nez Perce and others relied on baked camas bulbs as a regular staple, similar to our potato of today. In the 1800's there were thousands of acres of the camas plants growing throughout the region. According to historians, the bulbs were gathered in late summer and then baked in home built ovens that resembled a giant clay pot. Their natural flavor is rather bland, so usually the bulbs were mixed with salmon oil or berries for flavoring.

Camas and salmon were so important to these native people that many landmarks and places have been named after them. There is a city in Washington named Camas, and of course there are several rivers in the Northwest with the Salmon name.

The Common Camas (Camassia quamash) blooms in mid-spring in damp meadows at low elevation areas, west of the Cascades. It is quite a sight to see a whole field of blooming camas, with their intense blue blossoms. The Great Camas (Camassia leichtlinii) is very similar, but larger and sports more flowers than the common one.

In 1805, the Lewis and Clark explorers met the Nez Perce, who basically helped the explorers avoid starvation at that point in their journey. One of their journals talks about how the native tribe gave them camas to eat. Unfortunately, the bulbs are hard to digest, making life a bit worse for the undernourished explorers. Eventually though the explorers were able to tolerate the bulbs and moved on.

More locally, our Tualatin tribe was known to gather camas bulbs at Graham Oaks Nature Park near Wilsonville. These camas plants are still abundant in areas of the park.

One thing Nez Perce children must have learned at an early age, was to avoid what we now call the Meadow Death Camas (Zigadenus venenosus). This plant also produces a bulb, but is highly toxic and as the name suggests can be fatal. In fact, all parts of the plant are toxic. The flowers look nothing like Common Camas, but the plants grow in the same general conditions. At bulb harvesting time, the adult Nez Perce knew what to look out for and did not gather the toxic bulbs. Botanically speaking, the common and death camas plants are not related at all, but the common name creates this illusion.

Meadow Death Camas flowering in the Columbia River Gorge:

     

There is a wealth of historical articles about the Nez Perce and other Northwest native peoples on the internet. These native Americans knew the land and flora quite well and many of their learnings are still relevant in today's botanical science.