Northern Cheyenne Medicinal Garden at Food Forest

Alisha Bretzman, Piney Island Native Plants, LLC at the Food Forest

On Thursday, August 31, Linwood Tall Bull and his son, Randall, gave a presentation on Cheyenne Medicinal Plants at the dedication of the Northern Cheyenne Medicinal Garden recently planted at the Sheridan Food Forest.

Linwood Tall Bull, is a resident of Busby, Montana, and is a member of a venerated, traditionalist Northern Cheyenne family. He is an ethnobotanist and teacher at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana. His son, Randall, is carrying on his father’s work with native plants.

He is also a member of The Brinton Museum’s American Indian Advisory Council, established in 2014. The Council provides to the museum invaluable expertise on American Indian life and culture.

Alisha Bretzman, who operates Piney Island Native Plants, LLC, provided the native plants and David Malutich Piney Island Conservation Services, landscape rehabilitation, did the design for the garden.

Linwood talked about his long-time ties to the Sheridan area.

Tall Bull’s son, Randall Tall Bull, talked about the traditional foods, saying that they raised some garden crops such as corn and squash, but

He had on hand a selection of dried meat, dried berries, a patty made of ground up, dried chokecherries, and other native foods for the group to sample. He demonstrated the ancient way of grinding the berries with smooth rocks, and showed the audience a large bowl made of tanned hide that a woman would use to grind the berries in. It was considered lazy if one left a stem in the ground chokecherries.

He added

Linwood talked about some of the Northern Cheyenne beliefs and how much of the lore is being lost. He is passing his knowledge on to his son. He talked about many native plants that are used for medicine in the tribe. One plant was used for a toothache, and it could also forecast the winter.

He added that Alisha Bretzman is one of his students, and so far, she is the only one who has been able to grow many of the plants that grow wild in the Cheyenne ancestral homelands. She had this to say about the garden.

She added that she also hoped the garden would be a way to bring the two cultures together.

Dave Malutich talked about his role in creating the garden, and about the signs near each plant, telling native stories and the native uses. Some of the stories were told to Linwood by his father, William Tall Bull. There is also a QR code that will take one to a website where there are more stories.

The native plants were from Piney Island Native Plants, a greenhouse and nursery producing locally-sourced, locally-adapted, containerized native plants for restoration, reclamation, and conservation focused projects.

The program was well attended with over 60 people filling the food forest to hear the talk and see the native garden.