Muskrats cut the abundant tules, eat the succulent bases and pile the stems in large conical heaps for their well-insulated winter lodges. At Utah Lake in the late 1820s, mountain man Jedediah Smith wrote in his journal that we "passed through a large swamp of bulrushes, when suddenly the lake presented itself to our view. On its bank were a number of buildings constructed of bulrushes, and resembling muskrat houses. These we soon discovered to be wigwams, in which the Indians remained during the stay of the ice." It is entirely possible these dwellings were patterned after muskrat lodges, for we humans have learned much from the animals.
Tule houses seen by Smith were probably the common Great Basin type. A dozen stout but pliable freshly cut willows were planted upright in the ground in a circle 10 to 12 feet across. At 7 to 8 feet high, the tops were pulled nearly together to form a semi-dome (a smokehole was left open at top center). Thinner willows were tied horizontally around the uprights to hold the dome's shape. This frame was covered with several "prefabricated" panels of tules and/or cattail leaves held together with willows.
Each panel, about 5 feet long and 5 feet wide, was constructed quite simply. Two or three willows were laid parallel on the ground about 18 inches apart. Quantities of tules were piled to a depth of 6 inches across these willows. A second set of willows was positioned on top, directly above those on the bottom. The corresponding willows were then tied together every few inches through the tules to tightly clamp the tules in place. These finished tule-and-willow "sandwiches" were then picked up and leaned around the willow dome.
On larger houses, two tiers of panels were used, those placed on top overlapping the ones leaned around the base. These panel walls were warmer than tule mats and less time-consuming to make, but they required considerably more tules. Living in such snug but fire-prone dwellings, it is no wonder the Great Basin peoples seldom owned no more articles than they could quickly grab at a moment's notice and carry out in one trip.
The second major type of tule dwelling was a tepee-like structure of leaned poles covered with several layers of tule mats. In the northern Great Basin, these conical houses were about the same size as the tule-paneled domes; but over much of the Columbia Plateau, tule mat lodges often reached massive proportions. One lodge along the Clearwater River in Idaho, described by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. in The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest, housed an entire village: "It was about 150 feet in length and contained 24 fires down its center and about twice that many families."
The typical Plateau lodge frame was like an elongated tepee; the semicircular ends were connected by a long horizontal ridgepole and subsidiary poles. Mats intended for lodge coverings were commonly 10 or 12 feet long and as wide as the tules were tall, usually 6 to 8 feet. The tules were laid on the ground, the thicker butts alternating with the thinner tops, and strung together with several rows of fine cordage hand-twisted from dogbane fibers. The tules were flattened along each seam to retard splitting, and a row of fiber twining reinforced the edges of each mat. These long mats, laid and tied in shingle fashion over the pole frames, would shed rain admirably. Additional poles were frequently leaned against the outside of the mats to further secure them during windy weather.
Winter lodges were used only part of the year and were usually dismantled each spring as the inhabitants prepared to begin their seasonal food harvesting rounds. Mat construction was a tedious job, but well-made mats would last two or three winters if they were carefully rolled up and cached during the off seasons in dry pits or caves. Worn or frayed mats were recycled into interior floor coverings, bedding and wrappings for cached foods.
Soon after many of the Plateau cultures (such as Nez Perce, Spokane and Umatilla) obtained horses, they began annual trips eastward in late summer to the buffalo ranges of western Montana and Wyoming. During this period of increased contact with the Plains groups, the familiar tepee came into vogue, and lodge coverings of skin and, later, canvas nearly replaced those of tule mats. Have you ever seen a tule-mat lodge at the Pendleton Round-Up?
Of all the native groups who made some use of the tule, the Klamath, who specifically adapted their culture to the south-central Oregon marshes and lakes, were the champions of tule knowledge. From the locally prolific styles -infant cradles, sandals, boots, leggings, aprons, skirts, capes, hats and hoods, mittens, spoons, plates, trays, dolls and other toys, games, arrow quivers, cordage, storage and carrying bags and myriad basketry forms for all conceivable uses. Most of these articles were manufactured by a finger-weaving technique called twining, in which the long elements, the warps, were bound together by twisting additional tule stems, the wefts, around them.
The nature of the tule stem makes it well suited to primitive manufactures. Properly prepared, the smooth green stems are pliable and easy to manipulate. The stem core is much like Styrofoam, a lightweight froth filled with tiny air pockets that provide bulk, excellent insulation and floatation. For immediate, temporary use, fresh stems were quickly twisted into open-weave carrying bags and rough baskets that were casually and just as quickly discarded.
In preparation for making more permanent articles, however, the fresh stems were harvested and spread on the ground to partially dry. During this "controlled wilting," the tules dehydrated, shrank somewhat and became stronger.
The bulk of twined tule work was of whole or split stems in various combinations, but the finest baskets were made by striping away only the tougher green outer covering, hand twisting the long lengths of fiber into uniform two-ply cords and twining these together. Some coiled baskets of tule also were made. The small, dark brown tule roots were incorporated into either weave to create bicolored designs.
Besides its versatility in manufacture, the tule contributed significantly to the aboriginal diet. In late summer quantities of ripe seeds were harvested, parched, winnowed and ground into flour for breads and mush. The long, snake-like rhizomes were pulled from the silt and muck of the marsh bottoms, washed and baked in pit ovens to make their starchy interiors more digestible. New shoots and succulent cores of the mature stem bases were eaten fresh or baked. Both rhizomes and stem bases were dried and ground into flour, either raw or after baking. All the edible parts of the tule have an agreeable, though bland, flavor. Like the more familiar cattail, the underwater parts of the tule can be collected for food at any time of the year, and they were especially important in late winter when previously stored foods ran low. Breaking the ice, wading in the numbing water and groveling in the muck.for tule rhizomes in near-zero weather was doubtless not a preferred activity (I've tried it), but it beats starving!
Earlier in this century, the small matted wads of tule fiber commonly excavated from Great Basin caves perplexed interpretive archaeologists. Were these the result of some unknown fiber-cleaning process? They seemed awfully tangled to be of much use. As archaeology became more holistic, and the aboriginal diet was examined, these mystery wads were determined to be "quids," the discarded by-products of aborigines masticating tule rhizomes to extract the nutritious starch.
Tule rhizomes or stem bases may have had another importantfunction. In his book Stone Age in the Great Basin, Emory Strong reports, "Edward Palmer, before 1870, saw desert Indians chew the roots as a preventative of thirst before starting a long journey" and "Dr. Walter P. Cottam of the University of Utah reported that he experienced neither hunger nor thirst during one day of strenuous field work while he chewed the sweet starchy roots."
I have also tried this with some success during desert travel and intend to experiment further.
Tule sandal made by "close-twining" method.
In late summer, little green aphids (mealy plum aphids) often cover the stalks of tules, the common reed (Phragmites) and other emergent vegetation. These aphids suck the plant juices, process them through their bodies and excrete them back into the stems as clear, sweet droplets called "honey-dew." When an aphid-infested stand was located, the aborigines would collect these droplets in quantity, roll the sticky c
rystals into little balls and eat them as a sugary candy, one of the few natural sweeteners available.
Years ago, when I first encountered a colony of these aphids, I hazily remembered reading of honey-dew, but I couldn't remember all the particulars. I gathered my fortitude (this is real experimental archaeology) and ingested a large lick of the aphids. They tasted green and mushy, but not sweet. Then I sampled the dried crystals and knew I'd found the real honey-dew. Honey Lake, ringed with extensive tule stands, in far northeastern California was probably named after this valued substance.
Of all the articles aboriginal peoples created from tules, I think the most wondrous is the tule boat. Like most material culture items made in the Great Basin, the underlying motivation in constructing the tule boat was to aid in the food-collecting process. I first read of the boat in Margaret Wheat's exceptional book Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes and immediately incorporated its construction into my aboriginal life-skills courses.
With nothing more than knives, a tolerance for mosquitoes and a convenient stand of tall tules, half a dozen eager people can create a tule boat in about three hours. The tules are cut and laid, all facing the same direction, in two piles, each a little more than 2 feet in diameter at the butt ends. Long braided or twisted ropes of cattails, tules or other sedges are quickly made, and each pile is wrapped and bound at several points to form a solid bundle. The two bundles are then bound side-by-side to form the hull of the boat. The narrow ends of the bundles are drawn up together and with more rope to form the pointed, raised bow. A gunwale of smaller tule bundles is laced onto the "deck," and the boat is completed.
It is during the boat-building process, perhaps from the tedium of cuttings, carrying and piling hundreds of tules, that the "tule jokes" begin:
"After the boat, let's build a tule hang glider!"
A student struggling to maintain balance on a boat listing into the wind hears a helpful suggestion yelled from a classmate on shore: "Don't lean windward, lean tule." I'll spare you more; perhaps this is tule many already. Each boat will fully support one person kneeling at the stern, where the bundles are thickest. In the shallow marshes, the boat was normally pushed along with a pole, rather than paddled. In the Great Basin, tule boats were used by the Paiutes to scour the marshes for waterfowl eggs and to herd young birds and adults, especially the ubiquitous coot or mudhen during its midsummer flightless eclipse plumage phase, into nets strung across narrow channels of open water. The gunwales on the boat kept the pile of eggs and dead birds from falling off, and the successful hunter often found himself wading in the water pushing his food-laden raft ahead of him.
The boats generally were used for a few consecutive days until the desired quantity of birds or eggs was harvested, then were casually abandoned. Larger, more carefully constructed boats of tules and similar plants were used by aboriginal peoples around the world. Thor Heyerdahl, in The Ra Expeditions, demonstrated that a primitively made reed boat could be seaworthy enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean [See also BPT #6],
The arid Great Basin is a land of seeming contradictions and extremes - parched high deserts and alkali flats juxtaposed with snowcapped mountains and freshwater marshes and lakes, with summer temperatures of more than 100 degrees and sub-zero winters. Life there was not easy, but aboriginal man learned to manipulate the available natural resources to his advantage and cope with the factors he couldn't change. Life surely would have been harder without the versatile tule.
Introduction To Tule Ethnobotany
By Norm Kidder
* * *
Canvasback tule duck decoy by Jim Riggs, modeled after Lovelock Cave types.
In many parts of the world tules, reeds, bulrushes and their relatives have been used by local groups as building material. The Egyptians used papyrus for paper and boats (more technically called balsas, or floats). A statue of King Tut shows him spearing hippos from a reed 'surfboard', while multi-ton slabs of stone are known to have been transported on large ocean going reed vessels. (See Thor Heyerdahl, the Ra Expeditions). Natives in other parts of Africa, the Marsh Arabs of Iraq, and Indians of South America, Mexico, and California also used the versatile reeds for watercraft. In this article I will stick to the uses of tule reeds by the Indian peoples of Central California and neighboring Nevada.
Tule, seems to be both a general term for freshwater marshes and also for the sedges of the genus Scirpus. The term Tule Fog refers to moisture rising from the ground. The Spanish called the seasonally flooded center of the San Joaquin Valley the "tulares". In the San Francisco Bay area, the Common Tule is Scirpus acutus. This tule grows up to over 16 feet tall, has a round dark green stem, and only vestigial leaves. Its seed head is an open tassel normally 2 inches or less across. A similar looking relative, Scirpus californicus, or California Tri-square differs in having a lighter green and triangular stem, and a larger seed head. The tri-square also has a larger internal cell structure which makes it inferior for most construction purposes. A number of other species are found around the country, and may or may not prove suitable for making useable items.
In Central California, Tules were made into:
baskets - from loose berry baskets to water carriers (Yokuts);
clothing - Pomo 'grass' skirts and leggings to Yurok sun visors;
mats - to thatch a house or sit on, or rolled up for storage;
dolls and toys - slings, quivers, swaddling clothes, arrow skippers;
balsa boats and rafts - from one man floats to small islands;
duck decoys - plain, painted, and feather covered.
WORKING WITH TULES
Cut tules anytime after they have reached full height. They will tend to get firmer from late summer into fall. They can be cut in the fall until wind and rain have broken and dried them. The feel of the stem is the real determining factor. Be careful when cutting to keep the tules neatly stacked in the same direction so they don't bend or break. I tie them into bundles about 8 inches thick at the base with cords near each end and one in the middle. Always carry the bundles with the butt ends forward to avoid breakage.
Once cut, the stems must be dried before use. Depending on when they are cut, they may shrink up to 50% in diameter as they dry. When they are uniformly light green they are just dry enough, although yellow or tan is better. While drying, be sure to allow for good ventilation, and don't stack the tules too thickly, or mold and mildew will result. I prefer to dry tules in the shade. It takes longer, but they acquire a leathery texture. Drying in the sun is quicker (a few days instead of a few weeks), but the stems end up more crisp and brittle.
TWINING
Twinging is easily confused with weaving, but differs in a fundamental way. Weaving involves a single strand passing in and out between the standing stock or ribs. Twining involves two (or three) strands which pass around the ribs in sequence, while intertwining around each other (Fig. A). This results in a 'locked' stitch compared to weaving's looser wrapping. Twining done without ribs (twisting) results in a two (or three) ply rope.
Fig. A Weaving
Twining
TWISTING
Twisting is used to turn fibers into string, or in this case using whole or split tules to make tule rope. To begin, grasp a bundle of at least two tules at each end and twist them between your fingers until the tules begin to 'kink' back on themselves (Fig. B). Move your hands closer together as the tule strands are twisted, and the kink begins to twist into a 2-ply strand (Fig C). Attach the end to something (your teeth?), and now, as you twist clockwise, pass the strand over each other counterclockwise, switching hands. Repeat this endlessly, adding in new tules (fat end first) into each side as needed (See BPT #2 for a complete description of the string making process).
TULE MATS AND SUCH
To twine tules into mats or other items, begin as you would for rope, twisting together three or four inches of single ply cord. Instead of twisting the plys together, place the twisted section around a small bunch of tules with each t
wist. You should have the tules laid out roughly. Pass the strand which lies on top of the first bunch over the strand which comes up from beneath, and then this strand passes beneath the second bunch of tules and then comes back out to the working face. Repeat this - over, behind and out - until you have completed a row. Add in additional pieces of tule as needed to maintain the thickness of the strand. As the row progresses, each 'stitch' should slant at the same angle across the face of the project (Note the photo below of two painted decoys resting on a twined mat.). At the end of a row, twine the tule strands into rope until it is long enough to reach the next spot you want a row to begin, then turn and twine the row. Continue this process until you have finished. End the last row with a knot, then tuck the ends back into the work.
Fig. B The "Kink"
Fig. C The start for 2-ply cordage.
Two painted and decorated decoys, by Jim Riggs, resting on a twined tule mat.
TULE DUCK DECOYS
From observations by early explorers, decoys of tules and feathers were used over a wide area in the West. A cache of decoys was found, wrapped in a tule mat, in a dry cave in Nevada in 1924. Most were painted and partly feathered, others plain. A bag of feathers was found with it. Paiute Indians have continued to make tule duck decoys to this day. Jimmy George, a Paiute shaman, is shown making a decoy in Margaret Wheat's book Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes (Univ. of Nevada Press, 1967) in the 1940's. I have a decoy I believe was made by his son some years later, and we have recently purchases two decoys from Daren George, the grandson.
Primitive Technology Page 26