As the sun was rising behind a haze of red clouds, a small group of the People emerged from the underbrush at a river crossing. In retreat from a devastating ambush, they had been limping southward for three days, much of the time through a steady downpour. A war party of the northern Shaved Heads had struck a village of the People by surprise a moon earlier, carrying two women and a child away as captives. One of the women was the sister of the People’s war leader, who had immediately organized a party of a dozen warriors to pursue the enemy north along the ancient Warrior’s Path that followed the crest of the mountains to the territory of the hated Shaved Heads.

The Medicine Man had accompanied the group of warriors. The Shaved Heads were cunning fighters, and he had correctly anticipated that his healing talents would be needed after the war party caught up with the
enemy. A week into the march, they had been ambushed to disastrous effect at a narrow gap in the mountains. The Shaved Heads were concealed atop the cliffs that rose on each side of the pass, and the warriors of the People were unable to effectively defend themselves as arrows rained down on them from above. Four men had been killed outright; three more were wounded, including the war leader. He had sustained a serious injury to the shoulder from a war club as he attempted to scale the cliffs to rout the enemy.

As the retreating party arrived at the river, they found the recent heavy rains had raised the level of the water past the point that the river could be safely forded, especially considering the wounded men who were already nearing the end of their endurance after the three-day retreat through the rugged mountains. The war leader was fevered and drifting in and out of consciousness. The remaining able-bodied men had taken turns carrying him on the previous night’s march. One of the warriors scouted the riverbank. When he returned, he announced that he had found a grove of useful trees. Their bark could be utilized to quickly build makeshift canoes which would allow the warriors to float back downstream to the territory of the People.

The Medicine Man took advantage of the delay, seeing it as an opportunity to treat the severely injured war leader. Until this point, the Medicine Man had only been able to administer the most rudimentary care to the wounded, as any delay deep in the territory of the enemy would have invited attack and perhaps the death of all the surviving warriors. They were now hopefully a safe distance from the towns of the Shaved Heads and could halt for a day without fear of their small party having to fight for their lives. The Medicine Man had also recognized that the grove found by the scout was made up of powerful healing trees that he could use to treat the wounds of the war leader and the other injured warriors

The men who were able to work quickly peeled the bark from two of the large tree trunks, careful to remove the bark in whole, unbroken sheets. They cut smaller saplings of the springy hardwood and bent them into a
frame around which they folded the sheets of bark, turning the outside of the bark to the inside of the emerging canoe. The bark was sewn to the frame with strips of the pliant inner bark from the same trees. They built a small fire and placed rocks into it to heat. One of the men fashioned a large pan-like container from more of the supple bark. Inner bark from the trees was pounded, placed in the container, and covered with water. Hot rocks were added to the container to boil the mixture down and make a sticky caulking substance to seal the seams of the two improvised canoes.

As they worked, the Medicine Man cut the blood-soaked buckskin shirt away from the war leader’s shoulder and cleansed the injury with hot water and wood ash. The stone spike of the enemy war club had penetrated the shoulder deeply, leaving a serious puncture wound. In the time since the ambush, it had festered and become red and swollen with pus. A foul odor indicated the wound was quickly turning septic. The Medicine Man went to where the workers were preparing the caulking and took some of the sticky material that they were simmering. He fashioned a poultice of the mucilaginous substance, packing it into the war leader’s wound and binding it in place with a wide strip of the same inner bark. More of the inner bark of the
tree was dried before the fire, pounded into powder, heated in water to make a thick broth, and carefully fed to the ailing war leader at intervals throughout the day.

By late afternoon, the canoes were finished and packed. Shortly after dawn, the unfortunate war party climbed into the new bark canoes and set off for home. Before departing, the Medicine Man applied a fresh bark poultice to the injured war leader’s wound. With the help of the healing tree poultices and the nourishing bark gruel, he seemed a bit stronger, and his wound already looked less inflamed and septic. With a continued regimen of the tree medicine, the war leader stood a good chance of making a complete recovery. Perhaps next time he would turn the tables on the Shaved Head warriors and bring the captive women back to the People.

The tree used was the slippery elm, Ulmus rubra, also known as red elm. Slippery elm grows throughout the eastern and midwestern United States and eastern Canada, from Quebec and Ontario south to Florida and west to North Dakota and Texas. It is a medium-sized tree, growing to a height of 50-60 feet. The leaves are rough and sandpapery on top, hairy beneath, and have serrated, double-toothed margins. Like most elms, the leaves are asymmetrical at the base, giving the leaf a lopsided shape. The inconspicuous flowers are born in fascicles in early spring, soon followed by the fruits, which are small, winged, papery samaras. The slippery elm prefers rich wooded slopes and alluvial areas with basic or circumneutral soils. It is susceptible to the imported Dutch Elm Disease and has declined in many areas of its range but has been much less affected by the disease than its relative, the American or white elm.

The slippery elm has a long history of medicinal use. The principal part of the tree used medicinally is the mucilaginous inner bark, which gives the tree its common name. It has antibiotic, anti-fungal, emollient, expectorant, diuretic, and demulcent properties. The inner bark was used externally as a poultice or wash by Native Americans to treat wounds, severe burns, sores (especially old or slow-healing sores), gangrene, inflamed eyes, ulcers, fungal diseases, and boils. As an internal medicine, it was used for the treatment of sore throat, coughs, indigestion, respiratory, urinary tract, and digestive disorders. European settlers used it for many of the same purposes and found it especially helpful in treating old sores, gunshot wounds, diarrhea, and dysentery. Slippery elm has also long been used as an aid to childbirth, and modern studies have shown the inner bark to contain a glucocorticosteroid similar to progesterone and other hormones used in the manufacture of contraceptives.

The inner bark is also a nourishing food, comparing roughly in nutritional value to oatmeal. It has been utilized not only as an emergency food in times of famine, but a gruel or broth made of slippery elm inner bark was once recommended highly as a nourishing food for children, the elderly, convalescents, and invalids who had difficulty eating or digesting other foods. The leaves and immature fruits are edible.

In addition to its medicinal and edible properties, slippery elm has many utilitarian uses. The inner bark is a good source of a strong bast fiber. It has long been used as cordage, thread, fabric, and rope. Remnants of woven textiles made of slippery elm inner bark by the Hopewell culture of the upper Midwest have been found dating back to as far as 300 B.C. The bark has been used for weaving baskets and was used along with hickory bark in traditional Appalachian culture for weaving chair seats. Large sheets of elm bark were often used as a covering for wigwams, longhouses, and as roofing materials for other structures. Tribes who lived outside the range of paper birch commonly used canoes made from elm bark, and large sheets of elm bark were the usual
material of choice when quickly made canoes were needed for temporary use. The sticky, glue-like inner bark was boiled into a pitch for caulking canoes and other watercraft. Sheets of bark were commonly utilized to make storage containers and vessels for holding maple sap in the production of maple syrup and sugar. Before
the introduction of metal kettles by European traders, Native Americans boiled maple sap in bark containers such as these by dropping hot stones into the containers of sap, further concentrating the sap by allowing it to freeze at night and removing the layer of ice the next morning.

The wood of slippery elm is strong for its weight and is quite flexible and springy. Elm is one of the better whitewoods for making self bows, and there are several historical examples of Native American bows made from slippery elm wood. The wood was commonly used in the manufacture of horsedrawn wagons and sleds, for tool handles, and rough woodwork. The wood has an interlocking grain which resists splitting and breaking, but it rots easily in exposed situations. Elm provides fairly good firewood and produces large quantities of ash when burnt. Elm ash was also formerly used in the manufacture of potash.

Our ancestors lived intimately with the land, and over time accumulated extensive knowledge of which plants to use for different purposes. Before industrial civilization, this knowledge was widespread and necessary for survival. Now, much knowledge has been lost. It is our duty and in our best interests to preserve useful plant knowledge and incorporate it into our lives. We should also work to preserve our environment and the wild plants in the event that they may once again become the very means of our survival.