Dye Plants of Georgia

The following are some of the plants used by the Native Americans of this region for dye. Dying techniques varied greatly and dyes used varied from season to season, settlement to settlement and weaver to weaver. An excellent book on basket dying among the Cherokee is Weaving New Worlds by Sarah H. Hill. The information given here came from Dr. Hill's book and from Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman.

The below chart lists plants used by the Cherokee. The Cherokee name when know is given in parenthesis after the common name.

COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME COLOR
Butternut;White Walnut [ko-hi] Juglans cinerea Black; Brown
Black Walnut [se-di] Juglans nigra Black; Brown; Green
Winged, Shining Sumac
[U ji s da lu gi s gv] pb Rhus copallina Black; red
Smooth Sumac [Ta wis ka] pb Rhus glabra Black; red
Blue Baptisia Baptisia australis Blue
Horsefly Weed
[Da ma ga] pb [Ga nu lv] pb Baptisia tinctoria Blue
Chestnut [U na gi na] pb Castanea dentate Brown
Chestnut Oak Quercus prinus Brown
Oak galls [atagu] Quercus sp. Rich red
Coreopsis sp. Coreopsis tinctoria Red
Bloodroot [gigage unaste-tsi] Sanguinaria Canadensis Red; orange
Field Madder Sharardia arvensis Red; rose
Canadian Hemlock Tsuga canadensis Red-brown
Carolina Hemlock Tsuga caroliniana Red-brown
Golden Seal Hydrastis Canadensis Unspecified
American Holly
[Us da s di] pb Illex opaca Unspecified
Broom Sedge Andropogon virginicus Yellow
Yellow Root [daloni-ge unaste-tsi] Xanthorhiza simplicissima Yellow
Pokeweed - ripe berries [tsayatika]
or [tsa-hytika] for pokeweed pb Phytolacca Americana Pale Red

Sue added the following information for the exhibits. (PB)

A plant used for baskets, as well as many other things, was River Cane [Arundinaria gigantea].

A good way to get pictures of the above plants is to use the Internet. I've had good luck going to Google, clicking "Image" which is one of the choices above the blank box in which you type your search terms. I type the scientific name of the plant in which I'm interested into the box. Usually this gets what I want. Although some of the images you find are copyrighted, others can be downloaded free.

The trees, like walnuts, oaks, hemlocks and American holly can usually be ordered through your local nursery. That is the best way to get trees that are of a decent size in a short period. To get seeds of some plants like the pokeweed and broom sedge you will probably have to collect from the wild. Others plants can be ordered from Native plant nurseries.

See if you can get the book Growing and Propagating Wild Flowers by Harry R. Phillips [Chapel hill, NC; University of North Carolina Press. 1985.] It will help you grow the other things you need.

There are more than 400 species of honeysuckle in North America and I am not sure which species Southern Indians might have used or indeed if they used any of the native species. In modern times, they have made use of the introduced Japanese honeysuckle [Lornicera japonica].

Information was submitted to Peggy Brennan, 8/31/04, by Sue Vrooman, Gardens Coordinator, Atlanta History Center for the Smithsonian 2006 basketry festival exhibits. If you wish to use this information, please contact Sue for permission. Oklahoma Native American Basketweavers contributed Cherokee words.

September 17, 2007