Concordia College plants its first Indigenous medicinal herb garden

The community garden at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., is increasingly living up to its name: Cornucopia.

On a sweltering mid-summer afternoon, the overflowing horn of plenty overflowed even more with a newly planted Indigenous medicinal herb garden — the first of its kind for the college. It’s planted amid rows of wildflowers, cased in the sound of windchimes and aroma of ripening tomato plants.

“I really hope this is a space of just healing,” said Brandon Baity, interim executive director of the Indigenous Association in Fargo. “A space of community.”

And so far, it is.

About a dozen volunteers, garden staff, interns, Indigenous Association members and university staff worked to plant it together — a “rainbow tribe,” said Waabishki Giiwedin Iwke. She’s the Indigenous Association’s event coordinator and administrative assistant and on its founding board, and is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

“I know the importance of getting connected for urban Natives into the community,” Waabishki Giiwedin Iwke said. “So I’m glad to be a part of it. I’m glad to be a part of something growing and connecting and meeting people from all walks of life.”

‘Johnny Sageseed’

For the inaugural planting, folks gathered a block or so east of the main campus, across the highway and kitty-corner to the school’s sports complex. There, they planted four sacred herbs: Ceremonial tobacco, cedar, sweetgrass and sage.

“Sometimes I joke around like I want to be Johnny Sageseed, where I just get sage everywhere and everyone’s able to have the medicine that they need,” said Baity, a member of White Earth Nation.

But it’s not a joke: These herbs are crucial to Anishinaabe culture.

Sage and sweetgrass are often used as a smudge, burned to bathe in its smoke. It’s considered cleansing to the spirit.

“Maybe you carry some negativity or some like bad feelings about the morning or you got an argument. Sometimes it’s good to smudge and be able to use that smoke to kind of carry that away,” Baity said.

Then there’s cedar, a player in medicine, ceremonies, building and protection.

And ceremonial tobacco?

“It’s a plant that’s used to show gratitude or it’s burned to bring prayers up to Creator. So it’s a super sacred and important plan for our culture,” Baity said.

The crew planted rows of these herbs that will be free for anyone in the community to take.

On hallowed ground

Garden manager Sarah Stauner planted echinacea, white yarrow and fennel. She rehomed a rose bush in the center and dropped in a few varieties of culinary sage.

Though the plants are just seedlings now, Stauner said she hopes their growth draws more people to the garden.

“Once the plants are established [we] definitely want more people to come by — and especially if you’re in the Indigenous community and need a resource,” she said.

As for why the college and association partnered for this medicine garden?

“We need to do this. It’s very obvious,” Stauner said. “Just start to educate people more about different cultures and engage students in a different way.”

Baity hopes seeds will spread, in all meanings of the phrase.

“It’s a great opportunity to spread the actual physical plants but also spread the knowledge about traditional medicines and just some of the traditional cultural aspects of the people who were on this land before — long before Concordia was here, Moorhead was here, any of this stuff was here,” he said.

“Every day is a new knowledge and new understanding,” Baity added, noting the more we hear other perspectives, the more tools we have.

“May we be stronger in connecting, uniting and strengthening not just the Indigenous Association,” Waabishki Giiwedin Iwke said, quoting the group’s mission, “but the world. We can do this work. We can heal one another.”

And “one another” isn’t exclusionary.

“Anyone’s welcome — doesn’t matter where you are, what you believe. The garden is a place for everyone,” Stauner said offering heirloom carrots straight from the ground. “We just want people here.”

All garden staff ask is if you take some herbs (and please do, they say), just note your harvest in the Cornucopia sign-out sheet. It helps the college know how much the garden is being used and steers gardeners toward how much to plant next season.

If you want to go even further, Waabishki Giiwedin Iwke said it’s traditional to leave some ceremonial tobacco, a spiritual swap imparted from ancestors past.