Common Names: Duck Potato.  Wapato.

FIdentification & Description 

Specific Tribal Use:

 FBooks on the Cheyenne!

The Navajo use the plant for headaches.

The Menominee boil and slice the root corms then string them on a string for winter use.

Both the Montana and Northern Paiute eat the tubers raw or boiled.

The Seminole use the plant for alligator bites!

The Cherokee make an infusion of arrowhead leaves. This is given, one sip, to feverish babies. The child is also bathed with the infusion.

Iroquois peoples use arrowhead for more than a single use also. They make an infusion of the plant for rheumatism. A compound decoction taken for "boils around the abdomen of children" and as a wash on parts affected by "Italian itch". A decoction is also used for constipation.  An infusion of whole the plant & rhizomes from another plant was also given to children who scream during the night. And a decoction of the root is also used as a fertilizer, when starting to plant corn. 

 F Books on the Iroquois!

Meswaki women knew that beavers and muskrats gathered these corms for winter. During hard winters, they would raid the caches at the animal's homes, saving the hardship of gathering to them. The "potatoes" were boiled, sliced, strung on a piece of basswood and hung for winter supply.

The Omaha, Pawnee, Pomo, Winnebago, Lakota, Dakota and Cocopa peoples all roasted or boiled the tubers and used them for food, either eaten whole, mashed, sliced and dried.

For the Potawatomi, this plant is food, medicine and a hunting lure.  A poultice is made from the pounded corms, which is applied to wounds and sores.  And a meal of watapa, deer meat and maple sugar makes a very tasty supper. They also boil and slice the tubers, then string them for winter. Hunters use arrowhead roots as bait along lakes when hunting water fowl, which is why they are sometimes called "duck potatoes."

Thompson Indians cook the root and air dry it for storage. The tuber is then soaked before being cooked with fish. However, they also used arrowhead as a love charm and for "witchcraft."

Algonquin peoples in Quebec used the root for tuberculosis as well as food.