Southern Paiute Name: Awdu’dumpeen
Scientific Name: Arctostaphylos manzanita parry
Click here to learn how to say it!
Manzanita is a traditional plant that grows wild in Southern Utah and can be seen growing along the canyon walls in places like Zion National Park. Traditionally, it was used to cure kidney inflammation, and the leaves were used to treat fevers.
Manzanita is also used as a traditional tobacco. The dried leaves would be mixed with true tobacco plants like coyote tobacco, and the resulting blend would be referred to as “Ta’ma’nump”. Bands living in higher elevations would also mix in choke cherry bark referred to as “Kinnikinnick” by frontier people which was a word that they had adopted from the Algonquin Indigenous people.
Please keep in mind to have an experienced Southern Paiute ethnobotanist with you when looking to collect any native plants.