From art to weaponry to water purification, river cane is one of the most versatile and important plants found in Chickasaw culture. In this episode of Thrive: Traditions, demonstrators Donna Iti Tupa and Lori White Buffalo share how Chickasaws in both the past and present harvest and prepare river cane for its various uses.

Donna and Lori traveled to the homelands to harvest river cane from the same stands their ancestors took care of, finding their way by boat and along hiking paths. "It's just incredible that we're still able to find stands that our ancestors used to keep these traditions alive," Lori says. Taking loppers to the base of the plant, Donna and Lori gathered hundreds of river cane stalks to bring back to Oklahoma.

Once the river cane is harvested, the next step is cleaning, removing excess leaves and smoothing out the nodes left behind. "During our process it was difficult to try to be patient enough to not force the river cane to do what you wanted it to do," Lori explains. "You had to just ultimately let the river cane peel the way that it wanted to and try to work with it that way."

Donna and Lori hope the next generation of Chickasaw artisans will learn to create baskets and mats out of river cane they harvest themselves. "Now that I am a mother myself, I want to not only inspire this next generation, I want to spark that interest to want to learn more about their culture, their heritage," says Lori.

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