Nodding Onion
Halq’emeylem Name
St’áxet
Latin Name
Allium cernuum Roth
Pronunciation
About Nodding Onion
The nodding onion is a flowering perennial native to North America. It is found throughout Canada at moist high altitudes, dry prairies and often on the banks of rivers and streams. The bursting blooms that appear throughout June, July and August, attract butterflies and hummingbirds. This onion who belongs to the lily family has a true oniony scent and is defined by its charming flower cluster that nods downward towards the ground. You can identify the nodding onion by the leaves which are long, thin green and grass-like, the stalk which is leafless with a bend, the firework-esque head of pink or white bell shaped flowers, and the oniony smelll. LH
Note: Do not confuse onions with death camas, a poisonous bulb. Onions can be distinguished by their oniony smell.
Connections
Shakespeare
Nodding onion is indigenous to Stó:lō Téméxw. A Shakespeare connection can be made to the garlics, leeks, and onions mentioned in various Shakespeare plays. (In Henry V, the leek represents Welsh character, heroism, and the Welsh nation; in All’s well an aristocratic man uses onions to verbally cloak but also express his emotions–“I smell onions-my eyes will weep;” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, direction is given to the actors to “eat no onions and garlic for we must utter sweet breath.”)
Indigenous Knowledge
Nodding onion “has antibacterial and anti-fungal qualities” (stolofoodways.com) and can be used externally “to treat cuts, burns, insect bites, and stings” and internally for the digestive system. In Stó:lo territory, look for the flowers in June and the bulbs in July (stolofoodways.com).
Traditionally, it was commonly consumed by Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific NorthWest, especially Interior Salish peoples, for whom it can be considered a “cultural keystone species” (Turner, Ancient Pathways, vol 1, p. 150). It can grow in most parts of BC. Nodding onions can be eaten raw or cooked (traditionally in pit ovens, similar to the processes for cooking camas) (Stolofoodways.com, Turner, Ancient Pathways, vol. 1, p. xx). Linguists speculate that the name for camas and for nodding onions derive from the same root word (Turner, Ancient Pathways, vol. 1, p. xx). Urban and industrial development, invasive species, and environmental degradation have harmed nodding onion habitat, but protecting and restoring the nodding onion keeps historical gathering practices alive (Cloutier, 2014). The Alberni people considered nodding onions to be “the ‘older brothers’ of fern rhizomes” (Turner, Food Plants, p. 41). LH
Gallery
References
Sound: Latin binomial nomenclature pronunciation by Alan Reid
Images: fotolinchen | Rocky Mountian National Park | Patrick Alexander | Joshua Mayer
Cloutier, C, Ark of Taste. (2014).Nodding Onion. Retrieved from http://arkoftaste.slowfood.ca/nodding-onion/
Integrated Taxonomic Information System. (n.d.). Allium cernuum Roth. Retrieved from https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=42721#null
Íhtelstexw Te Shxwelí (Feeding the Soul): Stó:lō Foodways. Stó:lō Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Curated by Teresa Carlson. University of the Fraser Valley, 2022. https://www.stolofoodways.com
Turner, N. (2014). Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America. McGill-Queen’s University Press.