Black Ash
GA̱HǪWE:YAˀ
Black Ash
Fraxinus nigra
Family: Oleaceae
Native tree
Note: The Black Ash that used to grown in this wetland were killed around 2022 by the Emerald Ash Borer. Vanishingly few, if any, Black Ash will remain in this region that aren’t treated with pesticides. However, there are efforts to breed trees exhibiting resistance together in an effort to save the species.
Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih use Gahǫwe:yaˀ to make baskets of all kinds. There is a particular type of basket that we make from Black Ash that is used to wash and process corn. My grandmother insisted that the basket had to be two feet tall. When I asked her why, she told me that it was because the rock ledges they would wash their corn at were just so high above the water that a two-foot basket allowed them to wash the corn from the ledge. On the Six Nations Reservation we have no rock ledges where a basket of this size is needed, but we still held the knowledge of the place we came from and made our baskets as we had.
Today, Gahǫwe:yaˀ is dying off from the Emerald Ash Borer and the tree is very hard to find, so much so that the knowledge of how to make baskets and the words to describe it are ebbing from our culture.