Osha root Native American history spans at least a dozen peoples, from the Lakota on the northern plains to the Rarámuri in the canyons of Chihuahua. Most of them tied the plant to the bear. The Lakota call it mato tapejuta, the bear's medicine. The Diné say the bear showed it to them. The oldest physical find is a leather bundle from Utah dated to roughly 200 to 600 years ago.
The plant is Ligusticum porteri, a member of the carrot and parsley family (Apiaceae) and a relative of lovage. It grows at 1,500 to 3,500 m, from Wyoming south to the mountains of Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico. For the botany and the full plant profile, see our guide to osha root.
Osha root Native American names
The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, in its 2018 monograph on the plant, notes that "osha" is said to mean "bear" in a Native American language it could not pin down. That fits a pattern. Many of the plant's names point back to the animal.
- Lakota: mato tapejuta, "the bear's medicine" (Schneider 2017, cited in Natasha Myhal's 2017 University of Kansas thesis)
- Rarámuri: wasía (Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes, Tarahumara Medicine, 2015)
- Zuni: Kwimi Dechi, "smelly root" (Camazine and Bye, 1980)
- Mescalero Apache: itse (Jones, 1972)
- Akimel O'odham: jujubáádi (Rea, 1997)
- Spanish of New Mexico and Northern Mexico: chuchupate, chuchupaste, chuchufate
Is there one osha root Indian name?
No single one. Each language has its own word, and the English "bear root" and "bear medicine" are translations of the idea several of them share. Chuchupate, the name you hear in Hispanic New Mexico and across Northern Mexico, is usually traced to a Nahuatl word for a bitter herb. Bear root and osha are the same plant under two names, which we cover in bear root vs osha root.
Who used it, people by people
The best single summary of the tribal record is Myhal's thesis, which pulls together decades of fieldwork.
Zuni. Camazine and Bye, writing in 1980, recorded the root used for sore throats and body aches, and chewed during curing ceremonies. Crushed root in water was used as a wash.
Diné (Navajo). People sucked on the root for a gravelly voice, according to Clifford (2016). Powdered root was laid around the hogan to keep snakes out.
Rarámuri of Northern Mexico. Families in the Sierra Tarahumara brewed the root as a tea for stomach pain and fever. Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes record it carried to keep snakes away and tied around a newborn's neck for protection. A 2008 University of Texas at El Paso study by Oscar Beltran describes chuchupaste as a plant the Tarahumara traditionally used for respiratory infections, and then tested it in the lab.
Southern Ute. McBeth (2008) records the root used for upper respiratory complaints, and for spiritual protection and warding off evil.
Lakota. The root was burned and the smoke breathed in for headaches and sinus trouble (Schneider 2017). It still has a place in sweat lodge ceremonies.
Comanche. Jones (1972), working with the Comanche medicine woman Sanapia, recorded the root boiled for pneumonia and carried against rattlesnakes. The seed head had its own medicinal use.
The Apache record is just as wide. Mescalero Apache used it for coughs and ate the leaves as greens, and the Plains Apache used it for smudging. Hopi use is noted in the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia monograph as well.
Osha stopped more than half the growth of the TB bacterium at the lowest concentration tested.
Bears found it first, the Diné say
The Diné credit the bear with giving them the medicine. In the version Newton and Wolfe published in 1992, people learned it by watching bears dig the root after hibernation, chew it and work the pulp into their fur.
Ethnobotanist Shawn Sigstedt tested the story. In Colorado Springs he gave dried osha root to two captive brown bears. The female chewed it, rubbed it on her shoulders and chest and sprayed it into the air. Myhal's thesis notes he also watched black, Kodiak and polar bears with the plant. More than twenty years later, a camera he set up on a ranch near Steamboat Springs caught two bears rubbing osha pulp onto a tree and then rubbing their bodies against the bark (Steamboat Pilot).
A medicine bundle from Utah
The oldest physical trace is the Patterson Bundle, a leather satchel of plant material found in Utah. Herbalist Merry Lycett Harrison identified its botanical contents for the Utah Native Plant Society, and the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia reports osha root among them. The bundle dates to roughly 200 to 600 years ago, which puts the root in someone's medicine kit before most of the written records above existed.
Ligusticum porteri traditional uses that researchers went on to test
The Tarahumara use for respiratory infections led to lab work. Beltran's 2008 UTEP study tested an extract of the root against the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (strain H37Rv) in the lab. At the lowest concentration tested, osha stopped more than half of the bacterium's growth. The lead for that test came straight from what Rarámuri families already did with the root.
Osha is slow to grow. Roots are often more than 10 years old when dug, almost all supply is wild, and United Plant Savers lists it as At-Risk. The plant also looks like poison hemlock, which is one reason Colorado limits permits to 10 pounds of root per person a year and the KU team spent years working out sustainable harvest rates with the Forest Service.
Bear Root, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico
Mara's Bear Root is a mountain plant of Northern Mexico, the region the Rarámuri call home. It is osha root made into a tincture (an alcohol extract) and bottled in 50 ml of dark Miron glass. The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root.
Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.
Add to bagWe sell it as a daily ritual for any time of year. Some people stir a dropper into morning tea. Others hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds before swallowing, or add it to evening tea. It goes into a water bottle after a hike or a run. The usual amount is 1 to 2 droppers a day, so a bottle lasts 30 to 50 days.
Why a tincture today
The peoples above lived beside the plant and knew it from hemlock by sight and smell. Most buyers don't, and a bag of dried root gives you no way to check what you have. A tincture settles that at the source. The dropper measures the same amount every time, there is nothing to grind or simmer, and the dark Miron glass keeps light off the extract for the life of the bottle. The ingredients line on the label reads "Simple ingredients: premium quality extract."
Questions people ask
What did Native Americans use osha root for?
Records vary by people. The Zuni used it for sore throats and body aches, the Comanche boiled it for pneumonia, the Lakota burned it and breathed the smoke, and the Rarámuri brewed it as a tea.
What is the Lakota name for osha?
Mato tapejuta, which translates as "the bear's medicine."
Why is osha called bear root?
Several peoples, the Diné among them, say bears showed them the plant by digging and chewing the root after hibernation. Shawn Sigstedt later filmed and watched bears chewing the root and rubbing it into their fur.
Where does Mara's Bear Root come from?
Bear Root is a mountain plant of Northern Mexico, the same region where the Rarámuri call it wasía.
