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This tall cotton grass grows in wet bog areas. It has long,
slender dark green leaves and several cottony-seed tops. The
grass is rather tall and reaches about 2 feet. The cotton
tops can be seen above most of the other vegetation on the
tundra. I collected this sample one day when we were blue
berry picking between the white rock and Kachavik Creek.
Picniuk is often called "mouse food" by the
people of Golovin. Picniuk was not dug up
by the Iñupiaq, they let mice dig the plant and store
it in a cache for the winter. In the fall, they used to find
the mouse caches by poking sticks in the ground on the
tundra until they felt a soft spot. Then they would dig up
the root stored in the cache and take half of the roots and
replace the root with dry fish or dry fish skins. This was a
little barter system the Iñupiaq had with the local
mice populations. The roots were eaten raw dipped in seal
oil. This is not done anymore but it is a nice story to
tell.
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