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A Multipurpose Plant of
The California Indians
 Tules
are grass like perennial herbs, which grow abundantly along the marshy areas of
California. The term tule was derived from the Aztec tullin or tollin, which
designated a grouping of plants including the common cattail, brushes, and
similar plants. The term was used similarly by the Spanish to designate any such
marshland plant.
There
are some seventeen species in California with the most common being the Common
Tule (S. acutus), which is abundant below 5000 feet (to 8500 feet in Mariposa
County), and the California Bulrush (S. californicus), also found in freshwater
marsh plant communities along the coast from Marin County to Baja (Lower)
California.
Tules
grow to heights of eight to ten feet along streams and may reach fifteen or
twenty feet in height in marshshores and on lakeshores.
Tule
was widely used by the California Indians to make shelters, boats, and both
sleeping and sitting mats. And for some groups, such as the Yokuts-speaking
populations of the southern San Joaquin Valley, the roots were an important
source of flour. And at least two nations used the tule for medicine. In
post-contact times the Chumash cured poison oak rash by applying burned ashes of
the plant; the Luiseņo applied a plaster of the leaves on burns and wounds.
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