History and Culture
Dyed and woven, tules are used to make baskets, bowls, mats, hats, clothing, duck decoys, and even boats by Native American groups. At least two tribes, the Wanapum and the Pomo people, constructed tule houses as recently as the 1950s and still do for special occasions. Bay Miwok, Coast Miwok, and Ohlone peoples used the tule in the manufacture of canoes or balsas, for transportation across the San Francisco Bay and using the marine and wetland resources. Northern groups of Chumash used the tule in the manufacture of canoes rather than the sewn-plank tomol usually used by Chumash and used them to gather marine harvests.
The Paiutes named a neighboring tribe the Si-Te-Cah in their language, meaning tule eaters. The young sprouts and shoots can be eaten raw and the rhizomes and unripe flower heads can be boiled as vegetables.
At least one historic account mentions the use of a tule stem as an underwater breathing mechanism. One of the few Pomo survivors of the Bloody Island Massacre (also called the Clear Lake Massacre) in Northern California, a 6-year-old girl named Ni'ka, or Lucy Moore, evaded the United States Cavalry by hiding underwater and breathing through a tule reed, and was thereby able to survive. Her descendants have since formed the Lucy Moore Foundation to work for better relations between the Pomo and residents of California.
It is so common in wetlands in California, several places in the state were named for it, including Tulare (a tulare is a tule marsh). Tule Lake is near the Oregon border and includes Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It was the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII, imprisoning 18,700 people at its peak. The town of Tulelake is northeast of the lake. California also has a Tule River. The Tule Desert is located in Arizona and Nevada. Nevada also has Tule Springs.
California's dense, ground-hugging tule fog is named for the plant, as are the tule elk and tule perch.
Read more about this topic: Schoenoplectus Acutus
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