Traditional Uses
Preindustrial societies made use of the mosses growing in their areas.
- Laplanders and other circumpolar people used mosses for bedding.
- North American tribal people used mosses for basketry, bedding, wound dressing, diapers, and menstrual fluid absorption.
- Circumpolar and alpine people used mosses as insulation in boots and mittens. Ötzi the Iceman had moss-packed boots.
- Tribes of northeastern United States and southeastern Canada used moss to fill chinks in wooden longhouses.
- Tribes of the Pacific Northwest in the US and Canada used mosses to clean salmon prior to drying, and packed wet moss into pit ovens for steaming camas bulbs. Food storage baskets and boiling baskets were also packed with mosses.
Read more about this topic: Moss
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