In an excerpt from The Significance of Trees in Lakota Thought, the author Andrew Smith articulated the following: “In Black Elk Speaks, the sage describes the tree of his vision as a ‘waga chan, the rustling tree,’ also known as a cottonwood. Cottonwood trees have many sacred associations with the Lakota, the most obvious being their use in the sundance ceremony. According to Dr. Zimiga, the cottonwood tree is used in the sundance ceremony because the pith appears as a five-pointed star in cross-section, after the tree is cut. In effect, the cottonwood tree contains a sign from the star nations inside it…. The cottonwood tree had to be tall, straight, and slender, with a small fork near the top. After the tree was selected and cut down it was to remain untouched by human hands, for it was sacred.”

My first introduction to the cottonwood tree was at a sundance ceremony. After such a sacred introduction, imagine my pleasure as I walked along the banks of the Hackensack River and identified the eastern cottonwood growing there. In asking why they are called cottonwoods, I discovered that the females (cottonwoods are either male or female) produce fluffy white seeds during the early summer are dispersed by the wind. To find the tree in the summer that is blowing “cotton” all through the air wakes up the child in you. It’s amazing to think that these tiny, light seeds may grow into one of North America’s largest trees.  During their 100 to 200 year growing period, cottonwoods can grow up to 190-feet high and develop massive trunks over 5-feet in diameter. They generally grow very close to water used to help pioneers locate water as they crossed the plains. Cottonwoods, like other members of the poplar family, are easy to identify in the summer because of their shimmering, rustling leaves. In the spring before leaves come, you can identify them by their very sticky end bud. The bark is thick and deeply furrowed. The heartwood typically rots in larger branches and, as wind storms blow some off, habitat is created for possums, and other animals that live in tree cavities.

Where’d they go? What is missing from the Meadowlands is an old-growth Atlantic white cedar forest. Atlantic white cedar is a native plant that grows in freshwater wetlands along the eastern coasts of the United States. These magnificent trees can reach 1,000 years of age, but unfortunately the cedar forest in our area was wiped out by excessive logging, burning and the construction of the Oradell Dam in the 1920s.  The dam held back a large amount of fresh water (which is now our drinking water). This allowed the tide to bring salt water up the river, and the salinity finished off the trees.