FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
ALISMACEAE, SAGITTARIA LATIFOLIA, INDIAN POTATO, ARROWHEAD, WAPATP
Hensolt, Edith A. 1966. How Oregon Indians Used the Native Flora. Benton cdounty Historical Society & Museum, Philomath, Oregon.
It grows in shallow water or mud. Some has recently been found on Sauvies Is., where it was plentiful, till the marshes were drained and introduced carp and wild ducks about cleaned it out. Smooth, solid tubers, not large, break off easily from long flabby roots. Squaws waded out, breast-deep, if necessary, holding to a canoe, and dug the tubers with their toes. When they floated up they were tossed into the canoe. It was a very important Indian food. Legends tell about its use "before the salmon came to the Columbia". The Chinooks of the lower Columbia had a well developed commerce in wappato. One winter Lewis and Clark lived on elk they killed and wappato bought of the Indians. Haskins says they are very good, boiled like a potato, with sweetish, chestnut flavor.