Excerpt from Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide by Kelly Kindscher

"Chokecherries were the most important wild fruit to the Indians of the Prairie Bioregion, who used the dried, crushed berries in their meat-fat-chokecherry mixture known as pemmican (Kindscher, 1987, pp. 177-82). The Indians of this bioregion used chokecherries to treat an array of ailments. The Blackfeet drank chokecherry juice for diarrhea and sore throat (Hellson, 1974, p. 68). They also made a tea from the inner bark of the chokecherry and the service berry, Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt., which they drank as a purge. Blackfeet mothers drank the tea in order to pass its medicinal qualities to their babies through their milk. They also administered it to their children periodically as an enema. A willow (Salix species) tea was used t counteract the laxative effect of the chokecherry. A tea was made from the boiled bark of the chokecherry, mixed with roots of the Western Sweet Cicely, Northern Valerian, and Sixocasim [Indian Horehound], and taken internally (McClintock, 1909, p. 277).

The Sioux (Blankenship, 1905, p. 19), Crows, Gros Ventres, and other tribes (Hart, 1976, p. 43) drank tea made from boiled bark to treat various stomach complaints, diarrhea, and dysentery. The Poncas used the same treatment and also pulverized the dried fruit to make a tea specifically for diarrhea (Gilmore, 1977, p. 37). The Crows used the bark to cleanse sores and burns, but only certain tribal members had the authority to perform the medicinal applications (Hart, 1976, p. 43).

The Sioux chewed the dried rooted and placed them in wounds to stop bleeding (Blankenship, 1905, p 19). The Mesquakies used a root bark tea as a sedative for stomach problems and as a rectal douche for hemorrhoids (Smith, 1928, p. 242). In 1724 an anatomy author reported that the Illinois and Miamis chewed the bark of cherry tree root and held it against the gums as a cure for scurvy (Erichsen-Brown, 1979, p. 158). Arikara women drank chokecherry juice in cases of postpartum hemorrhage (Gilmore, 1930, p. 74); as an alternative treatment, they made a tea from the pulverized gum that exudes from chokecherry tree wounds mixed with the root f the red false mallow, Sphaeralcea coccinea (Pursh) Rudb.

Indian tribes that lived outside the Prairie Bioregion also made extensive use of the chokecherry and wild black cherry, P. serotina, as medicine. These plants were often used interchangeably as cough medicines, antidiarrheals, cold remedies, and so on. The Mohegan and Ojibwa, for example, used a boiled black cherry bark tea to make a cold remedy, while the Paiute used the chokecherry bark for this purpose. The Delaware made a stimulating tonic from the black cherry bark, while the Thomson Indians and Potawatomi used the chokecherry bark this way (Moerman, 1982, P. 49)."