Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) has a sweet, long-lasting aroma that is even stronger when the grass has been harvested and dried and is then moistened or burned. Other common names for Sweetgrass are Holy Grass (or Mary's Grass), Vanilla Grass, Bluejoint, Buffalo Grass, and Zebrovka. Many Native tribes in North America use sweetgrass in prayer, smudging or purifying ceremonies and consider it a sacred plant. It is usually braided, dried, and burned. Sweetgrass braids smolder and doesn't produce an open flame when burned. Just as the sweet scent of this natural grass is attractive and pleasing to people, so is it believed to be attractive to good spirits. Sweetgrass is often burned at the beginning of a prayer or ceremony to attract positive energies. Sweetgrass is used to "smudge"; the smoke from burning sweetgrass is fanned on people, objects or areas. Individuals smudge themselves with the smoke, washing the eyes, ears, heart and body. Mi'kmaq have long used sweetgrass as a smudging ingredient, often mixed with other botanicals. Sweetgrass is one of the four medicines which comprise a group of healing plants used by the people in Anishinabe, Bode'wad mi, and Odawa societies. The other three are tobacco, cedar, and sage (Mary Ritchie 1995). Among the Chippewa wicko'bimucko'si (sweetgrass) is braided and used in pipe-smoking mixtures along will red willow and bearberry, when it is burned, prayers, thoughts and wishes are believed to rise with the smoke to the creator who will hear them. A tea is brewed by Native Americans for coughs, sore throats, chafing and venereal infections. It is also used by women to stop vaginal bleeding and to expel afterbirth. Sweetgrass is also used for crafts and beautiful basket weaving.