Where the cosmos is concerned, perhaps no wildflower wrapped in the musty, tattered cloth of myth was associated with the stars like the aster. Aster, after all, is from the Greek, meaning...yep...star. Astrologers regard it as an herb of Venus. No wonder it has turned up in love divinations in many countries.
It has had many uses, mystical and otherwise. Asters were burned by the Greeks to drive away serpents, while the Romans dressed up altars to the gods with wreaths of aster blossoms. In China, according to the Feng Su Chi, the people of Li lived well past the 100 years because the water they drank was flavored by the asters growing up in the surrounding hills.
The Chippewa Indians smoked the dried, powdered root of an aster species to attract game. The aroma of the smoke was believed to be similar to that of a deer’s hoof. As a consequence, deer were compelled to approach the hunter smoking aster root.
In some Native American tribes, asters are associated with Bear, the most powerful of all mystical beings. According to some legends, Bear gave mankind a particularly powerful medicine, the aster root. It is named for Bear - Bear Root or Bear Medicine - and is regarded as being the next best thing to a panacea. During curing ceremonies, the Shaman would chew Bear Root. It would induce a trance in which the Shaman could “see” the witch who caused the sickness in his patient.
Among the Zuni, asters - the entire plant - were ground between stones in the fraternity chamber at noon, during an elaborate ceremony of the preparation of the fraternity medicine. This was done by the “Great Mother” of the fraternity, while accompanied by rattle, drum and song.
And the renowned herbalist Gerard wrote in 1633 that asters are also called Starwoorts and Sharewoorts because, “stamped, and applied unto botches, imposthumes, and venerous bubones doth mightily maturate and suppurate them.” Now, I’m not sure what that means, and I can’t help but hear those words tumble from them mouth of W. C. Fields, but it certainly gives all that botany a more interesting place to rest its head.
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