Sweetgrass is considered to be sacred by many North American Indians; this dried herb is rolled into tight braids which to not burn, but rather smolder like incense. In fact, the burning of sweetgrass braids is done at the opening of many traditional Native American and indigenous Canadian prayer ceremonies in order to attract good spirits and positive energies, much the same way that incense is used in rituals of Buddhism, Hinduism and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Ojibwa Indians of present-day Michigan and Ontario have a name in their Algonquian language for the natural herbs used in sweetgrass braids: wika