Right now, it's a small gazebo surrounded by fragrant herbs and flowers, but it represents a "coming back" of wisdom threatened with extinction.

The gazebo and herb garden were dedicated Tuesday with smudge, prayers of gratitude and an honor song at United Tribes Technical College, south of Bismarck.

On the north edge of campus, the wooden gazebo, built by vocational students at UTTC, and its tidy bark-covered circle of plants are part of a renewed effort to bring traditional food and herb lore back into the daily lives of native people.

This small herb garden will join the nearby food garden and fruit trees "to be here forever," said Wanda Agnew, director of USDA land grant programs at UTTC.

Chill morning air under warm sunshine coaxed the scent of essential oils from the herbal plants - most powerfully, sage, rosemary, basil and lavender - as UTTC staff member Russell Gillette smudged the garden with cleansing smoke and eagle feathers and Julie Cain opened the dedication ceremony with prayer.

"We give thanks for anything at all that is planted," Cain said, before offering tobacco at the four directions. Larry Laducer offered an honor song and Phil Baird, dean of academic services, spoke of a "new emergence" of traditional wisdom.

Baird said he was a witness Monday to the demolition of a portion of the original Four Bears Bridge at New Town.

That event reminded him of many things that for native people were underwater, so to speak, but are now coming back, Baird said: He called this a time of "new emergence."

The herbs and flowers in this small garden represent renewable resources and the pharmacological heritage of native peoples, he said. And that heritage is being noted by the larger society.

"We have something that others want," he said.

The garden also includes tarragon, chives, poppies, daylilies, dill, oregano, lamium, marigolds, strawberries, asparagus, salvia, lemon verbena, lambs' ears, coneflowers, sandcherries and dianthus. Students will learn the uses of these plants and herbs in classes that stress the importance of traditional foods in nutrition, Agnew said.

This garden will also be linked with other projects, said Martina McKinney, extension research coordinator at the school. Students in Agnew's "Diabetes and Mother Earth" class designed the garden using traditional as well as culinary plants to coordinate with the vegetable garden on campus.

Speakers will teach students about the plants' medicinal uses; other plans are to teach preservation of herbs and greenhouse growing. The garden will also be incorporated into the walking trail on campus, McKinney said.

"It's very exciting," she said.