Transcript Plants as basis of material culture - Powerpoint for May 11.

Ethnobotany and Geography
Features of Ethnobotany of Africa
• It is a large continent with many different ethnic
groups who have very different cultures and uses
of plants
• The continent is geographically very diverse,
ranging from bare deserts to lush tropical rain
forests. Ethnobotanical use of plants reflects the
diversity of habitat, and there is correspondingly
low use of plants in the desert regions and great
use of plants in the rain forests
• Humans originated in Africa. Therefore we
should see the oldest relationships between plants
and people in Africa
Natural vegetation
of Africa
Ethnosystematics
• Ethnosystematics (folk knowledge of botanical
classification – John Kokwaro) is highly
developed in Africa because many plants are used
in African ethnomedicine and because Africa is
rich in dialects and languages due to the large
number of ethnic groups.
• Each group has names for the plants it uses and for
describing the relationships of those plants.
African Concepts of Disease
1. Naturally caused diseases – these are due
to tangible material that affects the body’s
organs. Such natural diseases are regarded
as minor or normal because they can be
described by the patient and treated by the
healer in strictly physical terms.
African Concepts of Disease
2. Acute or severe diseases – the common belief
(fear) is that as soon as a disease becomes acute or
severe, it is due to unnatural causes or intangible
forces. This implies that a hostile person is using
supernatural powers against the patient or the
victim may have transgressed the moral code and
incurred the wrath of ancestors. These diseases
are characterized as being complicated and
serious. They usually have persistent illness.
Bewitched or cursed persons require special types
of treatment, medicine, and traditional doctors.
Traditional African Medical Practitioners
1. Herbalists usually use plants to treat
patients.
2. Diviners are also herbalists but use
divinatory procedures for treatment.
3. Spiritualists hardly use plants at all for
treatment.
4. Great therapists utter prayers, incantations,
and invocations
Painting of an Herbalist
Traditional Herbalist Seybatou
Hamdy of Dakar, Senegal
Sangoma – South African
Diviner/Great Threapist
Traditional African Medical Practitioners
5. Traditional midwives may be obstetricians, herbalists,
gynecologists, or pediatricians. They provide health care
before, during, and after birth, and also care for newborn
infants and young children.
6. Traditional surgeons use special knives, sharpened and
tempered according to esoteric procedures, for
circumcisions and excisions. Cassava leaves, liquid from
snails, and various other ingredients are used as agents to
prevent excessive bleeding.
7. Traditional psychiatrists deal with a patients socioreligious
antecedents, using a series of rites, that include chants,
incantations, and ritual dances, and in which music is
played using particular musical instruments.
Preparation and Dispensing of Drugs
• The part of the plant used in preparing the
drug depends on the structure of the plant.
It is common to use the bark or roots of
trees and shrubs. The Swahili name for
herbal medicine is miti shamba meaning
“medicine from the tree.”
• With small plants and herbs, usually the
leaves or the whole plant is used.
Preparation and Dispensing of Drugs
• Traditional African medicine is usually
limited in that an extract from one plant is
used at a time. Only occasionally is an
infusion with extracts from two or more
plant species given to a patient. This is in
contrast to South America where many
medicines have mixtures of several species.
Planting Ocimum kilimandscharicum –
Kakamega forest, Kenya
Harvesting Ocimum kilimandscharicum
– Kakamega forest, Kenya
Preparation of Plant Drugs in Africa
1. Boiling – especially for roots and bark of trees
and shrubs. The decoction is taken orally or used
for bathing depending on the disease.
2. Soaking in cold water is generally used with
crushed leaves or small herbs. The concoction is
used as above.
3. Burning is used with leaves and small herbs. The
ash can be licked, rubbed onto a wound, soaked in
water and drunk or gargled.
Preparation of Plant Drugs in Africa
4. Chewing is a first-aid method of preparing a drug,
especially for treatment of snakebite, stomach
disorders, or mouth and throat ailments.
5. Heating or roasting is usually employed in
preparing succulent leaves or other plant parts for
a poultice.
6. Crushing or pounding normally precedes other
methods such as boiling, soaking or burning.
Crushed material may be applied directly to a
wound, usually after being mixed with some kind
of oil
Poultice of Poke Leaves
Phytolaca americana
Methods of Consumption of Plant
Medicines
• Aromatic drugs for treating influenza or similar
diseases are usually taken in the form of steam.
• Other drugs are often taken with food to make
them more palatable. Usually they are taken with
liquid foods – pastoral tribes take drugs with milk,
other groups use soup, porridge (especially from
African millet flour Eleusine coracana), honey,
blood, and various kinds of local beers.
The Ordeal Bean of Calabar
The Calabar region - circled below
The Calabar Bean – Physostigma
venenosum
Member of the Egbo Society
Trial by Esere or the Ordeal Bean
• The Efik of Nigeria believed the bean possessed
the power to reveal and destroy witches. The
accused witch was made to undergo a trial by
ordeal, drinking water to which had been added
eight mashed ordeal beans. The poison acted
rapidly; the accused's mouth would shake and the
mucosal membranes discharge. If the accused
could raise his right arm and regurgitate (very
unlikely), then the person was considered innocent
of witchcraft. If not, the witch died a horrible
death from paralytic asphyxia.
The Calabar Bean
Medicines from Calabar Bean
• Physostigmine is used to treat certain types
of glaucoma
• Derivatives neostigmine and pyridostigmine
are used for myasthenia gravis
• The methyl carbamate family of insecticides
came from ordeal bean research
Ethnobotany of North America
Ethnobotany of North America
Food Production in Pacific
Northwest – Salmon Nation
• At one time people were thought to be almost
exclusively hunter-gatherers
• Tobacco only domesticated plant in cultivation
• But many other plants were harvested and
managed to increase growth
• Lowland meadows were commonly burned to
encourage growth of edible camas lilies
(Camassia sp. – F. Liliaceae)
Nancy Turner – University of
Victoria
Field of Camas lilies - Oregon
Camas lily flower –
Camassia esculenta
Nez Perce Woman with Harvest of
Camas bulbs ~ 1900
Modern Harvest and Cooking of
Camas – British Columbia
Management of Food Plants
• Mountainsides and upland meadows were
also burned periodically to encourage the
production of berries such as thimbleberry
(Rubus parviflorus – F. Rosaceae), blackcap
Rubus leucodermis, and blueberries and
huckleberries (Vaccinium sp. - F. Ericaceae
the heaths)
Thimbleberry – Rubus parviflorus
Blackcap berries – Rubus leucodermis
Blueberry – Vaccinium corymbosum
Red huckleberry – Vaccinium
parviflorum (Ericaceae)
Management of Food Plants
• Species with edible underground parts such
as tiger lily Lilium columbianum, yellow
avalanche lily Erythronium grandiflorum,
and spring beauty (the “Indian potato”)
Claytonea lanceolata (F. Portulacaceae –
the purslanes), were also encouraged by
periodic burning
Tiger lily –
Lilium columbianum
Avalanche lily – Erythronium
grandiflorum
Western Spring beauty –
Claytonia lanceolata
Management of Food Plants
• Foods such as springbank clover rhizomes
(Trifolium wormskioldii – F. Fabaceae), and
Pacific silverweed roots (Potentilla
anserina subsp. pacifica F. Rosaceae) on
the coast, and interior plants such as spring
beauty, yellow avalanche lily, and bitterroot
Lewisia rediviva (F. Portulacaceae), were
all harvested intensively from the same
digging grounds over many years
Springbank clover - Trifolium
wormskioldii
Pacific silverweed – Potentilla
anserina subsp. pacifica
Bitterroot – Lewisia redivia