Ethnobotany Ethnobotany is the study of how people of a particular culture and region make use of indigenous plants. Cultures have been using the environment around them for thousands of years. The use of plants were mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi in Babylon circa 1770 BC. The ancient Egyptians believed that plants had medicinal powers in the afterlife of the pharaohs (King and Veilleux WWW). Indigenous cultures of the rainforests and other areas still use plants today in their everyday lives. If plants work to help these cultures, should not they be researched to help the rest of the world? Many jungles and rainforests contain unexplored species of plants that could contain medicinal uses. Ethnobotanists explore how plants are used for things, such as food, shelter, clothing, hunting, and religious ceremonies. These scientists spend long hours of hard time in the field doing research of these plants (King and Veilleux WWW). Ethnobotanists are usually biologists that have had additional graduate training. They may have had training in things such as archeology, chemistry, ecology, anthropology, linguistics, history, pharmacology, sociology, religion, or mythology. With these skills, they can look at more than just the plant. They look at the culture and the resource of it (King and Veilleux WWW). There are many ethnobotanists that have helped to bring ethnomedicine to the United States. Each Ethnobotanist has their own unique way of researching cultures and plant species. The following Ethnobotanists are prominent figures in their field of research. Paul Alan Cox took his first trip in to the jungle in 1973, on a mission as a Mormon. He later got his Ph.D. at Harvard and taught at Brigham Young Univ... ... middle of paper ... ...ng many people. Bibliography: Works Cited Alexiades, Dr. Miguel. Book Review: A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon. [Online] Available http://www.rainforest.alliance.org/marketplace/books/reviews/field-guide.html, November 5, 2000. Gerber, Suzanne and Marandino, Cristin. A Search for Miracles. Vegetarian Times, November 1998, Newsbank, [Online]. King, Steven and Veilleux, Connie. An Introduction to Ethnobotany. [Online] Available http://accessexcellence.org/RC/Ethnobotany/page2.html, November 5, 2000. O'Connor, Tanya. Interest Drops in Rainforest Remedies. [Online] Available http://health24news.com/Archive/Channel+Content/Health+Ne… /ethno+pharm0705.ht, July 5, 2000. Rainforest Medical Foundation. [Online] Available http://www.xs4all.nl/~rainmed/, November 5, 2000.
"Children of the Forest" is a narrative written by Kevin Duffy. This book is a written testament of an anthropologist's everyday dealings with an African tribe by the name of the Mbuti Pygmies. My purpose in this paper is to inform the reader of Kevin Duffy's findings while in the Ituri rainforest. Kevin Duffy is one of the first and only scientists to have ever been in close contact with the Mbuti. If an Mbuti tribesman does not want to be found, they simply won't be. The forest in which the Mbuti reside in are simply too dense and dangerous for humans not familiar with the area to enter.
Plotkin traveled to the Amazon to seek a cure for diabetes, once there he met with Shaman’s. Shaman’s are like women/man healers who understand plants and their healing abilities. A shaman is an advocate for naturalized epistemology, which has to do with believing in natural scientific methods. Plotkin does not have an ethnocentrism view towards Amazonian tribes: instead, he has the opposite view of cultural relativism. Plotkin wanted to understand the use that the shamans had for the natural medicinal plants in their own
on herbal folk remedies used by Aztec women. It was found that some of herbs they were using
Throughout the past 3 weeks I have been on ethnobotanical journey that has fueled a greater appreciation for land, knowledge, usages of species and the plants themselves. With little insight I was unsure of the importance of ethnobotany, which has now shifted into a spark to continue learning the extensive amount of knowledge surrounding ethnobotanical practices. We, as a common society, have separated from the natural world. We view uncultivated landscapes as waste, focus nature to change instead of us being proactive and modifying it with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and we do not participate in our ecosystems. It is evident that through conversations, interactions, stewardship and development with traditional ecological knowledge, we will be able to have a collective society practicing as citizens and not consumers.
Raybeck, D. (1992). "Getting Below the Surface." In P. R. DeVita (Ed.), The Naked Anthropologist: Tales from Around the World (pp. 73-8). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
A gym as defined by the Oxford Dictionary states that it is a “membership organization that provides a range of facilities designed to improve and maintain physical fitness and health.” Within our society, the culture of a gym or health club is comprised of those who wish to maintain their physical health, as well as form a bond for like-minded people to support one another with their health goals within a shared environment. I have chosen to observe and understand the culture that embodies the Westford Regency Health Club, a local Massachusetts gym with higher than average membership pric es and a higher end reputation in comparison to the average franchised gym, such as Planet Fitness. I chose this particular gym for the sole fact that it is labeled as a “health club,” rather than a gym, which brings about the notion that it is somehow superior in regards to its facilities and membership privileges. For my research, I used an inductive method including participant-observation, as well as field notes gathered from my visits as a new member.
“A Personal Foreword: The Value of Native Ecologies” in Peter KNUDTSON and David SUZUKI. Wisdom Of The Elders. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 2001 [1992]: XXI–XXXV
Ethnomusicology: a short introduction is about describing the growing discipline of how ethnomusicology researchers are going about studying different music from around the world, looking for perceptions in both humanity and music. Ethnomusicologists believe that all people are musical, not just people that label themselves as “musicians” and that there is music in all beings. This thinking causes a lot of debate in which ethnomusicologists argue that we must first study all forms of music such as its Geographic’s and history in order to answer any questions. Not only are traditional forms of music acknowledged but also more contemporary musical forms.
“The anthropologist is a human instrument studying other human beings”. This quote can only be described as extremely relevant when reading McHugh’s ethnography, a detailed analysis on the Gurung people of Nepal. She involved herself emotionally, physically, and mentally during her stay, portraying what it’s like and what it takes to study other people from an outsider’s point of view. The relationships McHugh created throughout her stay deepened her understanding and paved the way for her fieldwork as she dived into the unknown.
Mowrey, Daniel. "Rainforest Remedies." Rainforest Medicinal Plants. Raintree, 27 Jan. 1999. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
From learning more in depth about what my Mayan ancestors to do with cacao and chocolate to being able to sit down with my grandma and talk about her experience with cacao from a young age, this research paper has afforded me a range of opportunities that I would have never taken advantage of without actually needing to. I learned so much, that I’m really disappointed that I won’t be able to go back to Lobos Reales (my family’s plantation) again to be actually put this knowledge to the test amongst the masters of cacao that my family employed.
The longevity of many cultures can be attributed to their adherence to tradition, specifically subsistence practices. More likely than not, trying to push modern technology into these cultures will only result in disaster. Such is the case with the Green Revolution and the rice situation Stephen Lansing covered in The Balinese. It simply does not seem logical to disrupt traditional practices that have supported a culture for so long. There is a reason certain practices have been around for so long and that is because they work the best for certain people in certain locations. Sam Fujisaka supports this notion which is the basis for his article "Incorporating Farmers' Knowledge in International Rice Research." Fujiska's article describes his research done examining traditional farming techniques of the Claveria people of the Southern Philippines, so that their methods of rice farming may be used to improve research of agriculture.
Herbology is the study of not only magical plants but mundane plants as well. In the first year of Herbology there have been several types of plants that have been examined and each have its own separate, unique properties, dangers, treatment, and uses. Herbology can be viewed as an art form if one were to view each plant as its own entity with different rules and way to care for the plant. Different plants are used for a variety of different reasons to healing, potion making, breeding, and even helping recognizing the particular wand wood being used in a duel. This journal will examine each lesson and talk about each plant encountered through the year, how to take care of the plant, the uses, and dangers each one possesses. It is also good to note that mundane plants can be just as useful as any magical plant.
The botanical name for this tropical rainforest plant is Theobroma Cacao [7]. Theobroma Cacao is Greek for “Food of the gods” [15].
They indeed promote biodiversity, avoiding the use of any chemicals, while producing year-round yields. Agroecology recognizes the successfulness, proven over centuries, of community-based local agriculture, and thus serves as a bridge between modern scientific agricultural knowledge and local ones. The local management of resources and knowledge systems is elaborated upon social institutions. It is then of primal importance to identify and assess this local knowledge framework through agroecological and ethno ecological methodologies. This will help determine the factors upon which the famers perceive and modify their environment to finally translate into practical management schemes promoting the dynamic conservation of local agroecosystems. The combination of western science and ethno science provides then the principles to design and manage sustainable farming systems. Participation of farmers in testing, evaluating and disseminating the best agroecological practices is needed to ensure that the specific technologies put into places are really relevant to their needs and situation (Altieri,