The Rocky Mountain beeweed plant (Cleome serrulata Pursh) in the caper family has had a variety of uses by Native Americans in the American Southwest from ancient times to the present. This paper reviews the scientific taxonomy, common nomenclature, ethnographic uses, and archaeological occurrences of beeweed, including its preparation as an organic pottery paint. Elemental analysis of boiled-down beeweed contributes to a growing body of nutritional data on wild plants.

The Maya interior of Quintana Roo was exceedingly rich in game within living memory. Today, game is almost gone, and will soon be entirely gone unless desperate measures are taken. This is almost entirely due to subsistence hunting, in spite of extremely precise and full local ecological knowledge, and in spite of a strong tradition of conservation and selective, theoretically sustainable cropping. By contrast, forest and logging management is locally quite successful. The root problem is institutional failure, caused by the lack on interest on the part of wider government agencies and the inability of the Maya to organize on their own. In a few cases, this problem has been overcome. These cases show that traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom can be adequate for conservation-but only if they receive support from the wider society that, in the end, has the enforcement power.

Undergraduates, at the beginning and the end of an introductory course in ornithology, were asked to judge the similarity of bird pictures, to free list bird names, and to identify pictures of birds. For similarity judgments, there were no stable differences in expertise and no greater agreement at the end of the semester. For the free lists, there were stable differences in the numbers of birds listed, but no tendency to give longer lists at the end. For the identification task, there were both stable differences in expertise and greater agreement on the identifications at the end. The implications of these findings are explored.

El numero cuatro es importante en Mésoamerica por su relación con los rumbos cardinales (este, oeste, norte, sur). En las tumbas prehispanicas de Zaachila, en los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, México, se encontraron numerosas representaciones relacionadas con el inframundo de los antiguos zapotecos. Destacan dos lechuzas (Tito alba) relacionadas con la predicción de la muerte y cuatro mariposas nocturnas (una en cada pata de las lechuzas). En Santa Lucia, otro pueblo de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, se afirma que si la mariposa negra (Ascalapha odorata, Noctuidae) se posa en cada uno de las cuatro paredes de una habitación (imagen del microcosmos), la persona que esti en ella morira. Esta mariposa fue conocida entre los mexicas como Micpapalotl, mariposa de la muerte. En Mésoamirica, desde la ipoca prehispanica hasta la actualidad se ha relacionado a las mariposas nocturnas con la muerte y el numero cuatro.
The number four is important in Mesoamerica because of its relationship with the four cardinal directions (east, west, north and south). In the prehispanic tombs of Zaachila, in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico numerous representations associated with the underworld of the ancient Zapotecs have been found. The representations emphasize two owls (Tito alba) associated with the prediction of death and four butterflies (one on each leg of the owls). In Santa Lucia, another town of the Central Valley of Oaxaca, they affirm that if the black butterfly (Ascalapha odorata, Noctuidae) lights on each one of the four walls of a room (image of the microcosmos), the person who is there will die. This butterfly was known among the Mexicans as Micpapalotl, the butterfly of death. In Mesoamerica, from the prehispanic era until the present time nocturnal butterflies have been associated with death and the number four.

Opportunity-poor migrants from Ecuador's rural countryside have colonized the outskirts of Guyaquil in recent years, forming a massive informal settlement ripe for a seismically related disaster. In order to attenuate that social crisis and help restore the degraded river valleys of the country's north coast, The World Wildlife Fund has helped initiate an interdisciplinary conservation project centered around the bamboo species Guadua angustifolia. This paper documents the initial stages of the project's progress, exploring the development of forest landscape restoration and nursery facilities as well as the architectural and aesthetic challenges associated with a bamboo-based housing design.

Basket making, using the fiber of Black Ash, as an art form and as a utilatarian textile product has and currently is practiced by many First Nations. Basket making in its simplest form has provided containers used for storage, food preparation, transportation, fish and eel traps, and trade. A slide presentation shows how Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) is cut and prepared for basket-making.

Until very recently the medical uses of insects had been largely ignored by ethnobiologists and anthropologists. Interviewees were seldom even asked if they used insects as treatments. When uses of insects were reported, the insect species were typically described as "the black ant" or the "red ant" and not collected. Recent research and a re-analysis of historical literature suggests that insects, particularly social insects, were and continue to be commonly used as medicine. We argue that the use of social insects as medicine is related to two separate phenomena. First, the social behavior of insects reflects or resonates with the social behavior of humans and so social insects are often seen as models of human societies. Second, the social nature of social insects means that like humans they are susceptible to pathogens of various types, such that social insects, particularly ants and termites, have evolved the use of various antibiotics and fungicides that can be directly used by humans.

The garment color of 52 women depicted in small paintings made in nineteenth-century Portugal by untrained peasants to commemorate the miracles of saints, and the age of each garment wearer, approximated as baby, girl, teenager, woman, or old woman were hypothesized to be unrelated. Predictions were made using the computer program ACTUS (Analysis of Contingency Tables Using Simulation) downloadable in WINDOWS or DOS versions from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gfred/. Comparisons with observed data suggest: teenagers avoid black, children tend to wear yellow, women tend to wear blue, and old women tend to wear black.

Within the continuously evolving culture of the Caribbean, 'indigenous' is a fluid concept. During the colonial period the genocide of Amerindian groups was followed by the forced introduction of slave and indentured laborers, who brought with them craft traditions from Africa, India, and Europe. Today, production methods and firing technologies used by potters in Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Barbados demonstrate clear links to these traditions. Accompanied by extensive slide documentation, this paper will provide an introduction to four 'indigenous' Caribbean ceramic communities.

The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe recently acquired the rights to co-manage the Furnace Creek mesquite grove and pinyon resources in Death Valley National Park, California. In former times, tribal members trimmed the lower branches of the trees, cleaned and cleared debris from under them, and generally saw to their care by treating them and their associated plant and animal life with respect. In 2001, the Tribe began a small long-term program with the mesquites and pinyons to bring back traditional care. The paper describes the methods that are being used, as well as some of the other difficulties being faced in returning the trees to their former condition and productivity.

In the mountain lands of the Mixtecs of San Antonio Huitepec (in Zaachila, Oaxaca) four aspects of the agrodiversity use and management may be emphasized: 1) the importance of women's roles in the sowing, harvesting, preparing and selection of Zea mays (which is the main crop), Phaseolus spp., Cucurbita spp., and other vegetable species; 2) the dichotomous classification of the agricultural environment as cold land (from 2000 m to 2400 m) and warm land (from 1700 m to 2000 m). Depending on the agrohabitat, different techniques, sowing seasons, and multiple plant races are used; 3) the agrodiversity of corn which is sown in Huitepec comprises three races (Cónico, Bolita and Chalque-o), one subrace (Elote c—nico), and two crosses (Bolita x conico; celaya x bolita), in close relationship with the multiple use of the plant as food, fodder and fertilizer; 4) the continuity of the use of wooden rectangular storage boxes made of Pinus spp., which is seen in Mixtec codices of the sixteenth century.
En los terrenos monta–osos de los mixtecos de San Antonio Huitepec (en Zaachila, Oaxaca), destacan cuatro aspectos del uso y manejo de la agrodiversidad: 1) El importante papel de la mujer en la siembra, cosecha, preparaci—n y selecci—n de Zea mays L. (que es el principal cultivo), Phaseolus spp., Cucurbita spp. y otras especies vegetales. 2) La clasificaci—n dicot—mica del ambiente agr’cola en tierra fr’a (de 2000 a 2400 msnm) y tierra caliente (de 1700 a 2000 msnm). Dependiendo del agroh‡bitat, tienen diferentes tŽcnicas, Žpocas de siembra y mœltiples razas de plantas. 3) La agrodiversidad del ma’z (nuni kuiji, nuni tnuu, nuni latuva, nuni ndo’o, nini jua’an, nuni pintu y Tata yuku) que siembran en Huitepec corresponden a tres razas (C—nico, Bolita y Chalque-o), una subraza (Elote c—nico) y dos cruzas (Bolita x conico; Celaya x bolita), en estrecha relaci—n con el uso mœltiple de la planta como alimento, forraje y abono. 4) La continuidad en el uso de trojes (almacenes) rectangulares de madera de Pinus sp. cuya antigŸedad se observa en los códices mixtecos del siglo XVI.

Children here master a large vocabulary of plant terms at an early age. To more systematically assess what village children know and when they know it I laid out a 1-km plant trail within the village, marking 55 different plants along the trail. I walked the trail in the company of one adult and 23 children (ages 6-14), recording for each Zapotec names, and for a 10% sample, details on use. Children named 25 (45%) to 51 (93%) of the plants (mean = 42.4, 77%). The plants represented a wide range of life-forms, degrees of cultural salience, and size.

In Romania, from 1966 to 1989, Decree 770 officially outlawed abortion while also unofficially) greatly restricting the avilability of modern forms of contraceptives. To maintain desired family size, women often resorted to self induced abortions. In addition to a number of mechanical means taken to end unwanted pregnancies, women also used a variety of plant materials in the forms of infusions and vaginal inserts to induce spontaneous abortions. Today in Romania, abortion is legal and modern forms of contraception are available, but women from rural areas still regularly resort to traditional reproductive control methods. This poster will describe some of the plant-based methods still used to control fertility

This paper examines seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Native American land use and subsistence practices in southeastern Connecticut within the context of Colonial population expansion and Native American responses to a shrinking land base. Although Colonial agricultural technologies and land use practices were inherently incompatible with traditional Native American subsistence strategies, the Mashantucket Pequots were able to maintain traditional subsistence strategies through the mid-eighteenth century. Historical records indicate a dramatic change in Mashantucket Pequot land use practices in the mid-eighteenth century which included the adoption of European domesticated animals and Euro-American agricultural technologies. However, archaeological evidence suggests the transition was much more gradual and the Mashantucket Pequots continued to rely on a wide variety of indigenous plants and animals through the eighteenth century.

This study examines a ritual song-cycle of navigational songs that convey a linguistically encoded navigational map that guides Seri Indian seafarers safely through highly variable sea conditions on their voyage between two islands in the midriff region of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). The Canticles of San Esteban, a sequence of song-poems illustrate how a native people learned and conveyed important and enduring ethno-geographic knowledge, unique to their culture and region. Linked together, they form a seascape, revealing the unique characteristics of the sea and islands of the midriff region of the Sea of Cortez. The musical aspects of the songs offer insight into ways that an aurally- centered culture manipulate song and sound to shape conditions of their local environment, and how in turn, the nature of the sea and desert shapes the identity of a people.

One of the most direct means by which ethnobiologists can support indigenous peoples is by assisting them with their marketing and rights protection relating to native crafts, foods or medicines. Ethnobiologists can document whether or not plant materials are sustainably harvested, help shift harvesting methods toward sustainability, or serve as third-party certifiers that harvests are indeed sustainable. In addition, ethnobiologists can assist tribal crafts collectives with marketing strategies which celebrate traditional ecological knowledge as a "value-added" component of native crafts. The Comcaac (or Seri) communities of Sonora, Mexico began selling to tourists ironwood (Olneya tesota) carvings of animals in the 1960s, but only a tenth of their artisans could make a living selling their crafts by 1990, due to price-undercutting by non-Indian artisans. At the same time, clandestine cutting of ironwood by non-Indian artisans and "mesquite" charcoal makers reduced Seri access to this wood and caused considerable destruction of the ironwood habitats utilized by wildlife species featured in the carvings. After 70 Seri signed a petition requesting assistance from conservationists in protecting their collective rights to ironwood designs and protecting ironwood habitat as well, the Ironwood Alliance of Mexican and U.S. activists,researchers and educators formed to deal with these issues. The Seri not only regained "marca collectiva" rights for five of their crafts traditions, they also began innovating and diversifying their crafts repertoire, including reviving ancient stone carvings which now have a larger market for them than does ironwood carvings. In addition, Seri para-ecologists learned how to monitor ironwood population status in harvested and unharvested stands, played active roles in getting ironwood special protection status in Mexico (including a ban on all ironwood use in charcoal) and were integral members of a binational research team which advanced the designation of the Ironwood Forest National Monument in southern Arizona. The Sustainable Harvests Initiative at NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments is now building on this success to work with other tribes' artisans, including basketweavers and katsina carvers. In short, participatory, community-based research can be used to support native peoples' concerns to advance their cultural and economic well-being, rather than further disenfranchising them.
Nabhan is author of the recently-released book, Coming Home to Eat: the Politics and Pleasures of Local Foods (W.W. Norton) as well as the forthcoming Singing the Turtles to Sea: the Comcaac Art and Science of Reptiles (University of California Press). He has been an active participant in the Society of Ethnobiology since its first meeting in Arizona.

The skill that makers of seamless weft-twined bags exhibited in the nineteenth century is amazing, yet much published literature on twined bags examines their iconography more than their construction techniques. The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center has a collection of spaced weft-twined bags from Great Lakes area tribes that represent a variety of decorative techniques incorporated by their makers to provide individuality and meaning to their products. A recent analysis of thirteen of these bags reveals the technical skill required to construct the yarns and to twine the bags. Even the simplest bags, both small and large, have decorative features created by manipulating the warp yarns. The ultimate transpositioning of warp yarns resulted in panel bags with motifs in vertical panels.

Working with free-hanging warps, the makers-traditionally women-controlled the unrestrained elements to make personal and utility bags of basswood, dogbane, buffalo hair, and eventually commercially available wool and cotton yarns. By the end of the nineteenth century, few weavers made bags of native materials in the time-honored method. Bag-making evolved as weavers used different techniques and commercial materials, and the bags, although based on the earlier prototype, became a very different product. Fortunately the names of a few late nineteenth-century panel bag makers have survived with their bags. These artisans and those who came before deserve recognition for their specialized skills which included shaping the bags, reinforcing weak basswood warps, finishing what would become the top of the bag as well as creating decorative features from the bag's basic elements.

Leaves of Butea monosperma are used by the Chamar community in Madhya Pradesh, central India to make crude leafcups. The leaf cups are sold to nearby markets and are a source of income to the households making them. Information on this activity was gathered using participatory rural appraisal and household surveys at thirty households in a village in Madhya Pradesh. The study indicated a variation in leaf availability, leaf cup price and extraction intensity through the year. Price of the leaf cup also varied depending on whether it was marketed directly by the leaf cup makers or through a middle person.

This paper discusses the substitution of alien species for native plants in the Hawaiian medical ethnobotanical tradition. The substitutions examined are the switch from the native Bidens spp. and the more ubiquitous Bidens pilosa and the switch from Peperomia spp. to Plantago major. Anti-microbial properties of both native and introduced species are compared using the Kirby-Bauer method. Interviews and literature searches also examine potential reasons for these adaptations, including the increased degradation of native ecosystems and cultural change. With global environmental degradation it is increasingly important to study the process of adaptation of native cultures to changing ecosystems.

Due to the rapid industrialization in the country and population growth, the pharmaceutical industries need a large amount of raw materials as crude drugs. Recently it has been observed that the pharmaceutical industries are finding it extremely difficult to obtain raw materials in the form of medicinal plants. This is because of indiscriminate exploitation of plants of medicinal value without any planning conservation. Increase in export of these crude drugs also accelerated the exploitation process. India has one of the oldest, richest and most diverse cultural traditions associated with the use of medicinal and aromatic plants. The remarkable fact is that it is still a living tradition. This is borne out by the fact that there still exists around a million traditional, village based carriers of herbal medicine traditions in the form of traditional birth attendants, bone setters, herbal healers, traditional priests and wandering monks. Apart from these specialized carriers there are millions of women who have traditional knowledge of herbal home-remedies and of foods and nutrition. Medicinal plants like Safed musli (Cholorophytum spp.) are a significant source of subsistence, income and employment to tribal people in and around forests of Panna and Satna districts, Madhya Pradesh. A large population of tribal and other forest dwellers depend on various medicinal and aromatic plants, which have great socioeconomic significance in the context of employment and income generation for very large population, especially weaker sections of the society including tribal peoples.

A comparative study was done between medicinal plants sold in the markets in Iquitos, Peru and in Apopa, El Salvador to determine the similarities and differences in both cities. In Iquitos, most plants come from the nearby forests or from home gardens ( chacras ) and in Apopa their origin is difficult to establish. A total of 98 species (50 families, 11 undetermined) were identified in Iquitos and 65 species (41 families, 7 undetermined) in Apopa. Two differences between the markets are a) in Iquitos fresh plants are commonly sold b) in Apopa many species are imported from other Mesoamerican countries.

Raramuri verbal and non-verbal performance enacts ecological perceptions evident in the Sierra Madres of Chihuahua, Mexico. Symbols, idioms, and the sequence of events converge during performances to afford ecological messages and to ritually construct an interconnecting environment. Contextualized ritual language found in the songs contains references to plants, revealing a Raramuri perception that people and plants cannot co-exist without a healthy ecological system. Beer, corn, and other elements contribute as well to a healthy landscape and human population. The songs recognize the links to nature and in their performance acknowledge the Raramuri responsibility in its sustenance.

This study integrates traditional ecological knowledge with a field experiment conducted in the Mohawk Community of Kanatsiohareke. The aim of the study was to evaluate the restoration potential of sweetgrass and to find an effective means to establish it in garden-size plots and within a landscape. Sweetgrass growth and reproduction were greatest in plots that were weeded to eliminate competition and in plots with hairy vetch as a cover crop. A cover crop of annual ryegrass resulted in reduced sweetgrass success. By finding an effective means to reestablish sweetgrass, the opportunity to use the plant in the traditions of basketry and ceremony continues.

This presentation compares the current state of maize diversity in six highland Guatemalan villages with studies conducted earlier this century. Although preliminary, it appears that a significant number of maize varieties are no longer grown compared with data collected earlier this century. The author believes this declines is related to the recently concluded (1996) Guatemalan civil war, and the associated poor socioeconomic conditions in which most rural Guatemalans exist. This presentation makes the case that the maintenance of crop diversity is directly linked to the political and economic atmosphere/security in peasant farming landscapes.

Although Indigenous Knowledge (IK) has been recognized as a valuable tool for species identification, it is often described by conservation professionals as "weak" with regard to the illumination of environmental processes. This paper presents a research methodology, developed in cooperation with the traditional residents of Papua New Guinea's Central Range, that has the potential to remedy this situation. Using birds as an indicator species, IK of bird behavior can be used to reveal the dynamic relationship between traditional human activities and biodiversity. Since birds are one of the best known and most studied organisms in the world, species information for many environments can be accessed through field guides. Field guides help to identify indigenous informants whose knowledge is on a par with the western experts. They also give ethno-scientists a common source of reference with their western counterparts. Field guides enable non-expert researchers to tap this indigenous knowledge base while avoiding some common IK pitfalls, such as the practice of lumping species into a single indigenous category. By identifying the web of interactions underlying this environmental mosaic, this project indicates that IK can provide an insight into the relationship between cultural and biological diversity. More importantly, once the connection between biological and cultural diversity is understood, this methodology can provide a solid basis for conservation.

Conservation biologists, ecologists and environmentalists have been increasingly concerned with the loss of biological diversity in all its forms from the global "biosphere". Indigenous peoples, anthropologists, linguists and others have been similarly concerned with an erosion of diversity in human cultural traditions and languages-within the arena of what ethnobotanist Wade Davis has recently termed "ethnoshpere." The relationships between biosphere and ethnosphere diversity are less well recognized. In fact, the impacts of ecological deterioration on human cultures are profound and accelerating. It is a simple equation: cultural knowledge, wisdom, practice and language are inextricably linked to habitat and place. When habitat and place are altered, associated cultural elements are likewise impacted. This is certainly the case for art in its many forms. Basketry, woodworking, sculpture and other indigenous arts that depend upon materials from particular places and habitats in the natural world are profoundly impacted, and the skills and knowledge associated with these arts deeply imperiled if the habitats deteriorate or disappear. Ethnobiology is a key discipline that can help us to understand the enduring connection between art and habitat. In this paper, I discuss the implications of this link, which I have called "the sandbar willow syndrome," drawing on a recent symbolic example.