Plants Bringing Power and Life to the People: Reflections on Hualapai Ethnobotany of the Grand Canyon

The ethnobotanical story of the Hualapai Tribe begins with the plant knowledge that the people have inherited from their great grandparents who lived entirely off the land.  Hualpai grandchildren live in a completely different modern world now.  A world filled with cell phones, text messages, and ipods.  The Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project is now in its tenth year.  It is an intergenerational program designed to provide elders with an opportunity to share their plant and land based knowledge with Hualapai youth.  For a few hours a week, the cell phones, TV's, and text messaging are dialed down, and the focus is brought back to the ancient knowledge, to a tribal technology that served the Hualapai for hundreds of generations and brought power and life to the people.  Information presented will share about the project and examine the crucial role plant resource acquisition has played in Hualapai Culture.