Ethnobiology of Sacred Waterscapes

Presentations

Abstract
09:00	Ecology and Gulag Springs in Western Siberia First Author: Rouhier-Willoughby , Jeanmarie Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Rouhier-Willoughby , Jeanmarie - U of Kentucky This paper examines how the memory of the Gulag, ecological concerns, and the Orthodox revival are refracted through legends about and practices at three holy springs in Western Siberia. Legends regarding the holiness of these springs stem from the history of prison camps on these sites and allow for an exploration of lived Russian Orthodoxy and environmental concerns in Western Siberia. This violent past and the sacrality of the springs would seem to be diametrically opposed, but are, in fact, inherently connected in understanding why the springs are considered sacred as well as pure, despite being located in regions associated with high levels of pollution. These cultural and historical elements combine on the site of these breathtakingly beautiful locations to reframe the memory of the Stalinist past and confront environmental degradation in Siberia.
09:20	Water as Territory: Kumiai Waterscapes and Biocultural Loss in Northwestern Mexico First Author: Garibay Toussaint , Isabel Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Garibay Toussaint , Isabel - Universidad Iberoamericana Among the Kumeyaay of northwestern Baja California (Mexico), water is not merely a resource it is territory. Springs, ephemeral streams, and coastal access points anchor kinship, mobility, subsistence, and ceremonial life. Waterscapes are lived spaces where ecological knowledge and cultural identity are formed together. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2025), including participant observation, interviews, and collaborative mapping, this paper examines how territorial dispossession has reshaped Kumeyaay relations with water. Restricted access to ancestral lands has meant the loss of springs, gathering areas, and marine zones, generating both material water insecurity and the erosion of hydrosocial knowledge. As territory fragments, so do the spaces where ecological memory is practiced and transmitted. By reframing waterscapes as biocultural territory rather than ecological units, this paper highlights how water security, cultural survival, and environmental justice are inseparable in Indigenous borderlands.
09:40	Biocultural Diversity and Climate Vulnerabilities at Ireland’s Holy Wells First Author: Ray , Celeste Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Ray , Celeste - University of the South Veneration of sacred water sources is a panhuman paradigm transtemporally. Distinct from excavated shafts to acquire water for non-ritual use, holy “wells” are most commonly springs, ponds, pools or lakes that are a focus of religious devotion and are considered physically healing. These community-stewarded sites are nodes of Biocultural Diversity. Visiting such therapeutic landscapes in Ireland involves healing folk liturgies unique to the individual site’s sacred topography, flora, and fauna. Whether these sites are now encompassed by woodlands or endure as isolated green spaces within towns or between cultivated fields, holy wells provide habitats for increasingly rare animals and plants with their own well-related folklore and roles in curative liturgies. Based on ethnographic fieldwork since the year 2000 and archival research of folklore surveys from the 1930s, this paper considers healing plants and soils engaged in well rituals, and the climate-change vulnerabilities of these Sacred Natural Sites.
10:00	Waterscapes in the Codex Mictlan (Laud) First Author: Nair , Sreekishen Presentation Format:  Oral (virtual) Author(s): Nair , Sreekishen - University of Minnesota - College of Design This presentation examines the aquatic imagery in Codex Mictlan (Laud), a painted manuscript from Late Postclassic Mexico (1200-1521 CE) that once served as a sacred divinatory calendar. Among its almanacs are those that portray colorful images of watery environments and their animal inhabitants, which are rendered through a pictographic mode that intertwines illustration with image-based writing. Mictlan’s author(s) skillfully applied this graphical system to express aspects of waterlife connected with indigenous cosmology and sacred cycles. The manuscript's calendrical purposes suggest that some of this content may be read in terms of the passage of time, and likely express phenological relationships as sacred events. Of particular interest is Mictlan's 39th page, which presents Tlazolteotl, the Aztec moon goddess, standing before a looming wave containing two crustaceans. This research proposes that the scene associates lunar and tidal activity with animal behavior, thus anchoring its sacred timeline in the living landscape.
10:40	Survivance of sacred landscapes in diaspora First Author: Stringer , David Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Stringer , David - Indiana University In this paper, I consider how subaltern populations in colonial landscapes, finding themselves ‘at the crossroads of multiple diasporas’ (Fennell, 2007), can contribute to the survivance of spiritual, biocultural relations with the land. In Roman Britain (43-410 AD), auxiliary soldiers from places as diverse as Holland, North Africa, and Syria came to worship with Celtic peoples at pre-existing sacred springs, giving rise to complex religious syncretism and associated healing flora that would be openly celebrated throughout the following millennium of Christianity. The violent ‘unwondering’ (Norden, 1728) of sacred natural sites through the iconoclasm of the Reformation was then used to exculpate predatory practices and environmental destruction in colonial America. Nevertheless, many rural Afro-descendant communities reveal remarkable continuance of ecological knowledge, often tied to syncretism between African orisha and Christian saints associated with particular plants (Cabrera, 2023), leading to some of the highest levels of local biodiversity in the Americas.
11:00	Reflections on Yaku Mama: Interfluvial Dimensions of Health Across Field Sites in Northwest Amazonia First Author: Birkhauser , Liz Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Birkhauser , Liz - University of Wisconsin-Madison This presentation examines rivers as living entities and determinants of planetary health across field sites in the Napo-Pastaza Region, Ecuador, and the Tres Fronteras Region, Colombia. Drawing on Kichwa and decolonial feminist concepts of yaku mama (water mother) and cuerpo-territorio (body-territory), I explore how the Napo and Amazon rivers serve as knowledge corridors, facilitators of movements, sustainers of life, and stakeholders in health. Recent ethnobotanical fieldwork on human-plant-environment relationships and health-seeking behaviors, revealed how riverine systems constitute critical actors in the circulation of plant knowledge and health practices across communities. An interfluvial lens reveals how health materializes from relationalities between watersheds, as rivers are dynamic archives of ecological transformation, bearing witness to histories of stewardship, extraction, devastation, and resilience. Cuerpo-territorio applies to entanglements of human and riverine health - what affects the river affects the body - offering insights for planetary health frameworks, recognizing the wellbeing of bodies and rivers as unified.
11:20	Alternative Motivators of Preferential Spring Water Consumption: A Case Study on the Southern Cumberland Plateau First Author: Michel , J.T. Presentation Format:  Oral (in-person) Author(s): Michel , J.T. - Sewanee Herbarium, Ramseur Post-Baccalaureate Fellow, University of the Sou Situated on the Cumberland Plateau in Sewanee, Tennessee is an unlikely site of domestic water collection and pilgrimage: a roadside perennial spring. Residents of surrounding communities, and from across the region, travel to this source to gather water and to spend time at the site. While most interlocutors possess alternative means of sourcing drinking water, namely municipal supplies or wells, water gatherers collect from this spring preferentially, and unofficial community site stewards have created built structures for access and to commemorate the spring’s cultural value. Through ethnographic accounts, I contend that the individuals who visit this spring site hold multiple motivators for spring visitation that have not been rigorously identified through previous Appalachian study designs. I propose three alternative motivators for spring visitation: personal history, spiritual belief (especially among “Religious Creatives”), and autonomy over personal consumption (for interlocutors’ who worry  about “toxicity” of their municipal drinking water).