Singing to the Plants: From Alaska’s Temperate Rainforest to the Tropical Rainforest of Ecuador

From the stone implements and carvings of the Tlingit and Haida people of the Northwest Coast to the pottery of the Napo Runa people of Ecuador their agroecology as well as their communication with plants, during plant collection, is similar. My research was conducted by field work with the Napo Runa people in the Amazon River Basin as well as the Tlingit and Haida people in Southeast Alaska. Through ethnographic interviews, field work and language studies of Tlingit and Quechua I did a comparative study of their agroecology. The diffusion of plants from South America to Alaska included tobacco and potatoes. Today, the Tlingit and Haida people are still growing two potato varieties from about 150 years ago. Collaborating with USDA geneticists, we DNA profiled and documented them as varieties probably directly from South America because the results show their relationship with South American varieties and not European varieties.