Review: December 2015
Schultes, Richard Evans., and Siri Von Reis. Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Portland, Or.: Dioscorides, 1995. Print.
A Definition Redefined: The Growing and Necessary Complexity in the Study of Ethnobotany
Schultes, Richard Evans., and Siri Von Reis. Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Portland, Or.: Dioscorides, 1995. Print.
A Definition Redefined: The Growing and Necessary Complexity in the Study of Ethnobotany
In 1895, the term “ethnobotany” was created by John Harshberger. Ethnobotany is truly a very old discipline, yet it is only on the 100th anniversary of the coining of the term that this collection of scholarly works was born. Put together by infamous ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes and Dr. Siri Von Reis, there are 36 contributions on the topic of Ethnobotany in 10 sections. While most of these are original works written for this publication, there are a few reprinted pieces of choice that are pertinent to topics not discussed by authors in this volume, or are of obscure journal publication, and therefore deserve more significant prominence.
This work serves as an effective overview of the discipline of Ethnobotany both in where it has been and where it is going. The ten sections span a broad range of subdivisions in the study of Ethnobotany. They are: General Ethnobotany, Socio-ethnobotany, Historical Ethnobotany, Ethnobotanical Conservation, Ethnobotany in Education, Ethnobotanical Contributions to General Botany, Crop Improvement, and Ecology, Ethnobotany and Geography, Ethnopharmacology, Ethnomycology and Archaeo-ethnobotany. Each of these sections features one to nine articles from leading authors in the discipline.
According to their author biographies on their publishers website, Timber Press of Portland Oregon, the late Richard Evan Schultes was the Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University (Emeritus), a plant explorer, ethnobotanist, and conservationist. He was known as the world's authority on medicinal, narcotic, and hallucinogenic plants in the New World. He was the author of numerous books, as well as the translator of The Journals of Hipólito Ruiz. In the world of ethnobotany, there are not many articles written or books published without citing this prolific man.
Siri von Reis is an Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University and honorary Curator of Ethnobotany at The New York Botanical Garden. Dr. von Reis has written numerous scientific articles and several books in ethnobotany and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. She is also a poet.
Schultes reveals in his introduction the tenuous nature of defining ethnobotany as, “the study of human evaluation and manipulation of plant materials, substances, and phenomena, including relevant concepts, in primitive or unlettered societies”. This discipline is rapidly ever evolving into a multidisciplinary area which is celebrated and encouraged throughout the essays and articles and in the introduction to each section. Schultes sees ethnobotany as drawing from botany, anthropology, archaeology, phytochemistry, pharmacology, medicine, history, religion, geography, and other areas. This mashup of disciplines seems overwhelming in scope, but the clear, concise writing of Schultes leads the reader to a neat logical conclusion after perusing the many precisely categorized articles; that ethnobotany by necessity can be none other than a seamless, many faceted study.
His evaluation of the goals of ethnobotany are still relevant today twenty years after its publication. He claims the two goals of ethnobotany as defined here are examining the psychological aspects of the ways that aboriginal people interpret and treat their useful plants and the possibility of finding new species valuable for agriculture or industry. This second point includes discovering and salvaging new chemicals from wild flora as well. These goals have not changed significantly over the last two decades, though today it can also be said that conservation, indigenous rights and the fostering of biodiversity have become prominent topics of discussion in the field as sustainability remains an influential academic buzzword.
While these are the goals stated, this work, and Schultes’ voice throughout, reinforce a broader set of goals. These include inspiring the training of new ethnobotanists, promoting indigenous rights, and compensation of native people for their shared ethnobotanical knowledge. He boldly ends his introduction imploring an evaluation of the study now through the lense of the welfare of future generations. This is not simply a collection of essays meant to act as a festschrift for Schultes as has been intimated by critics, it is evidence of the practical and philosophical applications of this discipline’s collected knowledge.
They have compiled these collection of essays under the umbrella of ethnobotany, yet they resound with calls to action in many areas. Not just to produce more literature, but the urgency of research and fieldwork to be done due to the loss of the world’s forests and with them, the indigenous peoples inhabiting them. This statement glares out of many of the essays as well as almost every chapter’s introduction clear and unafraid. Where some texts of this nature would shy away from such radical criticisms of industry and the “progress” of civilization, Schultes and von Reis do not falter in their clear assessments of ecological and cultural loss associated with the rapidly declining populations of these “primitive” nations.
Many of the essays call to improve the methods and manner of research being done in the field, as well as the incredible need for interdisciplinary collaboration. The word “multidisciplinary” comes up again and again, which does not have the effect one the reader one would assume. The various sections in which the essays in this work are grouped by nature contain the flavor of the multidisciplinary through title alone. Ethnobotany in Education or Ethnomycology are literal mixtures of many sciences, both social and biological. Again and again we see the need for avoiding jargon to allow full collaboration between fields as well as praise for the various areas of study, such as Pharmacology, which has contributed so much to the study of these relations between people and plants.
One of the few criticisms to be made is of the matter of the indexes. It is difficult to find specific plants or names in the individual articles. A simple revamping would dramatically improve the usability of this important resource. An updated version or a new edition of more recent essays would be a great comparative text today, some twenty years later. More women and indigenous writers would also make for a more complete spectrum of the discipline. This may also be due simply to the time in which it was written, and hopefully today, a broader diversity of writers and researchers would be called from the ethnobotanical woodwork. It is difficult to find much real fault in such a diversity of topics presented and clear, relevant intention on Schultes’ part to convey the messages of cultural and biological conservation.
Schultes and von Reis have created a useful model for organizing ethnobotanical research through the categories chosen, which is a difficult task due to the clearly multidisciplinary nature of this field. By dividing them by sub-science or art, it is easier to move through the various topics with clarity as to the methods and types of research employed by each of the collaborative disciplines. Though many questions are raised by the contributors and the editors, I implore the reader to not view ethnobotany through this work as a messy or disorganized field of study, but rather celebrate and rest assured that these questions can be answered due to the unique partnerships created by the multidisciplinary nature of this young, yet effective area of natural science.
Rebecca Beyer 2015
This work serves as an effective overview of the discipline of Ethnobotany both in where it has been and where it is going. The ten sections span a broad range of subdivisions in the study of Ethnobotany. They are: General Ethnobotany, Socio-ethnobotany, Historical Ethnobotany, Ethnobotanical Conservation, Ethnobotany in Education, Ethnobotanical Contributions to General Botany, Crop Improvement, and Ecology, Ethnobotany and Geography, Ethnopharmacology, Ethnomycology and Archaeo-ethnobotany. Each of these sections features one to nine articles from leading authors in the discipline.
According to their author biographies on their publishers website, Timber Press of Portland Oregon, the late Richard Evan Schultes was the Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University (Emeritus), a plant explorer, ethnobotanist, and conservationist. He was known as the world's authority on medicinal, narcotic, and hallucinogenic plants in the New World. He was the author of numerous books, as well as the translator of The Journals of Hipólito Ruiz. In the world of ethnobotany, there are not many articles written or books published without citing this prolific man.
Siri von Reis is an Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University and honorary Curator of Ethnobotany at The New York Botanical Garden. Dr. von Reis has written numerous scientific articles and several books in ethnobotany and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. She is also a poet.
Schultes reveals in his introduction the tenuous nature of defining ethnobotany as, “the study of human evaluation and manipulation of plant materials, substances, and phenomena, including relevant concepts, in primitive or unlettered societies”. This discipline is rapidly ever evolving into a multidisciplinary area which is celebrated and encouraged throughout the essays and articles and in the introduction to each section. Schultes sees ethnobotany as drawing from botany, anthropology, archaeology, phytochemistry, pharmacology, medicine, history, religion, geography, and other areas. This mashup of disciplines seems overwhelming in scope, but the clear, concise writing of Schultes leads the reader to a neat logical conclusion after perusing the many precisely categorized articles; that ethnobotany by necessity can be none other than a seamless, many faceted study.
His evaluation of the goals of ethnobotany are still relevant today twenty years after its publication. He claims the two goals of ethnobotany as defined here are examining the psychological aspects of the ways that aboriginal people interpret and treat their useful plants and the possibility of finding new species valuable for agriculture or industry. This second point includes discovering and salvaging new chemicals from wild flora as well. These goals have not changed significantly over the last two decades, though today it can also be said that conservation, indigenous rights and the fostering of biodiversity have become prominent topics of discussion in the field as sustainability remains an influential academic buzzword.
While these are the goals stated, this work, and Schultes’ voice throughout, reinforce a broader set of goals. These include inspiring the training of new ethnobotanists, promoting indigenous rights, and compensation of native people for their shared ethnobotanical knowledge. He boldly ends his introduction imploring an evaluation of the study now through the lense of the welfare of future generations. This is not simply a collection of essays meant to act as a festschrift for Schultes as has been intimated by critics, it is evidence of the practical and philosophical applications of this discipline’s collected knowledge.
They have compiled these collection of essays under the umbrella of ethnobotany, yet they resound with calls to action in many areas. Not just to produce more literature, but the urgency of research and fieldwork to be done due to the loss of the world’s forests and with them, the indigenous peoples inhabiting them. This statement glares out of many of the essays as well as almost every chapter’s introduction clear and unafraid. Where some texts of this nature would shy away from such radical criticisms of industry and the “progress” of civilization, Schultes and von Reis do not falter in their clear assessments of ecological and cultural loss associated with the rapidly declining populations of these “primitive” nations.
Many of the essays call to improve the methods and manner of research being done in the field, as well as the incredible need for interdisciplinary collaboration. The word “multidisciplinary” comes up again and again, which does not have the effect one the reader one would assume. The various sections in which the essays in this work are grouped by nature contain the flavor of the multidisciplinary through title alone. Ethnobotany in Education or Ethnomycology are literal mixtures of many sciences, both social and biological. Again and again we see the need for avoiding jargon to allow full collaboration between fields as well as praise for the various areas of study, such as Pharmacology, which has contributed so much to the study of these relations between people and plants.
One of the few criticisms to be made is of the matter of the indexes. It is difficult to find specific plants or names in the individual articles. A simple revamping would dramatically improve the usability of this important resource. An updated version or a new edition of more recent essays would be a great comparative text today, some twenty years later. More women and indigenous writers would also make for a more complete spectrum of the discipline. This may also be due simply to the time in which it was written, and hopefully today, a broader diversity of writers and researchers would be called from the ethnobotanical woodwork. It is difficult to find much real fault in such a diversity of topics presented and clear, relevant intention on Schultes’ part to convey the messages of cultural and biological conservation.
Schultes and von Reis have created a useful model for organizing ethnobotanical research through the categories chosen, which is a difficult task due to the clearly multidisciplinary nature of this field. By dividing them by sub-science or art, it is easier to move through the various topics with clarity as to the methods and types of research employed by each of the collaborative disciplines. Though many questions are raised by the contributors and the editors, I implore the reader to not view ethnobotany through this work as a messy or disorganized field of study, but rather celebrate and rest assured that these questions can be answered due to the unique partnerships created by the multidisciplinary nature of this young, yet effective area of natural science.
Rebecca Beyer 2015
