Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

The cultural significance of plants

In addition to describing the cultural knowledge possessed by the Aguaruna as regards their conceptualization of the plant world, an adequate description must also account for the ways this knowledge is utilized in ways of cultural significance. While it is expected that knowledge of plants permeates many aspects of Aguaruna life, at least two broad areas of social activity will be examined in detail in this initial study: economic folk botany and the ritual and medicinal importance of plants.

Economic folk botany

Survival in the forest depends directly on those aspects of plant knowledge which relate immediately to basic subsistence. A primary area of human activity that will be examined in this regard is Aguaruna horticultural knowledge. No complete description of this important domain can be completed during this first preliminary study but the major outlines can be ascertained. A central concern will be to determine Aguaruna views of horticulture as a process. The goal will be to discover what the Aguaruna must know in order to prepare, maintain, and harvest a successful swidden. Detailed behavioral observational records will be kept which will complement the description of those aspects of the swidden process which can be verbalized directly.

The economic significance of non-cultivated plants and plant products from the forest will also be studied in detail. In earlier research in Mayan ethnobotany, the applicant and his colleagues have attempted to quantify, in a rough fashion, the cultural significance of plants as can be ascertained by the amount of time spent in reading their useful parts for human consumption or use (see Berlin, Breedlove and Raven, in press; Berlin, Breedlove, Laughlin and Raven, in press). Several hypotheses relating linguistic facts to cultural significance have been posed and will be further tested in the field. Standard data on economic botany will be collected for all recognized plant classes as outlined in several reference works on this topic (Barrau 1967, Castetter 1941, Conklin 1954, 1957). Photographic records of individual sequences of economic activity (such as house construction, boat building, etc.) will be carried out as a matter of course.

Ritual and medicinal importance of plants

Next to the importance of plants as fulfilling basic needs, any study which aims at completeness must examine the significance of plants in a broader sociological context. From the outset, systematic elicitation will be carried out to determine the potential mythological relevance of the known flora. Texts will be collected relating to the proposed magical qualities of plants and plant products. Efforts will be made to determine to what extent social groupings are considered to be reflections of the Aguaruna's classification of the flora, and so on.

Concomitant with the research will be a concern with providing a preliminary description of folk medicine. This study necessarily requires a knowledge of the relevant ethnotheories of disease held by the Aguaruna. The applicant will be aided in his study of disease classification by his wife who is a trained registered nurse. As a consequence, Aguaruna descriptions of symptoms of various named native diseases may be more readily interpreted in terms of Western categories, an essential first step if a meaningful description is to be accomplished.

Facilities available

Principal research facilities available to the applicant at his home base are the Language-Behavior Research Laboratory. Arrangements for identification of plant materials have been made with the Missouri Botanical Garden through the kind services of Dr. Peter H. Raven, Director, Dr. Thomas Croat, and Dr. John Dwyer. The University of California Botanical Garden will provide space and assistance in the propagation of seed collections and live plants of particular cultural importance. Collaboration with scholars in Peru is indicated in the section of the proposal dealing with affiliation with a university in Peru.