Ethnobotany: Exploring Our Relationships with Plants
- Mar 18
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
For a long time, I was fascinated with ethnobotany (I still am) to the point where I considered pursuing a PhD in the subject so that I could travel the world to study the relationships between people and plants. My career path took me in a different direction, but I still greatly appreciate the lore of ancient cultures and how they used and revered plants. I also like to discover current ways we use plants -- from medicine to foods to tools and furniture to sacred ceremonies.
The following is a brief excerpt from a World Healing Tradition Essay from my documentary book Women Healers of the World:
Within ethnobotany, it is impossible to separate the person (or the tribe or community) from the plant, which is central to indigenous existence. Consider the remarkable variety of uses of plants for which humankind should be very grateful: preservative, drug/medicine, food and food thickener, fiber, veterinary medicine, dyes, cleaners, containers, ceremonial uses, tools, weapons, lighting, paint, musical instruments, lubricants, magic, insecticide, paper, smoking tools, snuff, soap, stable gear, toys and games, water indicator, water-proofing agent, clothing, furniture, fuel, incense, jewelry, fragrance and perfume, cosmetics, and building materials.
Many of these ideas stem from from the research of ethnobotanist Daniel Moerman, but a high school class I taught quickly created a similar list with only a little brainstorming. There are other ways to categorize ethnobotanical uses: ethnobotanist G.T. Prance divided tree use by Amazonian tribes into the following basic categories: food, construction material, technology, remedy, commerce, and other.
A Changing Mission in Ethnobotany
People are slowly beginning, in just the last century, to construct a more two-sided relationship with plants—whereby we acknowledge plant resources and give back in addition to taking. For too many centuries, it was all about taking: a colonial-mindset that exploited natural habitats and the people who lived in and near them.
We’ve advanced a little bit: we've constructed national and state parks to conserve land and international governments are working to stop the extinction of endangered plants. (Consider the work of United Plant Savers to protect threatened medicinal plants.) In third-world countries people rely almost solely on plant medicines, while people in developed nations often use herbal medicines to supplement conventional health care and (increasingly) to enhance their relationship to the natural world.
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