Unit 3: Ethnobotany and Plants as Foods

Produce in the market at Cuicatlán, Oaxaca, México. Photograph by Leslie Main Johnson.

Plants are fundamental to all human societies. Plants figure as foods, medicines, materials for construction, crafts, and textiles, and as fuel. Not all societies rely on plants equally for filling all of these needs. The San of the Kalahari desert do not require large amounts of fuel for heating, but do rely on many plant staple foods even though they are also big game hunters. In contrast, the Koyukon of the Alaskan boreal forest eat few types of plants, but are utterly dependent on plants for fuel wood, shelter, and for implements like canoes and snowshoes that allow their survival in the rigorous subarctic environment. Many human cultures cultivate plants to obtain the bulk of their foods and textiles, and may also cultivate many plants for medicines or for ornament. Other cultures, including many groups considered hunter-gatherers rather than food cultivators, manage plant species or environments to enhance productivity and harvestability. Indeed, as the readings for this unit show, there are shades of management and use that blur the distinction between “wild” plants and “cultivated” plants, and cultures, including numerous Canadian First Nations, formerly thought to rely on gathering from nature, are shown to modify their environments deliberately.

This unit serves as the introduction to the ethnobotany portion of the course. We have already been introduced to ethnobotany in Unit 1, and have learned about classification and naming of plants in Unit 2. Units 3, 4, and 5 explore ethnobotany from perspectives of plants as foods, plants as medicines, and plants as sources of technological materials and fuels. The importance of plants in ecological knowledge will be covered in Part 4, where we look at ethnoecology in detail.

Objectives

By the end of this unit you should be able to

1. discuss the importance of plant foods in human societies, and describe the range of different types of wild gathered and cultivated plant foods.
2. explain the concept of plants as resources and the degrees of management of wild, semi-wild, and domesticated plants.
3. discuss the nutritional contributions of plant foods in human societies.
4. provide examples of some important food plants of Canadian First Nations and Alaska Natives.