The world in which you were born is just one model of reality.
Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you;
they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.
- Wade Davis -
As humans, we have found many amazing and diverse ways to use plants. And yet for all this diversity, there are rich and deep similarities in how we all relate to the natural world. Ethnobotany explores this mosaic of plant relationships and its uses. It is the study of how people use plants and how culture influences and is affected by these uses.
The term “ethnobotany” was first used by American botanist John Harshberger in 1895 to describe the study of people’s use of plants, including medicinal plants. Beginning in the early 1940s, Richard Evan Schultes, a Harvard botanist, spent years documenting the indigenous use of plants in the Americas and played a crucial role in ethnobotany’s expansion as an academic field. In many ways, he is considered the father of modern ethnobotany. His work with the spiritual/Shamanic (and hallucinogenic) plants spoke to the generation of the psychedelic age. His most famous book, on this topic, Plants of the Gods, is still in print today.
As ethnobotany developed it became well-known for its focus on the medicinal uses of plants. In the 1980 and 90s there was great interest in the “medicine hunters” discovering the next revolutionary medicines.
But ethnobotany goes beyond the medicinal uses of plants. We use plants for fiber, color, tools, food, construction, decoration, and for spiritual and ceremonial uses. Today, ethnobotany also explores our relationship and interconnectedness with our environment. Science is now in agreement with the view of many traditional cultures that everything is connected and humans are an integral part of nature. Ethnobotany (and ethnobiology) plays an important role in the study of this interconnectedness, known as biocultural diversity. There is increasing recognition that the world’s biological diversity, or the vast expanse of all the species that make up the natural world, is intimately linked to the world’s cultural diversity, or the varied and “unique manifestations of the human spirit”. And the different ways we all use plants actually plays a vital role in the health of the global ecosystem.
So how do you use plants in your life? What would your life be like without them?
