Ethnobiology: The Cultural Use of Plant Materials for Food and Medicine
Kelly Kindscher
https://web.archive.org/web/20150424032216/https://idrh.ku.edu/colang-workshops
Time: 4:00pm – 5:30pm (Wednesday 27 June field trip will be from 4:00pm - 7:00pm)
Week 2: 25 - 28 June 2012
Meeting Location: 302 Watson Library
This course will explore the use of plants by Great Plains Native Americans for use as food and medicine. Particular emphasis will be given to language and words related to plants, and how their meaning and translations have been very useful to the ethnobiologist or linguist who wants to learn and catalog these uses. In addition the class will have a field trip to the Native Medicinal Plant Research Program, located on the KU Field Station, to see many of these plants being grown there. Reading materials will focus on core concepts within ethnobiology and will be highlighted by several case studies that the instructor has worked on. The first is an ethnobotany project of the Hochunk (Winnebago) and the 1920 notes of Huron Smith who interviewed these people in their homelands in Wisconsin. The second is the native plant materials of the Baker/Haskell Wetlands and their traditional uses by Native Americans. The topic is also of interest because it concerns environmental justice issues raised by the proposed South Lawrence Trafficway, which is currently being challenged in federal court. The third concerns the medicinal plant Echinacea and the sustainability of its current wild harvest on lands in Kansas and Montana, and finally is the use of traditional foods by Southeast Asian Refugees who were part of a community garden project the instructor worked on during the mid-1980s in Columbia, Missouri. Relevant reading: