Ancient pathways, ancestral knowledge : ethnobotany and ecological wisdom of Indigenous peoples of northwestern North America /

This two-volume set combines the testimonies of indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest with archaeology and history to produce a record of cultural memory for this population, transforming what could otherwise be a dull ethnobotanical listing of plants. Volume 1 invokes feelings and images of daily life, family, beliefs, and events that endured over time. Turner (Univ. of Victoria, Canada) begins by discussing how people settled into the area, using and living with land and aquatic plants and moving with the food and resource supplies. She continues the tale of how their lives were altered through the seasons, years, climate changes, and, finally, contact with Europeans. Volume 2 provides a more focused view of the political, ecological, and cultural facets of the peoples' lives and history. Turner organizes and records the information in a unique way. Numerous testimonials are from interviews with remaining Native peoples, supplemented with much evidence from scientific and historical sources. The volumes cover the plants multiple peoples used throughout the years--plants with verified value and purpose--including scientific and common names and sources cited. This makes the information much easier to cross-reference with other sources, such as chemical or medical studies. Turner also describes the roles of these plants in people's lives, the tools people used, and the events they shared. For example, Turner describes the collection of soft birch and cedar roots, the use of digging sticks, and ways women worked together to collect, in an ecologically sustainable manner, materials for hats and other gear. She quotes rhymes that included the wisdom of the digging stick and the evolution of the tool, much as one would hear a grandmother tell of her days as a child. In this style, Turner keeps the memories and plants of the Pacific Northwest peoples alive. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. --Lucinda J. Swatzell, Southeast Missouri State University

In this colossal work, Turner, a professor of enthnoecology at the University of Victoria, combines ethnobotany, comparative linguistics, and anthropology. She has spanned disciplines and geography to create a compelling account of the interchange not only of different indigenous groups in their horticultural practices, but also in their linguistic and belief structures to reveal the complexities of these societies in their ecological relations. The first of two volumes establishes the evolving ecological contexts, from the Pleistocene to the present. It identifies staples, principal cultivars, and the development of technologies responsible for their husbandry and use with fascinating examples such as the disciplined cultivation of tidal marsh and estuary flats and the important archaeological find of an ancient wapato potato garden. These considerations are framed by an analysis of linguistic considerations that are testament to shared experiences, economic relations and the transmission of learning. This last theme is picked up and intensified in Volume 2, in which belief systems, cultural narratives, and worldviews are considered in relation to ecologically lived-experience as having the power of continued relevance to inform contemporary attitudes and sensibilities. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.