The first in a series on the unique academic opportunities offered at CSU Dominguez Hills
CSUDH becomes a touchstone for student research in Chiapas, Mexico
The plants around us and how we use them reveals much about the story of human life since its beginning. Today, city life finds few of us picking our own fruits and vegetables - we buy them in the market, neatly displayed or wrapped with hardly a remnant of the bush, tree or vine. Our pharmaceuticals are encapsulated, bottled and clinically dispensed - no trace of an herb, flower or tree.
But in the case of indigenous people who have been connected to a particular location from generation to generation, with little outside influence or modern conveyance, the story reveals an intimate connection between plants and people. Unraveling the tale adds fresh and critical data in documenting their culture. The outcomes may hold important information for us all.
Ethnobotany, as the area of inquiry is called, studies these issues of interaction between plants and people, and involves the disciplines of anthropology, biology and sociology. For lecturer Janine Gasco the investigation has narrowed to a particular locale, Mesoamerica, with a focus on field research in southern lowland Chiapas, Mexico, known as the Soconusco region. Her research - finding out and documenting plants and their use - is combined with finding out how the people themselves acquired their knowledge.
Gasco
points out that there is "some urgency to pursue this research now."
It is a culture like many in the world in the throes of rapid change or even
disappearance. Also, the Soconusco is facing environmental degradation, where
entire habitats are disappearing. And, as in other parts of the world, evidence
shows that the knowledge itself is not being passed down to younger generations.
"Plants are everywhere," Gasco says, "and plant use is so broad. The current issue surrounds plant use and environmental and cultural change. In Chiapas, those changes have been dramatic just since I began studying the area 22 years ago. Transition in land usage, such as from community to individual ownership, and pressures on the culture from outside sources, has affected the pace of change.
"It is an incredible site," Gasco notes, "for learning about a people who have maintained a traditional, non-industrial lifestyle and continue to live in an area where their ancestors lived.
"While the Soconusco is widely regarded by botanists as one of the most fertile regions of Mexico with incredible biodiversity, there is not a single publication in either Spanish or English that explores plant use among the local inhabitants," Gasco says.
An
untapped resource, the Soconusco region provides a remarkable opportunity
for research, Gasco observes, and an ideal laboratory for students to study
firsthand and have the opportunity to contribute to initial research.
"Most of my work in the Soconusco region has focused on archeology or history," Gasco notes. "After spending so much time with the modern people of the area, I have gained enormous respect for their way of life and the knowledge they have."
In fall 1999, Gasco proposed and was granted a course offered during Winter Session 2000 (and to be repeated in the coming Winter Session 2001).
The Extended Education course began with an on-campus introduction to the field and its research methods. During that time, students selected a specific topic to pursue during their Chiapas fieldwork. As "the main themes of the course," Gasco chose three viewpoints for plant study - medicinal plants (plants that heal), plants used in ritual and religion, and plants use in daily life (as food and household implements).
The word "interactive" is key here, for plants that are important to a people carry more than one use. Often, Gasco explains those dispensing medicinal plants in Chiapas culture supply spiritual guidance as well.
After performing the required background research, the class was off for a 10-day trip to Mexico. Stopping off in Mexico City, the students were able to visit an Aztec temple and the Anthropology Museum, considered one of the best in the world. They made their way to Tapachula and a visit to the marketplace, where a variety of plants were available.
But the true destination was coastal Escuintla, where they conducted field research with the assistance of the local people for six hours a day, followed by informal discussions in the evening.
Studying to become a teacher, Douglas Whiting added this course through sheer interest in the topic. His study area was corn crops and the deeper "reality" of the tortilla, a well-known staple in the lives of the people. He soon learned of a conflict brewing between the ways of the past and recent government incursions into the process.
"The
people farm the land, raise the corn, then dry the kernels and take the corn
to a molino where, for a small fee, its is ground into masa," he describes.
"Then the torillas are made by hand at home. The molinos are also social
centers in town where people see friends and acquaintances."
Recently, Whiting says, the Mexican government has created a program to convince people to eat machine-produced tortillas made from imported and treated corn. "It is actually devalued in nutrition," he says. "Worst of all, people must now ‘buy’ the tortillas with pesos, and since this is an impoverished area, paying with money is very difficult." Such an encroachment into their lives from the outside clearly shows how the disruption of the sustenance eco-system creates a rippling of problems.
Graduate anthropology student Sheliah Vickery focused on "material culture," which she describes as those plants associated with ceremonies - weddings, wakes, and other rituals.
"Jan [Gasco] facilitated the research," Vickery says, "because she had worked in the region for so long. Families took us into their homes and opened their lives to us. It was invaluable.
"Most memorable for me was the making of tamales, used to celebrate many things. I learned their process from the ground up - grinding, boiling. The last step is wrapping the tamales in hoja bianca [leaves of a plant related to the banana], and it wasn’t until after the dinner that I learned Mariano and Marta [husband and wife in the village] had walked for miles in the morning to pick these leaves so they would be in place."
That element of time, time slowing down so a walk of a mile or two is seen as valuable to a detail of a day impressed several of the students who were use to the pace of city life.
"Walking instead of driving places allowed me to see things I’ve never seen," anthropology major Eric de la Vega noted. "Their way of life is great. Technology has not evolved to replace traditions. I believe many of the illnesses and stresses we have here come from the way we live."
Formerly serving as a corpsman for the U.S. Navy and Marines in Thailand, he had been in the jungle as part of a Special Forces unit. "The medical support we offered reflected a Western philosophy - now I wish that I had been more alert to the herbal medicines there."
With a minor in biology, de la Vega took the class because of his interest in plants as the resource of cures for illnesses. "The new generation is going to Western medicine," he said, "and we may lose some of the traditional medicinal uses of plants. I want to salvage the herbal recipes and document as much of the information as possible."
Cheryl
McKnight was also interested in questions surrounding the medicinal use of
plants. "Were people still using fold medicine and how much did they
depend on it?" she asked. She was told that at one time Mexico had a
form of socialized medicine and people were pressured to give up folk remedies.
"But when socialized medicine was abandoned, they were left with nothing
and returned to home remedies," she says.
Today, folk medicine is widely used and gives the people autonomy, McKnight says. And, she identified some evidence of its effectiveness.
McKnight interviewed one woman who had had a tumor two years previous. At great financial sacrifice, her husband took her to a Western-medicine hospital. "He was told they could do nothing for her," she reports. The husband then consulted his great uncle, who created a "formula."
"After drinking
this special herbal tea, she eventually expelled the tumor and appears healthy
today," McKnight said.
"It is important to carefully research these remedies. So many of our
pharmaceuticals come from plants that have been used by indigenous people."
Students were drawn to the course from diverse fields - a future teacher majoring in the Liberal Studies program, a psychology major, a biology student from CSU Fullerton studying local plant uses studied alongside anthropology majors. They were able to immerse themselves in the subject, focusing on their project while also having the benefit of research performed by others in the group,
Gasco concludes: "The ethnobotany class was designed as an exploratory project to determine what the prospects were for further research on modern plant use. I am now convinced that there is much to be learned. I am very excited by what we learned and the wonderful future opportunities this subject holds for students."
- P.H.
"Anthropology 495, Selected Topics: Mesoamerican Ethnobotany" will be offered again in Winter Session 2001, Jan. 2 - 22. In 2000, cost for the course included the registration fee and approximately $800 for airfare and living expenses for 10 days.
For further information, call Extended Education at (310) 243-3741 or go to their web site at www.csudh.edu/extendeded/wntr2001.htm
