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The earliest gardeners in North America were not European settlers but the peoples of the indigenous nations, especially in our region.\u00a0 \u201cAll native peoples of the West Coast engaged in some form of complex and sophisticated \u2018gardening\u2019 of their homelands.\u201d<\/p>\n
This observation is by Enrique Salm\u00f3n, the author of a new book on American Indian ethnobotanical traditions.\u00a0\u00a0 The book\u2019s title tells part of the story.\u00a0 \u201cIw\u00edgara\u201d (i-WEE-jah-rah) is the concept that humans are no greater than other forms of life in the natural world, including both plants and animals.<\/p>\n
Ethnobotany, the study of the use of plants by human cultures, is an important way to understand different civilizations. \u00a0Sadly, much of the existing literature can bog down in academic minutiae.\u00a0 Not so with \u201cIw\u00edgara\u201d and Salm\u00f3n\u2019s excellent story-telling!\u00a0 This is a lively and thoroughly readable account of eighty plants significant to the indigenous nations of North America, told using delightful legends and the common practices that have bonded peoples and the plants of their local landscape.<\/p>\n
Salm\u00f3n is an accomplished scientist and an active collaborator with others in his field and he used that network to help determine the plants to include.\u00a0 He also brings a more personal viewpoint.\u00a0 As a member of the Rar\u00e1muri (rah-RAH-mer-ree) nation of northwestern Mexico, he learned the plant traditions from his mother, grandmother and other family members \u201cwho were living libraries of indigenous plant knowledge that has been collected, revised, and tested for millennia.\u201d<\/p>\n
An example is the entry on cedar.\u00a0 \u201cNative peoples in the Pacific Northwest tell a story about a good man who gave unceasingly to his community.\u201d\u00a0 After his death, \u201cthe Creator, so impressed with the life this man had led, decided that a great useful tree would grow from the man\u2019s burial site.\u201d\u00a0 According to this legend, this was the first western red cedar (Thuja plicata<\/em>).<\/p>\n Indeed, this is a useful tree to many regional cultures for buildings, canoes, tools, clothing, and medicines.\u00a0 Throughout \u201cIw\u00edgara,\u201d well-chosen photographs, both old and new, enhance the stories.\u00a0 \u201cCedar\u201d is highlighted by an impressive 1914 photograph of Kwakiutl cedar mask dancers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society<\/em>, Summer 2021<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The earliest gardeners in North America were not European settlers but the peoples of the indigenous nations, especially in our region.\u00a0 \u201cAll native peoples of the West Coast engaged in some form of complex and sophisticated \u2018gardening\u2019 of their homelands.\u201d This observation is by Enrique Salm\u00f3n, the author of a new book on American Indian ethnobotanical traditions.\u00a0\u00a0 The book\u2019s title tells part of the story.\u00a0 \u201cIw\u00edgara\u201d (i-WEE-jah-rah) is the concept that humans are no greater than other forms of life…<\/p>\n